16. Ethan
Chapter 16
Ethan
L ily stood there in adorably cute vegetable-themed pajamas, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and a worried expression on her face. The morning sun cast a warm glow on the blanket she’d laid out in the center of the room. Over in the corner, where the sofa sleeper used to be, there was now just . . . a wreck.
“So, you weren’t, like, jumping on this or anything were you?” I asked, trying not to laugh.
“Jumping? Are you serious? Of course I wasn’t jumping!” Lily put her hands on her hips.
“It just collapsed when you lay down on it?”
Ava, who’d been taking Lily’s side a lot recently, also put her hands on her hips. “Are you saying Lily is overweight, Daddy?”
“Yeah!” Lily said. “Are you saying I’m overweight?”
I lifted my palms in resignation. “No, I’m not.”
“Well, good,” Ava said. “Because she’s not. She’s a very healthy weight.”
“Thank you.”
“Right. Well. I guess I’m gonna have to get another sleeper sofa.”
There was no way that I was going to have just one bed in the house. You didn’t need to be a romance expert to figure out exactly where that would lead.
“Good idea,” said Lily, nodding. “Maybe you’ll be able to find one with a mattress that isn’t stuffed with cornflakes and rusty nails this time.”
I glared at her. “Wait, you never told me it was uncomfortable.”
Ava cackled. “Daddy, everybody knows that bed was a torture device.”
“What do you know about torture devices?” Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“We’ve been studying medieval history at school,” Ava replied with a mischievous grin. “And there was a picture of that sofa sleeper in our textbook.” Ava held out her hand and Lily gave her a high-five.
I shook my head. “Right. Well, I’ll drop Ava off at Cole’s for her sleepover, then I’ll head to Hung, Drawn, and Altered.”
Hung, Drawn, and Altered was a soft furnishings store on the outskirts of town. The prices were a little on the high side, but I needed something for today. I wasn’t going to take any risks.
Lily let out a long, languorous yawn. “I’m so tired.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You must be exhausted after all that jumping on the bed.”
“I did not jump on the bed! I’m tired because this death trap of a sofa tried to eat me! Then I had to sleep on the floor all night.”
“I’m sure a couple of jugs of coffee and some romance book sales will perk you up.”
“You know, I don’t think I’m going to go in today. I’m too exhausted to deal with it.”
“Are you coming to Lexi and Rhea’s for the sleepover?” Ava asked, bouncing up and down.
“No, I don’t think so, Raver,” she said, mussing Ava’s hair.
It was nice to hear her use my nickname for Ava.
“Oh. Okay,” Ava replied.
The words left my mouth before I even had time to compute what I was saying. “Why don’t you come pick out a new sofa sleeper with me? One without cornflakes in it?”
Lily looked stunned. “What? Really?”
“You don’t have to. Maybe it’s a bad idea. Forget it.”
“No, I’d like to!”
I paused for a moment, hoping I hadn’t done something stupid. “Ava, honey, are there any toys you want to take to your cousin’s place?”
“About a million,” she deadpanned.
“Go get them and we’ll head out.”
After Ava had scampered off to her own room, I whispered, “What about the rules? I shouldn’t have suggested it.”
“There’s no rule that says we’re not allowed to go furniture shopping together.”
“But . . . isn’t it kind of a date?”
Lily laughed. “Are you kidding me? You’d take me to buy a bed for our first date?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Be still my beating heart. You know, I do actually remember a novel where the male character took the female character to buy a footstool for their first date.”
“Really?”
“No!”
“All right, fine.” I raised my palms. “Damn, I’ve been out of the dating game for too long.”
“You’ve got me questioning whether you were even ever in it.”
“Just watch out. If you fall in love with me while I choose the material for the couch’s upholstery, I’ll be very angry.”
Lily laughed. “Don’t worry. I don’t believe in love.” A twinkle appeared in her eye. “Anyway, if it did happen, it’d be a good story to tell the grandkids, right?”
I laughed back. A little too loudly.
***
The atmosphere after we dropped off Ava was interesting. It occurred to me, as I parked up my truck outside the furniture store, that Lily and I had spent almost no alone time together since she’d started as Ava’s nanny.
Sure, we’d had sex.
Very, very good sex.
But we’d avoided each other the rest of the time. It was like we were both too scared to admit that we might enjoy each other’s company when we weren’t in the process of swapping bodily fluids.
