Ethan, Who Loved Carter (25 page)

“Mine.” And Carter realized, he should have. Ethan resumed his tapping. He ordered Carter to sing. Carter obeyed. By the time they got home, Ethan had the first two verses down. He abandoned his conviction to learn it as soon as they went inside. Marching into the kitchen, he ordered Carter to get naked. Ethan headed for the refrigerator.

“You’d better not freeze my ass,” Carter said, but he shucked his pants and underwear and hopped onto the table to lie on his back with his knees up and let Ethan work his magic. It was cold cold cold, fuck, cold, as Ethan worked his fingers into Carter’s ass. Ethan kissed away Carter’s protests as he buttered Carter up with words as well,
You’re pretty
,
you know
,
you’re perfect
,
Carter
, until Carter rocked on Ethan’s fingers and said, “Please.”

Ethan pulled a condom out of somewhere, rolled it on, greased it up, and pushed in. Carter felt like a turkey—
a turkey having awesome sex
, his brain supplied. “I’m glad we don’t have any holidays coming up,” he said. “Don’t think I could handle the traditional meal for awhile.”

Laughing, Ethan grabbed Carter’s hips and thrust into him. His slick hands offered no hold, so Carter had to keep himself in place by grasping the sides of the table. It felt different than doing it with lube. Not better or worse, but
dirty
, naughty.

“You’re blushing,” Ethan said. “You’re hot when you do that.”

“I’m thinking about how I’m going to get the butter out of my ass.”

“I’ll lick it out.”

Carter’s cock went from a semi to full-on erection. Zero to a hundred in seven seconds. The Corvette of erections. Ethan licked his lips. Butter glistened on them. Carter reached for him to lick it away. Once the butter warmed inside him, it felt almost the same as lube, but while it remained cold, the sensation made Carter wrap his legs around Ethan and pull him close, latching on to him for warmth. Ethan held Carter tight, fucking him slowly until Carter became a mess of nerves and everything disappeared except for Ethan.

“You feel so good, Carter.”

Carter dropped backward on the table, taking Ethan down with him as Ethan drove in deep. “You make me feel good.” That was the last thing he remembered saying. The rest was a whirlwind of greasy kisses, slick fingers, and Ethan, everywhere. After Ethan came and discarded the condom, Carter sucked him clean. Then Ethan kept his promise and set Carter wriggling and moaning with his tongue, making Carter come a second time. Ethan helped him up and gave him a glass of water. Then, leaning against Ethan for support, Carter stumbled to the downstairs shower. Ethan got in with him and Carter almost passed out from the sensation as Ethan helped him wash his over sensitized body. He clutched Ethan’s arms and kissed him whenever Ethan’s mouth was close enough.

“Carter,” Ethan scolded. “You’ll fall asleep on your feet.”

“Don’t care.” Carter grinned at him dopily, but he stayed in place when Ethan turned him around and scrubbed his back with a washcloth. They toweled off and went upstairs naked, leaving their clothes on the kitchen floor. Ethan dropped Carter onto his side in bed and pulled the blanket up over him. Carter stayed awake long enough for Ethan to join him. He slid next to Ethan and put his arms around him. With a contented sound, Ethan nestled close, and Carter let himself sleep.

E
THAN
wasn’t taking the trash out again, ever.

“I just want to talk,” Mike said.

He bet that Andy never had people he didn’t want to see hanging out back here. Or maybe he did. Maybe that was why Andy didn’t take the trash out, even though he said it was because he was too short to open the dumpster. He could stand on a box. Ethan would carry it outside for him, as long as Andy and his broom came out with him.

“Don’t want to talk to you.” He ignored Mike’s hand and the green nail polish in his palm. “Go away.” He tried to brush past Mike, but unlike Douglas, Mike blocked his way. Things were supposed to be normal now. Dr. Sorensen had said that if Ethan “rearranged his perceptions to meet his new reality,” he could cope with it. So Ethan had been coping, and doing great. He worked at the coffee shop under his regular schedule; a week ago he’d moved in “officially” at Carter’s house with his things, and they were talking about getting a dog. Having Mike turn up was not part of the plan.

