Chapter 35 Barely Surviving
E veryone had a drink in hand, whether it be a wine, beer, or requested cocktail made by yours truly before Stella laid out her first sugar-coated insult of the night.
“It’s good that you have making drinks in your back pocket in case dancing doesn’t work out. Bartending is a career you can make life long if you wanted.”
The lip of my wine glass touched my tongue as I tipped it back, downing more than I’m sure Stella’s watchful eyes deemed acceptable, but not nearly enough to get me through this moment. There wasn’t enough chardonnay in the universe to get me through this day.
“Alice is an incredibly talented dancer, mom. She’s got a competition next week that she’s a shoo-in to win.”
“Oh?” Stella feigned interest, obviously displeased that her son had come to my rescue. “Do you win a little trophy or a certificate or something?”
“Actually, it’s the possibility to work at any number of the national or internationally renowned dance studios that will be present and judging. Winning there is a pretty huge deal,” I shot back.
Stella’s mouth formed an O shape as she nodded, foregoing a real response and instead tilting back a sip of her wine. From the corner of the kitchen, I spotted a ghost of a proud smile on Ethan’s mouth that he tried to hide from me, but I caught it still.
“Have you and Gabe been able to get in enough rehearsal time?” My mom chimed in as she passed by us all, steaming hot green beans in hand.
“Some, but he’s coming into town tomorrow and is going to stay with me through the competition so we can rehearse as much as we need to.”
Truth be told, knowing that my reward for simultaneously dealing with my heartbreak and Ethan’s heinous mother would be seeing Gabe as soon as tomorrow afternoon was the only thing getting me through this evening without totally losing it.
“Is Gabe your boyfriend?” Stella’s stare piqued with curiosity.
“We wish,” my mom muttered.
“ Mom .” I swatted a quick slap out to my mother’s arm, properly scolding her with a slight smile on my lips. “Gabe’s my best friend from the city. He’s been my dance partner for years.”
“So you and this Gabe aren’t an item?”
Ethan’s shoulders slumped as he sighed and turned to his mom with a lop-sided grin. “Mom, he’s a male dancer who lives in New York City. Take a wild guess.”
“Says the guy who freaked out the first time he met him,” I let slip.
Heat smacked my cheeks as it registered what I’d said and in response to the wide-eyed look Ethan was giving me from across the kitchen.
He replied with a playful smile denting his cheeks. “You had yourself wrapped around him like he was a pole you were trying to climb. So excuse me for thinking otherwise.”
“Maybe you should have taken a wild guess.”
Surprise lit Ethan’s gaze from the back, silhouetting his gloom as it evaporated from sight in response to my teasing retort.
For a stolen moment, we held each other’s stare, and I got to watch as beauty struck like lightning in his eyes, illuminating every fleck of endearment Ethan felt right then.
Our connection couldn’t have lasted longer than a second, but it was a second too long as Stella was quick to let us both know. “Maybe you should move back here to New York and try to find yourself a nice, available man, hm?”
Any light that had found either Ethan or I dimmed so both our hearts were as dark as our fate.
Footsteps bounding down the stairs from the second floor interrupted the now solemn moment. An unfamiliar female voice called out, and both Ethan and his mom left in the voice’s direction—Mary, I presumed.
My mom and I sat alone in the uncomfortable air Stella had created for us all, and the second they were out of earshot, she came up beside me.
“That woman does not like you, does she?”
It was that obvious, huh?
“Not really.”
“Any ideas why?”
A few.
“I just don’t think she likes dancers very much.” The lie came out easily enough and my mom seemed to buy it, for now at least.
Cheerful voices from the living room drew my feet in that direction. Around the corner, the image of Ethan lifting a petite woman up in a bear hug came into view, her brunette hair swinging around in its ponytail as Ethan spun her, giggles of her laughter falling all around them.
“Okay, okay! Put me down before I barf all over you,” his sister said through her laughs.
“Classy as ever. Some things never change.”
“Well, some things do.” Her hands went to his arms, squeezing around his biceps with a scrunched look on her face. “How in the hell did you grow more muscles since I last saw you?”
Ethan laughed off her comment, but she was right. I wasn’t sure when the last time they saw each other was, but even from when I first met him, Ethan was bigger now than he was then. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was adding in more time at the gym to lessen his time at home.
