Isn't She Lovely (14 page)

“No!”

He shakes his head in a sympathetic way. “You have. Because if you hadn’t, then when the question came up, you would have had to stop and think, ‘Hmm, is Ethan’s penis big enough to push another baby out of the womb?’ But you answered right away, which means you’d already formed an opinion. An unflattering opinion, I might add. And quite incorrect.”

I’m blushing now, because he kind of has me there. Not that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about, uh,
him
. My quick response to his stupid game was simply due to the ridiculousness of his suggestions. But even though I haven’t thought (much) about his more
manly bits before, because of this conversation I’m
definitely
thinking about them now.

I shift in the leather seat of the car he borrowed from his parents. I didn’t think anyone in New York actually owned a car, but of course the Price family would have a fleet of sexy-looking vehicles just waiting for the golden boy to take one on a whim.

“Your mom had a miscarriage?” I ask, half wanting to steer the conversation away from his crotch and half genuinely wanting to know.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice quieter. “They’d just barely found out they were having twins, so it’s not like she even had a chance to really register the loss, but she doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“And they never wanted to try again?”

He shoots me a look and grins. “Guess they decided I was enough.”

“Or too much,” I mutter.

“There you go, thinking about my big wang again.”

“Ethan!” I know I’m blushing now, but he merely grins and takes mercy on me by changing the subject. “What about you? Only child, right? Or do you have a whole fleet of siblings hidden in your vault of Stephanie secrets?”

“It’s just me,” I say. “Well, and my stepbrother. But I didn’t even meet the guy until I was eighteen, so I don’t really think of him as family.”

Which really isn’t fair to say. I liked Chris well enough on the few occasions we’ve been forced into each other’s company. It’s not his fault his mother’s a man-eater. A widower-eater.

“Okay, pull your weight, Kendrick. We’ve got a couple more hours before we get there.”

“Tell me again why we’re driving five hours to the middle of nowhere.”

“Because it’s my only chance to see Andrea before she heads back to California. Usually she comes to the city over break, but this year her family rented a summer cabin, so she’s staying there.”

“And she’s a high school friend, right?”

“No. Grade school through middle school. She went to a public school instead of the academy with the rest of us.”

I dig a couple of waters out of the cooler he brought, and hand one to him. “
You
were friends with public school hooligans?”

“Just the one,” he says with a smile. “We had, like,
every
class together in eighth grade and got pretty tight, so I guess I stayed in better contact with her than everyone else.”

“Did you date?”

“Nah. I seem to remember a couple of awkward spin-the-bottle kisses, but nothing serious. I guess even back then, I sort of knew Olivia was the one.”

I glance at him in surprise, and I can tell he’s just as surprised as I am at the admission.
He hardly ever mentions his ex unless it’s with a scowl. I feel something sour in my stomach and try to tell myself that it’s not jealousy, but I know better. It’s not that I have feelings for Ethan or anything. But I’ve been spending so much time with him that I’d be lying if I said it’s not a
little
easy to forget that it’s fake.

Apparently I’m destined to be a jealous fake girlfriend. Odd, considering I’ve never before been a jealous
real
girlfriend.

“Okay, definitely your turn,” Ethan says, looking slightly embarrassed. “Here I am getting all deep, and you’re not doing your part.”

I laugh a little and take a sip of water. “You, deep? Come on, Price. Somehow I don’t think there’s a whole lot of depth hidden under all that polish.”

He doesn’t say anything back, and I glance over at his profile, expecting his easy grin, but he’s not smiling at all. In fact, he looks a little … wounded. It’s the same look he had on his face that night at the frat party when I told him he had no substance. It was an unfair thing to say back then, when I didn’t even know him.

Now that I do know him, I know it was unfair
and
bitchy.

And completely untrue.

“Hey,” I say quickly, reaching out a hand to touch his arm in apology. “I didn’t mean …”

Ethan lifts his water bottle to his lips before my fingers can make contact, and I pull my hand back. “Sure ya did, Goth. And you’re right. Nothing but money and jokes coming from this side of the car.”