“Ethan, please.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to know that the first time I came here, it was to apologize. But then you told me you were hit by a car. You didn’t remember what had happened, and I didn’t want to tell you. I thought, I don’t know, we could start over.” He stared down at his feet before raising his gaze to Ethan’s face again. “I just want to say how sorry I am. And I like you. I know it doesn’t matter and you don’t have any reason to care, but in case you were wondering if my friendship was a lie… It wasn’t. Look, I learned a lot in prison. I got….” He glanced around the half-empty parking lot. “I got turned out.”

“What’s that?” Ethan edged closer to the door, though it wasn’t in reach. If he could get to it, he could go inside and slam it in Mike’s face.

“Raped,” Mike said. “I was, um, I was an inmate’s bitch from my first day.”

“So, that’s why you’re sorry? Because you got raped a lot?”

“No. Look I… I’m sorry because it was a stupid, bad, horrible thing to do. I thought I hated gay people. But at the trial, they talked a lot about what you were like. Your parents testified and your teachers and… No one would do that for me and I just… I hated you, you know, for what you represented. But when I got older and I started thinking about you as a kid, and me as a kid, and to think that I ended what you could have been. I ended you and I—”

“You didn’t end me.” Ethan stood up straight. He felt cold, but a powerful kind of cold, the kind that came with anger.

“I felt like I did. So I wanted to come back and make sure you were all right. As all right as possible, anyway. And see if there was anything I could do to… to make it better.” Tears dripped down his cheeks.

“You can go.”

“Ethan. Please, if I could just….”

“We aren’t friends.”

“I know that. I… I’m not asking….”

Ethan stared at him, letting the coldness he felt wash through him until Mike backed away.

“Okay. I won’t come back. I… Not that this means anything coming from me, but you are fucking amazing.”

“Get out.” Ethan clamped down on his emotion, on the urge to yell out “You should have seen me Before.” because Ethan didn’t know how amazing he’d been Before, only that people told him he was. Mike wiped his nose. For a moment, Ethan saw the sixteen-year-old he’d been, not the hate-filled boy out for trouble but the lost, ignored kid who couldn’t get a break. Mike turned away.

“I forgive you,” Ethan said. He hadn’t expected to say it, but he often said things he didn’t expect to say. This felt right. It was the right thing to do.

Mike turned back, a hesitant smile on his face that mingled with the tears. “You do?”

“But I don’t want to be friends.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t want to see you.”

“But you forgive me?” Mike sounded like Ethan had offered him sunshine.

“And Douglas. You can tell him.”

“I will. Thank you.” Crying afresh, Mike ran away.

The door banged open. Vera stuck her head out. “Did you get lost?” She followed Ethan’s gaze. “What the hell is he doing here? I’m calling the police.”

“I forgave him,” Ethan said.

She came out and put her arms around him. “I’d ask what the hell for, but you’ve got too much love in you to hate anyone.”

“Yeah.” He hugged her back and watched Mike run out of sight. The green nail polish sat on the hood of a car. Leaving it there, Ethan went inside the shop. He didn’t have time to think about Mike. He and Carter had finished their song, and tonight they were going to play it for Ethan’s family.

T
HE
Harts’ dining room table spilled over with food. After eating a pork chop, potatoes both white and sweet, asparagus, and green beans, Carter protested Nolan’s effort to make him take another fresh-from-the-oven corn muffin.

“I can’t. I’ll explode.” He glanced over at Ethan, who eyed his own empty plate with wariness. “Really, no thank you,” Carter said to Nolan.

“I saw Mike today,” Ethan said. Nolan lowered the bread basket. “I forgave him.”

A few seconds passed. “Well. If that’s what you felt in your heart, then that’s good,” Liz said.

Carter stabbed the remains of his pork chop. Was it good? It wasn’t Carter’s place to have an opinion on it, but if it were, he might not go with
good
. Elliot sent one of his green beans shooting off his plate. In addition to celebrating the premiere of Carter and Ethan’s song, the dinner’s purpose was to cheer Elliot’s admission to a competitive summer music camp. There was cake waiting in the kitchen. Elliot pushed back from the table. “I’m done. May I be excused?” Without waiting for an answer, he headed upstairs.