“Well, here we are. At the upholstery store,” I said, opening the door for her.
We’d brought my trusty Ford F-150 today, in the hopes of loading it up with a purchase. The truck was one of four vehicles I owned. Being a mechanic, I was able to buy vehicles that were near write-offs and restore them back to health. The charcoal gray Ford was a particular passion project of mine. Sure, it wasn’t showroom perfect, but it ran like a dream and had plenty of character.
“At the extremely unromantic upholstery store.” Her long legs left the truck first, and I definitely didn’t check them out. I was simply admiring the jungle-themed playsuit she was wearing today. It was quirky and bohemian and not at all driving me wild with animal attraction.
“It’s got a silly name. It can’t be romantic with a name like that.”
“Hung, Drawn, and Altered,” she read on the sign. Then, she read the tagline underneath: “It’s curtains for undressed windows.”
“You know, as a dad, I actually find that kind of wordplay to be the height of comedy.”
“I can tell.”
“One day, if I work hard, I’ll come up with something as funny as ‘It’s curtains for undressed windows.’”
“Keep dreaming,” she said, and flashed me a sexy smile. “Personally, I’m not such a fan of gallows humor.”
She turned and walked toward the entrance to the store and I raced to catch up with her. “Hey!” I called. “Gallows humor! Very funny.”
Damn, I felt like an old man sometimes. An old man who was smelling that strawberry scent again. Jesus. Did she know the effect she had on me? Was she aware that being this close to her was making me feel drunk? Intoxicated, not just on lust, but something else—the need for closeness?
Inside, the furniture store was a labyrinth of high-end furnishings, endless rows of elegantly crafted beds and dressers extending into the distance.
“Can I help you?” asked a teenager wearing a navy Hung, Drawn, and Altered polo shirt.
“Not yet,” Lily replied confidently. “We’re very much browsing.” She wandered ahead of me, her fingers trailing over plush comforters and sleek headboards. “It’s quite the ‘bed-venture,’ don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” I responded, chuckling. “Let’s not ‘sleep’ on any of the deals.”
As I trailed behind her, I kept my hands shoved in my pockets. I was desperate to reach out and take her hand. To let my guard down and talk to her about what was going on between us. We’d agreed to no deep and meaningful conversations late at night, but it was daytime right now. We were buying furniture together. What better time, right?
Ugh.
She glanced over her shoulder, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I like this one.” She pointed to a sofa sleeper with a stupidly expensive price tag. “But I want to make sure it’s sturdy enough to withstand my wild plans.”
I snorted, shaking my head. “Careful there, Lils. Don’t want to give the salespeople the wrong idea. They might think you’re planning to have sex, rather than just bounce on the bed ‘til it breaks.”
She laughed, the sound bright and carefree. “Have sex on a bed? No chance! I only ever don’t have sex on beds.”
An involuntary rush of blood to my cock caused me to subtly rearrange my jeans. “Yeah,” I said awkwardly. “Same here.”
Lily sat down on the edge of the sofa sleeper. Her head was level with my crotch. Damn it, this was way more difficult than it should have been. “You know,” she said, “my mom used to get mad at me for bouncing on the bed.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “I was a naughty kid.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. These days, you seem a lot more rules-oriented.”
“Yeah, well, things kinda changed after my dad’s affair.”
It struck me that I knew very little about Lily’s life.
“Damn. I didn’t know your dad had an affair.” It must have been doubly shitty for her to discover Vlad’s infidelity, in that case. Fuck. If I ever got my hands on that good-for-nothing. . . .
“Mmhmm,” she said. “When I was a teenager.”
I sat on the edge of the sofa sleeper beside her. “Your parents stay together?”
“Nope. Well, they did for a year or so. But it ate away at them. Dad just left one day without telling us. We never heard from him again. Mom was so sad. I stopped rebelling against her and started doing everything I could to make her happy.”
“It isn’t children’s responsibility to make their parents happy.”
“Right. And I couldn’t do it, of course. So, when she got worse, I blamed myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “Thank you. You know, that’s when I really got into romance books. I wanted to read stories where people did get back together.”
“Makes sense. Shame the real world isn’t like that.”
Her pretty eyes flashed with sadness. “Right. About the best you can hope for in the real world is a hot fling and a failed engagement.”