His tone is self-deprecating, and I want to tell him that it’s not true. That I only said he had no depth because I don’t want to get deep. I don’t want to see beyond his money and jokes because over the past few weeks I’ve been catching glimpses of what’s beneath all that pretty-boy stuff, and I don’t think I can handle much more of the kinder version. I’m too worried I could fall for that version of Ethan Price.

But neither do I want him to hide from me.

You can’t have it both ways, Stephanie
.

“So, two truths and a lie,” I hear myself say, desperate somehow to make amends. To make us even. To share with him the way he just did with me about Olivia, his mom’s miscarriage, and even his friendship with this Andrea girl.

“One: When I was seven, my parents took me to the emergency room with what they thought was a ruptured appendix. Turns out I was just majorly constipated. Two: There was a girl on my old soccer team that got struck by lightning, and I still get scared to death in thunderstorms, even though I know it’s stupid. Three … My high school boyfriend put a roofie in my drink the same night my mom died.”

I say that last one so quickly that all the words run together, as though I’m rushing the punch line of a joke.

I only wish it were a joke.

I hold my breath for several seconds, not looking at him. I can’t.

The tension in the car is so thick I can’t breathe, and then Ethan breaks it.

“Goddamn it, Stephanie,” he says, slamming his palm against the steering wheel before gripping it so tightly his knuckles turn white. “Tell me that last one is the lie. Tell me.”

I don’t answer. I don’t have to.

“Goddamn it,” he says again, quieter this time.

I shrug and take a long swallow of water as though the bomb I just dropped is no big deal. Which of course it is.

But I’ve had a few years to adjust to what happened, so what’s
really
weirding me out is the fact that I said it at all. To him. Confiding a few childhood secrets does not warrant me throwing something so huge into a car ride that still has a good two hours left.

I’d give anything to take it back. Anything.

Especially since Ethan looks pissed.

My throat feels a little tight as I realize the magnitude of my misstep. He doesn’t want to know those types of things about me.
Nobody
wants to know those things about somebody else. Jordan knows, of course. That’s what best friends are for. But that kind of baggage should be saved for friends, therapists, and diaries, not happy-go-lucky fake boyfriends.

“Kidding,” I lie, trying to break the silence. “Made that one up. The third one was the lie—”

“Don’t, Stephanie. Just don’t,” he says quietly.

I let out a small breath. He’s right. Trying to take it back will only make things worse. Instead of backpedaling, I go for plan B: pretending it didn’t happen.

“So you mentioned that Andrea met a boyfriend at college in California. Have you met—”

“What happened?”

My ears begin to ring. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yes, you do.”

If he said it like a know-it-all jerk, I would have ignored him. But his voice is kind, and I don’t want him to be kind. I don’t want him to be anything other than a shallow mama’s boy who can’t tell his parents that precious Olivia has a trampy streak.

But the way he’s looking at me now, he doesn’t look like some superficial frat guy. He
looks like a friend who cares.

And what can I say? Other than Jordan, it’s been a while since I’ve had one of those.

Correction: it’s been a while since I
let
myself have one of those.

And apparently I’m going to start with Ethan Price.

“His name was Caleb,” I say, exhaling a deep breath and staring out the window. “Or I guess I should say his name
is
Caleb. He’s still alive, as far as I know.”

“That’s a shame,” Ethan muttered.

I allow myself a tiny smile. “Yeah, I sometimes feel that way too. Anyway, we started dating the end of sophomore year. And although it kind of pains me to say it now, I really,
really
liked him, you know? I mean, I don’t know if it was like you and Olivia, where we were destined and all that, but we had fun together. He treated me well. Right up until …”

“Right up until he didn’t.”

“Yeah,” I say with a little laugh. “Looking back, I guess the change didn’t happen overnight. It’s not like he went from being some perfect guy to the jerk that gives his own girlfriend the date-rape drug.”

Ethan swears under his breath, and I wonder if I should stop, but I find I can’t. It feels good to talk about it.

