Ethan (Sand & Fog Series Book 4)

by Susan Ward

  His lips pucker as he nods. “I’ve had a bit of that today myself.”

  He shakes his head and his fingers claw his shoulder-length jet hair, the first visible sign that something is bothering him.

  “Are you going to tell me why we’re in a storage closet together?”

  His eyes widen and he pats me on the shoulder. “As good a place as any to start, I suppose. Why is it the things we have clearest in our thoughts are always the hardest to talk about?”

  I shrug. “I guess because they’re the important things to us, usually. People only think a lot about the things that matter.”

  “That’s probably it. I used to think a hell of a lot about things with your mother and invariably screw them up with my mouth.”

  I smirk. “I hate to tell you this, Pop. I don’t think you’ve changed. Mom’s just gotten better at knowing what you mean, not actually what you say.”

  He’s laughing now in a loose, semi-exhausted way. “God, I love that woman.”

  There was no need for him to say that since it’s the one thing about my dad that none of us kids have ever been confused by or questioned. Alan wears his heart on his sleeve for my mother. For damn sure I know where I inherited that trait.

  There’s a loud knock on the door, then Dillon shouts, “Fifteen minutes, Alan.”

  My dad’s humor vanishes, and he’s all seriousness again. “Your brother’s not here tonight, Ethan.”

  Not exactly a surprise. Not with what went down with Hugh and the guys at the label. Fuck, I wonder if he knows about that and the trouble Eric’s been in, and if that’s what this is. I do a fast once-over of my dad. I can’t tell for sure.

  “You’re going to go on stage for your brother tonight.”

  He says it like an order, and now I get what’s happening here. Yep, he knows my brother’s in trouble. And everything that’s happened since Dillon showed up at my door has been just another exercise of Eric screwing up and Dad fixing things for him.

  Some things never change. Down to the ambiguous, overly intense minutes preceding clarity, and my dad expecting me to help shovel shit with him. Only the circumstances have changed, because if this is about saving my brother’s career it’s a lost cause.

  My temper flares. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Saving Eric from himself again. We didn’t need to have private father/son time for you to tell me my brother fucked over the band tonight by not showing. Not exactly something new. It’s not even the first time this tour he’s skipped out and left us hanging.”

  “I know. There isn’t anything that happens with any of you kids that I don’t know. But tonight is different. More important. Tonight we need to pull together as a family for your brother. You need to go out there on stage for Eric and put on a flawless show.”

  I shake my head, crossing my arms at my chest. “No, Dad, not this time. I’ve already covered for him more than I should have this tour. It’s not going to make a difference with the band or the label or anyone. His career is finished. He doesn’t come back from the shit he’s done this tour, and I’m fucking tired of trying to keep him above water when he doesn’t try to swim for himself.”

  My dad’s gaze turns razor sharp. “You misunderstand, Ethan. I’m not asking you to stand in your brother’s place. I’m asking you to be Eric tonight. To put on a flawless show of being him.”

  My head spins and I’m not sure I heard him correctly.

  “You’ve done it before—pretended to be Eric—when you were kids. No one can tell you apart if you don’t want them to. That’s all I’m asking you to do tonight. One night, pretend to be him to help your brother.”

  “What? That’s insane, even for you, Dad. How could you even suggest that? To walk out there on stage, perpetrate a fraud for the audience and the media, and pretend to be Eric. No fucking way. Have you lost your mind? Why would you ask me to do something like that, and how the hell could you think I would?”

  The elegant lines of my dad’s face harden. “I don’t appreciate your tone, Ethan.”

  “And I don’t appreciate a single thing you’ve done to me tonight or expecting me to do something that’s fucking wrong.”

  I grab my dad’s glass from the floor and down two-thirds of what’s in it. I can feel his heavy stare on me, but, no, I’m not ready to look at him yet.

  Not after that.

  Not with how the anger is pulsing through me.

