Chapter 18 The Lake #4
As Ethan’s anger built, his grip around my thighs constricted as well. Not painfully, but enough that my attention was being dragged between that and his tale of memories.
“This guy could kill someone again. There’s nothing stopping him from getting behind the wheel drunk again and so when it comes down to the facts, I get it. I get why my mom wanted me to be a lawyer. We couldn’t get justice for my dad, but maybe I can get justice for someone else.”
“Ethan,” I exhaled. “That’s a huge burden to take on yourself.”
For as physically strong and sturdy as Ethan was, bearing the weight of his father’s death and the idea that he was in charge of getting secondhand justice for him somehow would be too heavy for anyone.
The deteriorating weight of it was visible in the complete and utter implosion of uncertainty breathing fire through his eyes, and all I wanted at that moment was to soothe his worries away.
Watching Ethan writhe in his painful memories and furious hate for the man who did this to his family, all I could see was a man who wanted and needed to be held.
A man who wanted someone to hold him in their arms and absorb all of the hurt from his soul.
And since it was still today and not yet tomorrow , I decided I’d allow that person to be me.
I’d pray later tonight that I could easily forget how exquisite I knew what I was about to do would feel.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I closed the space between our bodies and hugged him. My wet chest squished against his until there was no room left to give, and I held him as tightly as I dared to.
For a moment, he didn’t react. He made no move to return the hug, and the momentary pause sent a flurry of embarrassment rattling through my stomach.
His skin felt so soft against my palms and the fresh spice of his cologne could have drowned me in the lake, and I wouldn’t have cared, but this one sided hug was turning awkward.
Yet, one millisecond before I pulled myself back from him, his hands moved around my thighs. My heart jumped. Those hands rose and tickled a gentle path across the sides of my waist and then—
He hugged me, too.
His arms locked around the small of my back and as it turned out, there were still pockets of air left between us, but Ethan was sure to correct that. He pulled me against him so tightly that not even the water around us could squeeze between our bodies.
The warmth of his body invaded mine like a drug, intoxicating my every nerve on Ethan and everything he was at that moment. The nudge of his nose brushed the crook of my neck, hot breath washing across my skin as Ethan buried his face against me and found a home there.
I fought the urge to sigh in content at the feeling of him so close. I knew it had to be my imagination, but it seemed like our bodies fit like broken puzzle pieces. Like pieces that shouldn’t fit and didn’t belong anywhere, but found a home and a soulmate regardless.
Before I realized what I was doing and after it was too late to stop it, I’d begun to play with the damp backs of his hair. I twirled it between my fingers, noting that as I did so, Ethan’s breathing drew softer and slower as he relaxed himself against me.
This feeling—this moment—was perfectly imperfect for what it was, and I’d stay here as long as he let me.
It was exhilarating and wonderful and peaceful. It was also wrong, but I was trying not to overthink the moment and ruin it. I might have wanted this moment for selfish reasons, but Ethan needed it. So for now, I’d think as little as possible and just be .
I’d begun to lose myself in the rhythm of my fingers in Ethan’s soft hair and the gentle brush of water licking up my back every now and again. I didn’t realize just how lost I was in this token moment until Ethan spoke, and his voice startled my heart from its peaceful beats.
“I haven’t told that story to anyone in years,” he mumbled against my skin.
Confused, but not wanting to upend the moment by saying her name, I phrased my clarification thoughtfully.
“No one?”
Face still pressed against my neck, he shook his head.
With his confirmation, my eyes shut against the overwhelming sensation blistering through my ribcage. Even though I hadn’t said her name, we both knew I meant Monica.
He just admitted to telling me a secret that not even his fiancé knew about. Why he hadn’t told Monica about this monumental, life-changing event was beyond me, but I couldn’t lie that I loved knowing something about Ethan that she didn’t.
It was a dirty thought to love something that didn’t belong to me so much, but it was true. I now owned a part of him that she didn’t even know existed. A beautifully broken part.