“Um,” Jennifer said. “Do I need to ask permission too, or…?”

“No, you don’t have to,” Nolan said. “Go after him.” He turned to Ethan, who had chewed two more bites of potatoes as if he hadn’t just opened up a can of worms and flung them around the room. “Pal, what happened?”

Ethan looked earnest. “I can forgive, Dad. That’s what happened. I was angry at him, but I forgave him. We’re not going to be friends. I told him that. I don’t want to see him. But I can imagine what it was like for them because Elliot’s angry all the time and what if he did something right now that hurt someone like what Mike and Douglas did to me?”

“Elliot wouldn’t,” Liz said, but there was a trace of doubt in her voice. Ever since learning the truth, Elliot had been a lit fuse. His destroying Mike’s headlights had proven that.

“But if he did and had to live with it his whole life, wouldn’t you want him to be forgiven?” Ethan asked.

“We have to live with what happened to you too,” Liz said.

Carter sat still, feeling an awkward addition to the family conversation. Despite this, he had to speak up. “You have to live with Ethan. Ethan’s the only one who has to live with what happened. He was the only one there when it happened.” He risked a glance at Nolan and Liz. “And you’re the only ones with memories of what he was like Before.” He capitalized it in his mind now too.

“Yeah,” Ethan said. “Carter’s right.”

“I can’t forgive them,” Liz said.

“You can’t get me back to the way I was.”

“We love you the way you are,” Nolan said.

“It happened to me, not you. You shouldn’t be angry about it.”

“What happened affected everyone. Having this come up again, it raised old issues we haven’t thought about in years,” Liz said. The weather was too cool for air conditioning, but she’d been out in the garden, and her hair hung limp from the humidity. The stress of the past months had aged her a few years and now this took the color from her face, leaving her complexion sallow. “We need time to process our feelings before we can talk about forgiving them.”

“You always told me,” Ethan said, “that forgiveness is the reason for thinking about why you feel the way you do.”

Nolan gave a weak laugh. “I made that line up when Ethan and Elliot were fighting. Should have known it’d come back to bite me in the ass.” He nudged Carter and worked up a smile.

“Yep.” Ethan looked proud of himself. “I’m going to go talk to Elliot.”

“I’ll do it,” Liz said.

“No. He needs his big brother. That’s me.” Ethan left the table.

Liz smiled with wet eyes. “Elliot does need his big brother,” she said. “He has for a long time.”

Carter got up and carried the dishes over to the counter. Liz even gave him a hug when the table was clear. “You’ve made a world of difference to Ethan.”

Carter hugged back. “You can’t imagine what Ethan’s done for me. What all of you have.”

“Oh, I bet we can,” Liz said. She stepped back to arm’s-length and squeezed his shoulders. “Why don’t you head upstairs and bring him down. Ethan said there’s something else on the table for tonight.”

“I can’t handle another shock,” Nolan said, but he said it with a smile.

“You’ll like this,” Carter said. “I’ll be right back.” He jogged up the stairs, glancing at his guitar in the foyer as he went.

He went straight to Elliot’s room. Jennifer sat at the desk. She smiled at Carter and beckoned him in. Carter hadn’t seen her for awhile. He’d thought she and Elliot had broken up. On the bed, Elliot and Ethan sat together. Carter had seen them so many times with Elliot curled against Ethan, stroking the nightmares away with strong, sure touches along his back. But now Ethan held Elliot and scratched Elliot’s hair as he rested his head on Ethan’s shoulder. For once, Elliot looked younger than his sixteen years. He’d had a birthday the week before and received a used Mustang as a gift. He looked happy. Ethan looked over his shoulder and smiled at Carter. “We’re having some big brother, little brother time.”

“Yeah,” Elliot said. “Ethan’s telling me all about what’s what.” He looked stunned with the revelation, delighted with it.