Looking at him now, his back and shoulders lined with an extra layer of muscle and his arms sitting wider against his sides, he looked huge. A flash of my hand clutching his upper arm and my fingers not even coming close to touching blipped through my mind, flustering me at once.
“I’m not gonna lie and say that I don’t hate that it took you getting engaged for us to get together again. You suck at communication, brother-of-mine.”
“You went back-packing for nine months without cell service.”
Mary clicked her tongue. “Touche’.”
“So!” Mary pushed away from her brother, her eyes scanning the room until they landed right on mine and burst with excitement. “Is this the bride-to-be?”
A rush of embarrassment flooded my stomach as every pair of eyes in the room went to me. Though, Stella was quick to put a stop to her daughter’s confusion. “Oh goodness, no . That’s just her sister. Monica’s the bride-to-be and is around here somewhere.”
“Whoops! My bad.”
“It’s okay,” I said with a shrug and a polite smile.
“Probably better that you’re not the one signing your life away with this guy. He’s a handful. Smells too.” Mary stumbled a few inches as Ethan gave her a lighthearted shove.
Some time passed in relative normalcy, all things considered.
Monica and Mary met and hit it off. Ethan and his sister caught up, sharing stories of each other from their years growing up together.
My dad finally surfaced from his study with his reading glasses in place, confirming my earlier suspicions of where he’d been hiding.
Dad pressed a welcoming kiss on the top of both mine and Monica’s head and shook Ethan’s hand for the first time ever.
The two men sized each other up while the rest of us watched.
My dad joked about handing his daughter over to a man he’d never met until now, and Ethan tried to laugh along, but I could see the nervous edge in his stare and the way he kept dropping eye contact every few seconds.
Thankfully, Monica dragged our dad away to the kitchen with talks of wedding money and Stella followed along, all too eager to help get this wedding off the ground. That left Ethan, Mary, and I alone in a silence that Mary didn’t let sit for very long.
“Holy shit. Is that yours?”
Mary jumped up from the couch and went straight to where Ethan had dropped our overnight bags. Both Ethan and I craned our heads in her direction, seeing her bend down and scoop something out of Ethan’s semi-open bag.
“When did you get this?”
Mary spun around to us, holding the camera I’d given Ethan in her hands.
Nerves popped like bubbles in my stomach, one by one, filling me up with nauseating dread. Ethan’s reaction didn’t help either. He was off the couch and stalking towards his sister half a second later, an all too serious expression holding his features tight.
“Can I have that?”
“What? No.” Mary pulled the camera back into herself, stepping away from Ethan. “I wanna see what you’ve been up to. I thought you gave up on photography.”
“I have. There’s nothing on it, but I don’t want it to get broken, so hand it over.”
Lies. I was on that camera. The pictures he’d taken of me that day at the lake must be on there if Ethan’s urgent tone was telling me anything. He kept the pictures even though he must have known it was a bad idea. An awful idea.
“I’m not gonna break it. Calm your tits.”
Ethan made a lunge for the camera and my heart leapt up my throat as he did, only to crash back down with the weight of a cement brick as Mary side-stepped him, a devious smile on her face as she got away.
“Mary—”
But he was too late.
The light of the camera turning on broadcast across Mary’s face, casting a perfect view of her expression as she clicked over to the first photo. Her soft-brown eyebrows sunk together, her mouth parted in confusion, and my heartbeat skyrocketed through the freaking roof.
“What—?” I couldn’t even look over at Ethan as we both watched his sister take in the photos from that day.
It was just a photoshoot. That’s all it was.
Nothing happened between us that day. That didn’t mean my pulse wasn’t throbbing in my neck, waiting for her to throw an accusation my way about that day that would turn out to be true later on.
My heart stopped beating altogether as Mary caught my gaze.
“This is you?”
“I… Yeah, we—Ethan wanted to take some pictures after I gave him the camera so—”
“ You gave him this?”
Crap.
“It was my ex’s.”
Mary stared at me with eyes just like her mother’s, only not as immediately cruel and judging. Then she turned to Ethan.
“You took her here?”
Ethan didn’t answer her, and his silence pulled my attention.
Once I saw him though, I knew why he didn’t respond.
They were already talking to each other through some sibling connection that needed no words.
The feeling of being somewhere I didn’t belong rippled up my spine, and I spun on my heel to leave.
“Wait.”
Mary’s voice grabbed my foot mid-step. “How long ago did my brother take you to the lake?”