  Alan’s tunnel vision whenever there’s a crisis with Eric is unbelievable. Hello, you’ve got another son here. A pretty pissed off, tired of being screwed over, and pulled into insanity he doesn’t want to be involved in son here.

  “Why are you angry?”

  I spin around to face him. “Because you fucked up my night, without a thought, out of panic over Eric then you asked me to fuck up my life. Or didn’t the thought ever cross your mind what pulling a lame stunt like that might cost me if anyone finds out and it blows up? I’ve covered for Eric. More than I should have. But I’ve never pretended to be him on stage, and I won’t start now.”

  “I would never trade your wellbeing for Eric’s. That’s not what’s happening here. Factual, but none of it accurate.”

  “Fuck. Are you really that blind? Sounds accurate to me. Over-the-top Eric crisis management like always. Face facts. Your son is a fuckup and nothing’s going to change that. Accept it. It’s amazing with five kids in the family that Eric’s the only fuckup in the bunch.”

  Alan looks sad, achingly sad, and his expression lands in my gut like a knife. “Your brother has issues, but he’s not a fuckup and he’s still your brother. I won’t have you talking about him that way.”

  I lower my eyes to stare at the ground because I can no longer meet my dad’s flashing gaze. “I’m sorry. But sometimes you’ve got to stand back and just let people crash, don’t you think, Pop? That’s what Grandpa Jack would do, not this.”

  My dad leans against the door, suddenly looking weary as he watches me. “Not this time. Not this bottom, son. And no, I’m not blind. Far from it. He’s been using again for about a year. He’s broke. Owes money to everyone and is mixed up with the kind of people it doesn’t end well not paying. That’s why Tara threw him out. That’s why Hugh and the guys are done with him. That’s why the label and the management cut him loose today. And that’s what you’re sitting there struggling not to tell me. Don’t look surprised. Did you think your mother and I didn’t know?”

  I shake my head and swallow down the lump in my throat. If there’s surprise on my face it’s because there’s a whole lot there I didn’t know. Eric’s broke? Owes money to the wrong kind of people? I didn’t know any of that. My brother didn’t mention a word to me. “I didn’t know it was that bad, Pop. Did Eric tell you that?”

  The look on my dad’s face turns me cold. “No. He hasn’t said a word to me and hasn’t asked for my help. You want to blame me for something, Ethan? Blame me for that fuckup. My son is drowning and he won’t ask for my help.”

  “Fuck.” And because I don’t know what to say, I whisper fuck again. I close my eyes with my forehead in my palms and try to think, but I can’t. I lower my hands and lift my chin to find Alan patiently waiting for me to process this. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have said any of that crap I said to you. You’re a great dad and I know you always do the best you can.”

  The way his eyes burn shames me. “I love you both. It’s not always easy the decisions I’m forced to make. Sometimes the best I can do is not ask too much from one of you to give what help I can to another. I make mistakes and I often don’t say everything I should but it’s not because I don’t love all of you kids.”

  That slingshots Tara into my mind, the memories of how my parents went with the flow of Eric marrying her after doing me wrong that way, everything I waited for my folks to say that they never said to me, and I don’t want to think about that.

  There’s a heavy silence between us and I can’t believe I’m considering what my dad ask
ed me to do. “Just tell me one thing. If I walk out this door and pretend to be Eric all night will it help him?”

  My dad’s mouth tightens as he shakes his head. “I don’t know, Ethan. I only know your brother’s taking off, disappearing, and the longer they think he’s here, the farther he gets without them looking for him. I don’t even know from whom or why he’s running, but if there’s a chance it helps him, I’m doing it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Fuck, Dillon, that hurts.”

  “Can’t be helped, E. Wearing Eric’s clothes isn’t going to get us there. You’ve gotta have a birthmark beneath your left ear and a stud.”

  I hold the ice against my newly pierced lobe, wishing I’d done it with Eric when we were kids, and hating that burning flesh scent wafting from my skin from whatever Dillon’s heating with a lighter against my neck.

