Chapter 21 Now
On second thought, the house we’re staying in probably should have been of more interest to us. Had we explored it when Ethan and Jen got here, before taking off on our impromptu bike ride, we would have been better prepared for what we’re facing now:
Our bedroom. Our bedroom, which has only one bed.
I stare at the tiny folded card sitting on the dresser, bearing our names in Jen’s pretty teacher’s cursive.
Thea and Alex
“Um,” I say unhelpfully.
Alex turns, facing Jen and Ethan, who stand in the doorway, Mia behind them, sprawled in the living room, her head propped up on Argos, who’s happily dozing, no qualms about playing his frequent role as her pillow. She has her headphones on, eyes glued to her iPad as she watches Bluey.
Jen smiles at us brightly. She’s honestly glowing. Ethan’s expression is unreadable.
“Not to sound ungrateful,” Alex says. “Would there, uh”—he clears his throat—“happen to be another room that has two beds?”
“Yes,” Ethan says. “But Mia and Jen are staying in that one.”
I glance to Jen, who’s still smiling, like none of this is weird, let alone bothering her. She and Ethan are about to get married—not that she knows we know that—and she’s going to have a sleepover with her kid all week, instead of cozying up in this massive bed with her soon-to-be husband?
“Is there another room?” I ask, finally finding my voice.
“No,” Ethan says, looking at me like I should know this, before realization clears his expression. I think he’s only remembering now that he never brought me here. If he feels guilty about that, he doesn’t show it.
“It’s an old home,” he adds after a beat of awkward silence, sounding a little defensive. “My great-grandparents built it, and they only had one child, my grandfather; and then he only had one child, my father. No need for more rooms than those two.”
I don’t state the obvious, that this means there were no guest rooms. Seems antipathy for hospitality runs in Ethan’s family.
I always wondered if Ethan kept our socializing largely out of the house because he didn’t want to bring people into the space that, despite his largely successful greige aesthetic, I managed to clutter up with books, flowers, houseplants, and as much colorful art as I could.
In my low moments, I worried that he didn’t want people in a space that, to him, felt too much like me.
Now I’m realizing, he probably just didn’t like hosting and came by it honestly.
I expect to feel relief as I put the pieces together. But I don’t like glancing down, expecting to see a scab you’re so used to still being there, only to realize it’s vanished, already healed.
“Where are you sleeping, then?” I ask him, genuinely curious.
“The pullout sofa,” Ethan says.
“How noble,” Alex mutters.
Jen gives him a chiding look.
“Not that noble,” Ethan says breezily as he steps back, then turns toward the living room. “I personally find that mattress the comfiest in the house.”
Alex and I look at each other, biting back laughter as we smile.
This sleeping situation is a disaster. But if we can laugh about anything, it’s about my ex being a consistently douchebag human being.
“Alex!” Ethan calls from somewhere deep in the house.
Alex’s smile dissolves before he calls back, “Ethan!”
“Your help in the kitchen?” Ethan drawls.
I stare at Alex, who glares out the doorway, that jaw in his muscle working overtime.
“Alex, I—”
“Don’t apologize for him,” he says, reading my mind. He tugs me into his arms for a hug. “I can handle him. Go enjoy the beach, soak it up.”
“You don’t want me to stay? Be your kitchen backup?”
Alex nuzzles into my hair. “Nope. This way, if I kill Ethan while he tries to boss me around the kitchen, you won’t be an accessory to murder.”
I squeeze my arms around him. “You and Lauren joke too much about homicide.”
“When it comes to Ethan,” he grumbles, “there’s no such thing. Lawrence would agree with me.”
He pulls away and leaves me in our bedroom, battling a delirious blend of laughter and tears. The laughter wins out, though I muffle it in a bed pillow.
Because he’s right. Ending Ethan is one thing he and Lauren definitely agree on.
We’ve almost survived our first night of “vacation.” Dinner was served without Alex ending Ethan, and it was delicious—fresh-caught pan-seared fish; grilled peach, goat cheese, and arugula salad; and a summer risotto that Alex whipped up that had me fighting hard to keep my foodgasm noises to myself.
They’re funny when it’s just Alex and me.
With Ethan and Jen, it would have been beyond awkward.
Mia’s in bed, her snores carrying through the living room, with the door left cracked open, per her request.
I’m finishing the dishes while Alex does his usual full wipe down of the appliances.
It makes my heart twinge, seeing him do that.
He has every reason to leave Ethan’s family’s kitchen grease splattered and fishy.
But he won’t. Because this is what he does, his routine, a matter of pride and discipline, to respect the tools that allow him to do his craft.
Jen finishes gathering up Mia’s toys from the middle of the living room, then tiptoes over to the bedroom and carefully eases the door shut.
Ethan is nowhere to be seen.
He always made himself scarce during after-dinner cleanup, and if that isn’t a big red flag that I took way too long to recognize, I don’t know what it is.
Alex pulls a seltzer from the fridge, offering me one. I take it, setting it on the counter beside me while I finish drying the last pan.
“Jen?” Alex says, extending a seltzer to her, too.
She startles, hearing him say her name. “Oh.” Jen smiles, a little tentative, as she takes it. “Thanks, Alex, yeah.”
He nods, then shuts the fridge door.
Jen cracks her seltzer. Alex cracks his. I set down the pan, then crack mine. The room is an awkward almost-silent, the only sounds our seltzers’ fizzy carbonation and the faint roar of the ocean at night.
“I think I’ll pour some wine, too!” Jen says, rounding the island.
“I’ve got just the thing,” Ethan says, making us all jump.