“I’m sorry I pressed you. Had I known, I never would have—“
“It’s okay.” He cut me off. “It feels good to talk about him. Especially here.”
“I bet he’d love that you were here right now doing what you love.”
Against my neck, cold air rushed in as Ethan pulled his face back and met my stare head on. His eyes were wide and stunned, but still so spectacular to look at.
“What do you mean what I love?”
“Taking photos? Getting back into photography,” I answered, hesitation lining my words.
“Oh.” The shock dissipated from Ethan’s stare as it faded into relative normalcy again. “Yeah, I bet he would.”
“Do you ever think about that?”
“About what?”
“That—” I thought my words over carefully, not wanting to step over anymore lines than I already had today. “That maybe he wouldn’t want you in a career that you aren’t passionate about? What did he do for work?”
The answer was in the bashful brush of his dark lashes across his damp skin. “He built houses.” A soft smile breached his lips. “Said he liked creating something from nothing.”
“Sounds familiar.”
Ethan knew I was drawing a link between him and his father to make my point, but by the glimmer in his eyes that resembled the shimmer of the sun’s rays creasing the water with beauty, I don’t think he minded.
“He used to take me to some of the properties he was working on when I was growing up. One time he took me to this lake house he was helping remodel and there was a photographer there taking photos of the lakefront. I was probably only 12 at the time, but I walked around with her and asked her about a million questions. My dad said it was all I could talk about on the way home and the very next week, he bought me my first camera.”
“He sounds really supportive. I can’t imagine he’d want you to live anyone else’s dream but your own.”
I watched the falter in his gaze as he took in my words, and how uncomfortable he now looked made a ball of regret sink through my stomach like a black hole. I never should have said anything.
“I’ve been going down this career path for too many years to quit now. Plus, it’s what my mom wants me to do for my dad. If I quit now, I know she’d see it as disrespecting his memory and my mom is not someone you want to piss off.”
“She sounds strict.”
“She’s not. She’s just… passionate and stubborn and more so about my dad than anything else.
My childhood home is basically a shrine to him, and she won’t touch any of his stuff except to clean it.
If anyone says anything bad or even implies anything bad about my dad… you’re on her shit list for good.”
“But you’re her son,” I pushed. “I’m sure if you talked to her and told her how you’re feeling, she’d understand.”
Ethan dragged his heavy stare up to me, shaking his head. “If there’s a word to describe my mom, it sure as hell wouldn’t be understanding. Even before my dad died, she was tough, but after? That woman doesn’t budge unless she wants to.”
“She sounds sort of terrifying.”
I tried to laugh some to give a break in the tension. Ethan joined me with a soft spell, and the mood began to lighten around us.
“She’s not. She’s just old-fashioned and set in her ways. She refuses to re-marry because she believes that you get one shot at it and that’s it. One soulmate in this life and anyone else would be a fraud.”
“That’s… sort of sweet, actually. Do you believe that too?”
The second the question spilled out of my thoughtless mouth, I regretted it. Not only was it too personal, but I’d just unintentionally brought Monica back into the conversation. Ethan knew it too by the slight rise of his eyebrows and the evident line of apprehension that drew through his stare.
I couldn’t stop it now, though. The question was out there and now, he’d be forced to answer it. He’d have to think of Monica while her younger sister was currently wrapped around him like a lover.
It was for the best, probably. I needed Monica as a reminder to my limitations with Ethan as often as I could get it.
Maybe he needed the reminder, too. Even if he felt comfortable being with me like this, opening up to me like this, and finding comfort in me, it still didn’t mean that it was right.
That even if something doesn’t feel wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s not.
Ethan’s gaze burned me with its intensity like a match lit right in my soul as he held the silence between us like he held my body against his—masterfully and teasing that proverbial line.
Why he was taking so long to answer was beyond me, but the longer he held out, the more I hoped the answer would never come. If it didn’t, maybe we’d be stuck in this perfect limbo forever, where Ethan could touch me like I wanted him to and I could pretend he was mine.