  “Whatever you’re doing better not be permanent,” I warn.

  “What’s the matter? Afraid you won’t be pretty anymore?” he jeers, causing my dad to laugh. “That the girls won’t want you when I’m through with you?”

  Dillon eases back and blows on the mark he just created, and I examine it with the mirror. It looks damn near perfect to me. Good enough to nearly convince me I’m Eric. “Where the hell did you learn to do this shit?”

  “Never done any of this stuff before. I Googled,” he replies, stepping back to give room for my dad to inspect his handiwork. “It’s just heated eyebrow pencil. He can scrub it off in the shower tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Ethan,” Alan says on nearly a soundless raspy whisper.

  I nod and remind myself this can’t be an easy night for my dad either. “It’s going to be all right. Eric always lands on his feet.”

  Alan nods, rakes back his hair, and then turns to Dillon. “I think we’re ready to do this. Let the crew know Eric’s coming now.”

  I rise from the chair, shaking my head, because no way am I going to make it through everything my dad expects me to do without a slip. Eric and I only look and sound alike. Our mannerisms and how we think and feel are totally different. How we are as men is totally different.

  Dillon pauses at the storage room door and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “You’re going to do fine, E. Just remember, whatever comes to mind, do the opposite, and there won’t be a person in the house who doesn’t believe you’re Eric.”

  I chuckle even though that isn’t even close to funny. Worry over my brother has lodged a lump in my throat that’s going make it impossible to sing.

  After taking a moment to try to rearrange my head space into something that’ll help me on stage, I brush back my hair and say, “Let’s do it.”

  Dillon opens the door and I strut out without a backward glance to my dad to be swallowed up by Eric’s security and ushered to the stage.

  It’s funny how stress and nerves can affect someone, and even though my body feels wired and overalert, I’ve been at this long enough to know that what I’m feeling shooting through my veins is different. It’s not a run-of-the-mill performance, where a fuckup won’t matter in a day. It’s part of some scheme I still don’t fully understand that could mean my brother’s life. I know this firestorm of sensation in my flesh could either turn into performance adrenaline or a meltdown.

  And there’s my first test, standing beneath the short flight of stairs to the stage. Hugh. Fucking Hugh. If any of the guys are going to see through this sham it’s him.

  We share an intense stare like two junkyard dogs as I close in on the small circle of people near the production assistant speaking into a walkie-talkie.

  Hugh decides to step from away from the guys and hit me head-on by himself. “You’re a fucking piece of shit, do you know that? Mind-fucking your own brother not to show, using Avery as bait to keep him away from here, trying to stir up shit with the band and Ethan when none of us have a problem with him, then keeping us all hanging until the last second and for what? How low will you go? You being here, Ethan blowing us off, isn’t changing a thing. We’re fucking through with you after tonight, Eric. You stabbed your own brother in the back. Do you have to fuck up every life you touch? Why don’t you let Ethan make his own decisions?”

  The mention of Avery sends a hundred-volt jolt of anger through my body and it takes everything I have not to clock Hugh right there for thinking she’d be down with doing anything wrong, ever. It’s like I’m really seeing him for the first time, and with it comes the reminder that Hugh’s our friend and he didn’t do shit to help my brother. Instead, he piled on and added his own crap to whatever else brought Eric to the point of running.

  It’s a hard battle to remember that tonight isn’t the time to finish everything I need to finish with Hugh, but no fucking way am I taking this. “Ethan did make his own decision. He doesn’t want anything to do with you fuckers, not anymore. Now back the fuck up and get out of my way.”

  One side of my nose and lips alter into a snarl like my brother would make, and I brush by Hugh, continuing to the stage. He doesn’t try to stop me—coward—and I’d have annihilated him if he had.

  Taz and Linc toss me a nod, and I shift my eyes, glancing at them for not even a second, before I let a dazzling Eric-type smile fill my face and hold out my hand for the replacement drummer my dad grabbed with a phone call.