“You deserve better.”
Our eyes met, and she smiled weakly. “No one deserves anything. Shitty things happen to good people.” A pause. “People like you.”
I nodded. “After I lost Marie, every fucking breath felt like a struggle. I had to figure out how to keep going, for Ava’s sake if nothing else.”
Lily’s eyes met mine. “How did you do it? How did you cope?”
I exhaled, the memories still raw even after all these years. “I didn’t have a choice. You want the truth?”
She nodded.
“People tell me I’m doing great. They say they admire me for looking after Ava in that dark time. They say stuff like, ‘I could never do what you did.’ But they don’t get it.” I shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t choose to be there for Ava. I didn’t choose to be a good dad, or whatever the hell I’ve been. I did the only thing I could do. I kept going. Not because I wanted to—I really didn’t want to. I wanted to give up.”
“But you didn’t.”
To my surprise, I felt her hand in mine. I didn’t pull away.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel like a fraud,” I said with a sigh.
“We’re all just trying our best to keep going. We all feel like giving up from time to time. What matters is whether we do or not. And believe me, people in your situation do. My dad gave up. My mom ran off to the Bahamas and gave up. You? You stayed. You’re seeing it through.”
We looked at each other. Two damaged souls in a furniture warehouse.
“You’re an amazing dad,” she said.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Thanks, Lils. That means a lot.”
It was at that precise moment, a moment when I’d decided to throw caution to the wind and kiss her, hard , that a perky salesperson bounded over to us and cried out, “Hi there! Can I help you folks with anything today?”
Lily jumped, pulling her hand back like she’d been burned. “Oh, uh, yes. I’m looking for a new bed. . . .”
As she launched into an explanation of her mattress needs, I hung back, trying to regain my composure.
Get a grip, McCoy. Don’t let this happen. You can’t let this happen.
But as I watched her giggle and joke with the salesperson, her red hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights, I couldn’t deny the truth any longer.
Rules be damned. I was falling for Lily Lane. And god help me, I had no idea what to do about it.
***
Somehow, after buying a very sensible—but very expensive—sleeper sofa, and loading it onto the truck, we didn’t do the sensible thing and go our separate ways for the day.
“You hungry?” I asked, gripping the wheel.
“You bet. It was hard work watching you load that sofa onto the truck.”
“Funny. How about we grab a burger to go from The Lighthouse and sit on the beach?”
“Wait a second, aren’t we straying into actual date territory here?”
“You’re right.” My stomach lurched. “Want me to drop you off at the bookstore?”
A wicked smile played on her lips. “Hmm, I dunno. I am hungry. And humans need to eat to survive.”
“So, this would purely be a . . . survival issue, rather than a date?”
“It’s a matter of life or death.”
“If you don’t eat a burger on the beach right this instant, you’re going to die? That’s what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”
“Well,” I said with a grin, “I can’t have that on my conscience. Ava would never forgive me.”
It felt surprisingly good to joke about something so dark. Like I had done some healing lately.
So, we got our burgers. Me a bacon double cheeseburger, Lily a turkey and kimchi thing which confused the heck out of me, but she seemed excited to try it.
Ida served us. She seemed insanely excited to see us out together, so we made a very awkward and very quick exit and headed down to the beach.
It felt wonderful to be alone together, away from the watchful eyes of family and friends. I wondered whether I might be brave enough to say all the things I wanted to say. If I’d be able to figure out what all those things were.
“Damn, I should have brought a towel or something,” Lily said, as we found a sandy spot a hundred meters or so from the rolling ocean. “We have nothing to sit on.”
I didn’t hesitate. I pulled my t-shirt off and placed it carefully down on the sand. “There you go. Save your clothes. Your playsuit is a lot fancier than my jeans. Don’t want those tigers and monkeys getting all dirty.” I glanced again at the jungle animals crawling all over her and tried not to feel jealous of them.
For a moment, she looked at my torso, and I saw her swallow hard, before sitting herself down on my t-shirt. “Very chivalrous.” She breathed in deep. “Look I know I shouldn’t be asking this, but honestly, how do you have such a good body?”
I let out a deep chuckle. “You like my body, huh?”
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
“Well, I’ve been keeping myself in shape in case the firefighter thing came through. And thank god I did, because the training is grueling.” I paused. “I guess it’s also been a way of maintaining control ever since Marie passed away.”