Though, I knew he would respond eventually and when his answer came, it came with a firm tone but a weakened gaze.
“Yeah, I do.”
Ethan’s words were simple, but the look behind his eyes was not. With his response came a noticeable break within him. Something that was once there was quite suddenly not, and the closer I looked, the more I came to realize that something was his strength.
His resilience was waning in cause of something unknown and I worried that it was me.
It was because I’d asked him questions that brought him back to a vulnerable spot in his past and now, he felt defeated.
Though, that theory lost any water it was holding as that hand that was holding me in the water began to move.
The heart beating in my chest reached up and grabbed onto my next breath, holding it hostage as all of my focus dipped below the surface of the water to Ethan’s hand.
It traveled the expanse of my lower back, rising along my bare skin, tingling and teasing until it reached between my shoulder blades.
The feeling of five fingers expanded against my upper back, pushing a gentle pressure against my back and my body went with the motion, leaning forward and closer to Ethan than I’d ever been before.
Every muscle in my body screwed up so tightly Ethan must have felt it. There was no way he couldn’t. I was as sure he could feel the tension in my body as I was that I could feel the beat of his heart slamming against my chest that fixed to his.
All the wires in my brain were misfiring and exploding like a parade of fireworks as our eyes fell together.
We were so close, his breath sweeping my parted lips with a taste so inviting it took everything in me not to inhale it all in.
My senses were lost in Ethan from his touch to his smell to the impassioned look in his eyes that was even worse.
I say ‘worse’ because of how badly it all made me want him.
I wanted his lips, his kisses, his body, his soul all to myself.
I wanted to drown myself in Ethan and never come back up for air.
It made me want to say to hell with my sister and give into my worst desires.
“Alice,” Ethan called, his tone plainly strained and a dangerous melody to my wildly beating heart. My heart was searching for a song to dance to and Ethan was providing me with one without even realizing he was doing it.
Or maybe he did.
A shadow darkened all light in Ethan’s eyes as his grip squeezed around my waist and pushed out a sound that I’d be embarrassed by later on when I replayed this all in my head.
That shadow danced along our invisible line, pulling its darkness over it like a sheet to blur what was wrong and what was absolutely sinful.
What was happening? He was doing all of this and I was a puppet following along with his every move and touch. Did he know what he was doing? Did he realize how close he was to me and inching closer by every second? Was he thinking of Monica? Was he thinking of me?
Was he thinking at all?
The tip of his nose kissed against mine, and I was sure the answer was no. There’s no way a single, rational thought was making its way through the shadows haze. This was either sweet, sweet death or a waking nightmare, and I really wasn’t sure which I longed for more.
If Ethan kissed me, it was all over. Our friendship. Mine and Monica’s relationship. Monica and Ethan’s engagement.
I had never once thought Ethan might want to kiss me or think of me in any way that I thought of him and maybe it was the ambiance of the secluded lake, or that he’d opened up to me and felt close to me because of it.
Whatever it was, I knew he’d regret it the moment it happened, and him regretting kissing me would be worse than never kissing him at all.
“ Ethan .”
I spoke his name in whatever jarring attempt I could to snap him out of the spellbound haze, and it worked—kind of. His eyes left my lips which had just spoken his name and landed on mine, but he didn’t move back.
He just stared at me for an uncountable length of time as an array of emotions flashed like a strobe behind his eyes.
“I think we should go,” he muttered slowly, almost like he was testing his own voice.
I nodded, and gradually, we pulled apart from each other until I was standing on my own two feet again, cold and lonely. We got out of the water and dressed ourselves in silence.
A silence that continued all the way on our drive home and into the night.
I knew—and I think Ethan knew—that if we broke that silence then we’d have to acknowledge what we’d almost done and that wasn’t something that either of us were prepared to do.
Not now. Not ever.