“He’d been weird for a while. Hanging out with his brother’s friends from college. He went from being a valedictorian candidate to not really giving a shit, you know? It’s like all he wanted to do was drink and smoke and have sex …”

Ethan runs a palm over the back of his neck but doesn’t interrupt me.

“But I barely noticed,” I say, my voice going quieter. “I mean, on some level I knew, of course. Knew that he was changing, and not for the better. But my mom was sick.
So
sick. And I just couldn’t deal. I heard rumors that he was messing around with other girls, and I didn’t even care. Didn’t ask him. I figured it was my own fault for not sleeping with him when he asked me to.”

“Stephanie …”

“Don’t,” I say. “I’m not saying I was right or smart back then, but that’s just how it was.
Everything
was about my mom and my family, and I was just grateful to have someone whose house I could go to when the last of my mom’s hair fell out, or who would hold me when I cried when the doctor came back with that final ‘one month or less’ diagnosis.”

I glance down at the empty water bottle in my hands, surprised to see that it’s a crinkled, flattened mess.

“Then what happened?” he asks softly.

I open my mouth to respond, but the words don’t come out. To my utter horror, tears fill my eyes, and I realize that although it feels good—so good—to talk to someone, I’m not ready to
go there. Not yet.

“I can’t talk about that night,” I say finally, unable to meet his eyes.

He shifts his hands on the steering wheel and glances at me, and for a second I think he’s going to push me. But then his face changes again, and he lets himself become the other Ethan.

First, though, he puts a hand on my cheek, and I lean into his palm for the briefest of moments. Then he pulls back, and just like that, he’s back to being the funny, cocky, mellow guy I met on the first day of class.

“Okay, so it’s my turn, right?” he says, as though we haven’t just taken a trip down my land-mine-filled memory lane. “Two truths and a lie.

“One: When I was in seventh grade, I went camping with a friend and his parents and tried to light my fart on fire and singed off all the hair on my ass. Two: I was a total porker as a kid. Like seriously fat. In fourth grade I ate most of the cupcakes that some girl’s mom had brought in for her birthday, and tried to blame it on the class hamster.…”

I turn my head to watch him as he launches into some ridiculous story, and I’m not thinking about whether this is one of the truths or the lie. I’m thinking that Ethan Price is putting on a damned good show in an effort to cheer me up. In an effort to make me forget.

But mostly I try not to think about what I’m
feeling
.

Because what I’m feeling has nothing to do with our charade.

What I’m feeling seems
real
.

Chapter Twelve

Ethan

“So how long have you and Stephanie been together?”

I glance at Andrea, trying to figure out if it’s just a casual question or if she’s on to us.

I don’t see Andrea much—maybe once a year when she comes home from UC Santa Cruz. But she’s one of those people-reading types who just seems to skip over whatever you say to figure out what’s really going on.

The fact that Andrea has always been able to sniff out my lies from a mile away is one of the reasons I dragged Stephanie here for a spontaneous weekend trip. Actually, it’s the
primary
reason, because I don’t even really need to pretend around Andrea. She doesn’t give a shit if I’m with Olivia or not. She never said so out loud, but I don’t think she ever even
liked
Olivia. I could have come up to the cabin alone and simply told her I was single, and she wouldn’t have batted an eye.

But this weekend is the ultimate test. If we can fool Andrea into thinking we’re together, then we can absolutely take on the rest of my family and
social
circle, who are a good deal less observant.

“Been together about a month,” I reply finally, resisting the urge to elaborate. I figure the less detail, the better. It keeps the charade easier to maintain.

“Huh,” Andrea says.

Shit
.

“Huh what?” I ask, fishing a beer out of the cooler.

She shrugs and lets her hand drape over the side of her parents’ boat, her fingers skimming the cool lake water. “A month? Really?”

“Just spit out whatever it is you want to say,” I say, tipping the beer back and preparing for the onslaught. Might as well figure out Stephanie’s and my acting weaknesses while we’re here, before the real show starts.