“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. And you’re very much in control.”
“You know . . . you’re not in terrible shape yourself.”
A blush colored her cheeks. “Thank you.”
“I particularly like the way your legs feel when they’re wrapped around—”
“Naughty!”
“Just being honest.”
She took a bite of her burger. “So, it’s mainly my legs you like?”
I shook my head. “It’s everything. And the bits in between everything.”
“The bits in between?”
I sighed. “This is gonna sound so weird.”
“Tell me!”
“Your knees. Your hips. Your armpits. All the joining parts.”
She gave me a dirty smile. “My armpits? You little freak.”
“There’s not a single part of you that doesn’t drive me crazy, Lily.” It was my turn to take a bite. The burger was delicious. Juicy, satisfying, simple. “How’s that kimchi thing?”
“Tasty,” she said, thoughtfully, “very tasty. In a complicated sort of way. Hey, can I ask you something? It’s not a trick question. I’m just genuinely interested.”
“Sure.” My heart rate spiked.
“Why haven’t you dated again? Since Marie?”
To my shame, I gave her the same rote answer I gave anyone who asked me the question. “I don’t have the time.”
“I thought you didn’t really do lies.”
I cleared my throat. “Well. It’s part of the reason.”
“Not the main part, though.”
“It’s the same reason that I didn’t want anyone outside of the family to be Ava’s nanny.”
Lily nodded. “You don’t want people coming in and out of her life.”
“Right. After she lost her mom, I vowed to keep things as stable as possible. For both of us.” My next words came out quieter than I’d meant to. “If I cared deeply for someone again, and then I lost them . . . I don’t know if I could cope. And maybe I couldn’t be strong enough for Ava.”
“I understand. Love is risk, isn’t it?”
I smiled. “Thought you didn’t believe in love?”
She laughed. “I’m trying not to. It feels like a surefire way to get hurt.”
“You think you could trust a man again?”
“No.” She savaged her burger. “Maybe. I don’t know. It would have to be . . . special.”
“Special. Right.”
She took a long drink of her soda, and then looked out at the ocean. “What was she like, Ethan? Marie?”
I blinked, taken aback by the question. I didn’t want to shy away from answering it, though. “Well, she was, uh, she was very sweet.” I nudged Lily. “Like you.” I winced. “Oh, shit. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, you’re nothing like each other.”
Lily smiled kindly. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. I just want to know. I never knew her that well. Just that the two of you had something special and her death sent shockwaves through the entire community. I couldn’t bear the thought of two people who were meant to be together being ripped apart like that, so I may have gone overboard on the doorstep lasagnas in the months after she died.”
I reached out for Lily’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “What you did for me and Ava was so, so kind. She won’t even remember it now, but those little heart-shaped cookies you used to bake for her . . . and those tubs of crackers and dips and crunchy vegetable snacks . . . it was deeply appreciated.”
Lily had tears in her eyes. “I’m glad it helped.”
I took a long, deep breath, staring out at the ocean. “Marie and I were together since high school. We grew up together. It wasn’t the romance of the century or anything. It was just . . . safe. And warm. And good. She was a kind person. We were both quite serious people, I guess. Eager to grow up and have a family and be responsible members of the community. I never even entertained the idea of being with anyone else. We just worked. We were a team.”
Lily nodded. “I guess what we’re going through is kind of the opposite of that. Chaotic, uncertain. Irresponsible.”
“Lily,” I said, shaking my head. “What you and I have been doing . . . it’s completely different. I’m not the same person I was ten years ago. And you’re not Marie. You’re . . . Lily Lane.”
And you’re setting my heart on fire.
“You know,” Lily said, still tearful “last time we had sex was like, I don’t even know how to describe it, it was like, I forgot who I was.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s intense.”
Lily laughed nervously. “I guess we’re compatible. Sexually.”
“Sexually,” I echoed. I let my eyes linger on her pink lips, let my mind think about what I’d like to do with her, right here, right now, on this beach.
I saw Lily draw a heart in the sand and then scribble it out.
“You ever wonder,” I asked, my mouth dry, “what would happen if we broke every single rule on that damn list?”
I saw her breath catch. “We’d fall in love.”
“You think?”
“I’m sure of it. You can’t do all that stuff and not fall in love.”