He shuts the door behind him that leads to the lower level, which I saw only in passing when we first came inside from the beach.
It struck me as a pretty typical man cave—a den with a bar, an extensive wine collection, a big TV, and a deep-cushion leather sofa, which I’m assuming is the extremely comfortable pullout couch Ethan is planning to sleep on.
Ethan turns the bottle, facing it out to us. If it weren’t so unique, I probably wouldn’t have recognized it, let alone remembered it. But it is, and I do. Slim neck, tapered green glass, a label painted with watercolor flowers.
That’s the bottle his parents gave us on our wedding. An extremely nice bottle, Ethan had explained. I asked him, on a couple anniversaries in the early years, where it had gone. Now I have my answer. It ended up here. He kept it for himself.
Maybe it’s like his hosting—maybe there’s a less hurtful explanation. Maybe he was saving it for some special anniversary that we never got to.
I find myself suddenly exhausted, not just from the all-nighter we pulled to get here.
But from doing this—exerting energy to somehow finally make sense of Ethan, to figure out what he’s really doing and why.
I want to know for Mia’s sake. Hell, even for Jen’s.
Because I want him to be better for them than he was for me.
I want to find proof that I can hope he’ll be good to them.
He’s so closed off, so inscrutable, that feels damn near impossible.
I glance toward Alex, who’s been watching me. He peers at Ethan, who’s watching me, too.
I turn toward Jen and say, “I’m wiped from the drive, but what do you say? One round of euchre?”
Jen looks to Ethan, who’s opening the wine, to Alex, who’s made no move to do anything, watching us closely. Then she smiles at me. “Well, one game wouldn’t hurt.”
We’ve played two games, and we’re halfway through our third, after Alex and I beat Ethan and Jen in the first game, and Ethan decreed another game was in order. Ethan and Jen won the second one. At which point, both Alex and Ethan decreed a rubber match was necessary.
Alex turns down the ten of spades on top of the kitty, which is a relief. I have a handful of hearts and diamonds. Next up is Jen.
“Pass,” she says.
I pass, then Ethan does. Alex calls hearts trump, and my heart does a little leap. I’m so tired, but I’m not too tired to want to win, even if the prospect of victory isn’t quite as gripping as it seemed when we first decided on this vacation and I made Alex promise me we’d crush them.
Jen leads with a king of clubs. No clubs in my hand, I can ruff it. I throw off a queen of hearts, so Alex knows I have a decent bit in my hand, and hopefully so that Ethan, if he’s also out of clubs, can’t outtrump my trump.
Ethan has clubs, and Alex throws off a low diamond, letting my trump win the trick for us. Alex sweeps up the cards, setting them beside him with a snap, and nods my way.
Just as I’m about to lead with an ace of diamonds, Jen blurts, “Ethan and I have to tell you something.”
Alex and I peer up, glancing from her to Ethan. Ethan’s looking at her with an expression I’ve never seen on him before, can’t put my finger on, a soup seasoned with so many flavors that nothing’s discernible.
Jen glances between us. “We asked you to come here because… we’re going to get married this week on the beach.”
Ethan’s still watching her, saying nothing.
I stare at him, searching for some clue to guess what he isn’t saying, what’s happening in that brain of his.
Jen smiles at him, then at us. “We haven’t told Mia yet. Just that we’re going to have a special day and wear special dresses.”
Alex draws in a breath, looking over at Jen. “When are you going to tell her?”
Jen looks to Ethan.
Ethan finally speaks up. “We thought the night before would be wise. To diminish the… anticipation? Mia doesn’t seem to handle waiting for things very well.”
Alex throws Ethan a scathing glare. “You mean she ‘handles waiting’ like a kid who gets excited about the things she’s looking forward to?”
Ethan shrugs. “Sure.”
I rest my bare feet on Alex’s below the table, then hug his calves between my ankles. Touching to touch. Telling him I’m here. Reminding him that Ethan isn’t worth getting fired up for.
Alex meets my eyes and exhales slowly, then turns to Jen to make it clear he isn’t speaking to Ethan as he says, “Thank you for telling us.”
My heart clutches. He said us.
Jen glances back and forth between Alex and me. “You don’t seem… surprised? Not that I wanted you to be, I just…”
“Mia,” I explain. “She was very excited about her new white dress and the ‘special occasion.’ ”
“Oh.” Jen smiles. “I should have thought about that, that she’d be eager to tell you. Would you please keep this between us?” she says to me, then turns to Alex. “Until I tell her?”
“When do you plan to tell her?” Alex asks again.
“The night before,” Jen says, smiling over at Ethan. “Thursday night. We’ll get married on Friday morning.”
Ethan smiles, reaching across the table, clasping her hand. “Friday morning,” he says.
Alex and I meet eyes across the table, feet still touching beneath it. He throws me a wink that reminds me of his dad, that makes me smile. I wink back the only way I can, a clumsy double blink.
Alex grins, then peers down, focused on his cards.
“Your lead, Ted,” he reminds me.
I throw out the right bower, the jack of hearts, so he knows I have it and he doesn’t have to worry about Ethan or Jen having it in their hands.
As I do, I sense it in him, despite his excellent poker face, the relief, the confidence.
With this trick in the bag, he knows, based on his remaining cards, that we’re going to take a third trick, get the point we wanted, and with that, win.
I should be thrilled, vengefully satisfied.
But all I can think about are his legs, tangled with mine below the table. The sight of him across from me, windblown and tan, seawater in his hair turning every rebellious wave into loose curls that kiss everywhere I’ve dreamed of kissing—his temples, his ears, the nape of his neck.
About the room with one bed, waiting for us down the hall.