“Even though love doesn’t exist?”
“Yep. You enter this kind of fugue state where you think you’re in love, and you act like you’re in love, and then everything falls apart around you.”
“We better not break them, then.”
“Right.”
I paused, my heart racing. “So, you’re thinking about selling the bookstore?”
“Mmhmm. Maybe.”
“Being an agent in the city?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d be fantastic.”
“I don’t know. Horror isn’t exactly my favorite genre.”
I looked at the ocean for a moment. “You want to go for a swim?”
“A swim? Isn’t it a bit chilly at this time of year?”
“Freezing.”
“You’re not exactly selling it to me.”
“The colder, the better. You know, that was one of my secret weapons after Marie passed. The cold.”
“Ocean swimming?”
“Right. You have to trust yourself, believe in yourself. You give yourself up to the water. I got into the habit of it whenever I could. I’d ask Dad to watch Ava for a little while, or Cole, and I’d come down here and get in. Let myself get really fucking cold.”
“And that helps?” Her gorgeous red hair fluttered gently in the breeze.
“When you’re that cold, it’s kind of hard to think about anything except the cold. You go into yourself. It’s calm. It’s still. It’s weirdly blissful.”
“That sounds nice.”
“So, come on. Let’s do it.”
“I don’t have my swimsuit. Or a towel.”
“Me neither.” I glanced up and down the stretch of sand. The beach was almost empty save for a couple of lone dog walkers in the distance. “Think I’m safe doing it in my boxers. Although I appreciate it’s not quite as simple for you.”
She bit her lip. “I’m gonna do it.”
The thought made me weirdly excited. “You are?”
“I can’t let you experience this blissful nirvana without me.”
“Lily, you’re fucking awesome.”
“Remember that when I’m yelping and screaming about how cold it is.”
I felt a deep connection between the two of us. We weren’t just taking off our clothes. We were stripping away our defenses.
She was in a pale gray bra and panties. I was in my boxer shorts. We left our stuff on the beach and made the short walk to the ocean.
“Okay, how do we do this?” she asked, her skin already making goosebumps. Her body was sheer perfection. It felt almost unbelievable that just a couple of days ago, I’d made that body tremble with pleasure
“You literally walk into the sea.”
“Show me how.”
I’d done this a thousand times, but it was still daunting. There was nothing quite like the cold. Plus, I hadn’t done it in a year or so. I decided that the best strategy was to not overthink it. “Here goes nothing.”
The moment I started to run into the ocean, I heard peals of laughter from Lily. Despite the ball-numbing coldness of it, I didn’t stop until I was all the way up to my neck.
“Holy fuck!” I shouted as I reacted to the shock of it.
It took me right back. The ocean was power, and when I immersed myself in it, I felt that power seeping into me.
I felt like I could do anything. Anything at all.
“You coming in?” I asked, gasping with the cold.
Lily nodded, but I could tell she was nervous. Her first few steps were tentative. When she was up to her knees, her teeth started to chatter and she said, “This is so much worse than I was expecting.”
“Keep going. It’s hard at first to believe you can do it. But it gets better.”
“I trust you.”
It almost floored me to hear those words. She kept her eyes fixed on mine and headed in deeper.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whispered. I watched her nipples pebble under her bra and then disappear under the ocean’s surface. Her eyes were wide and for a moment, scared.
“You can do it,” I said.
“I c-can d-do it,” she repeated.
She was right there, in front of me. Staring at me.
“I feel like I’m on drugs,” she said, lips curling into a crazed smile.
“Drugs?”
“Good drugs. Happy drugs. Like my brain’s buzzing. I feel so fucking alive!”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“If I can do this, I can do anything.”
She stepped closer. Strawberries. The sea. The sun high above us, gently warming the ocean.
“Kiss me,” I said.
There was no argument. No resistance. She fell forward into me softly and I caught her, found her lips. It was soft and slow and then, when my hands moved down to cup her perfect ass, fast and fierce.
“Fuck,” she breathed. “We have to fuck.”
My cock hardened.
“Not here,” I replied, my voice hoarse with lust. “Let’s go back to mine. I want to spend all day with you.”
“All day?”
“All night too.”
We raced back onto the shore and hurried home. We parked up on the drive and left the new bed on the back of the truck. Turns out, we only needed one after all.