  “Motherfucking Kenny Jones,” I say as he pulls me into a hard embrace.

  “Baby Manzone.”

  I push back against him. “Don’t fucking call me that, you geriatric ward reject. I can’t believe my dad couldn’t find a better drummer than you, even on short notice.”

  Kenny laughs. Whether he’s buying this or not I can’t tell, but then, he’s been wasted since the eighties and he’s one of my dad’s bandmates and oldest friends.

  “I’ll try to carry you, kid. Not make you look too bad.”

  The stage goes dark, the screaming of the crowd erupts, and I’m being ushered across the wood to the center as one of the crew shoves Eric’s guitar into my hand. Kenny’s drumsticks start to count, and my mind goes blank. I let go of thought. If this is my last set ever with Eric’s band, my brother is going out and walking off this stage the right way.

  Light explodes around me, and I’m front and center giving the performance of my life. In every note and word I’m what the sea of faces of Eric’s fans expects, pulling out all the stops like he would to say, Fuck you, Hugh, I’m Eric Manzone. I’m the one who doesn’t need you or this shit.

  As the last note of the final song starts to fade, I lift the mic and shout, “Fuck you, LA. You’re going to miss me,” because it seems like an Eric thing to say. And it must be because the crowd that’s been on its feet the entire ninety minutes is going crazy.

  Security clears a path for me to exit, and I hand off the guitar and sprint to where my dad’s waiting in the wings.

  Even in this awfulness of what we’re doing, his eyes simmer approvingly and he cups my face. “You’re brilliant, son. The best I’ve ever played with. And that’s no lie. I mean every word.”

  The raw emotion in Alan’s voice chokes me up, and I nod with my forehead pressed against his. “I couldn’t let him down. You’re right. He’s my brother.”

  Alan’s embrace tightens and he pats me firmly on the back. “Let’s finish this night. But tomorrow morning it’s time for you to decide what you want to do. Don’t let anyone get in your way of having what you want and deserve. Not anymore. Not ever again. And especially not me.”

  As good as this feels—when I’m fucking positive it shouldn’t because I can’t escape the thought of what I’m doing or that it took an Eric crisis to hear this from Pop—I’ve got to shake it off because Eric doesn’t get emotional. Not even with family.

  I step back and gesture for one of the crew. “Get that fucking blanket over here. I’m getting chills from the goddamn sweat.” And as it’s wrapped around me, I grab a bottle of JD someone left near the stage, unscrew the cap, and take a long chug.

 
Then I’m moving down the hall to the dressing rooms, with people and faces closing in on me, their voices raised in accolades. There’s buzzing excitement shooting within the concourse, and all I want is a shower then to get out of here and track Avery down, but instead I’ve gotta go to the fucking after-party like Eric would.

  Dillon opens the door, and I say, “Don’t let anyone in or you’re fucking fired.”

  Alone, I collapse back against the wall and try to still my racing heart. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack. I can’t quiet my pulse or avoid the aftereffect of what I just did. And I’m not talking about putting on a killer set, but going out there and committing a fraud in front of thousands and the press. That I did it to help Eric doesn’t make it one ounce less terrible. That my dad’s proud of me and showed it doesn’t make it right.

  It was the greatest performance of my career and it was a fucking lie and wrong in every way.

  Still breathing heavily, I sink down on a sofa and cradle my head in my hands. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.” It’s pointless to regret it now. It’s done. And it couldn’t be helped.

  The only break I caught is that Avery’s not here and I didn’t have to do that in front of her. I couldn’t ever have carried off that lie if she were here. And she would have seen through it.

  Thank God she’s not here.

  My stomach turns and my face snaps up.

  Why isn’t Avery here?

  She never misses a performance, and when we parted we’d planned to meet back up here to finish our date. With everything happening, somehow I failed to remember she wasn’t here or to wonder why.

  Hugh’s words revive in my memory. I pull my phone from my pocket and power it on. Nothing. No text or call from her. No, no, no. I don’t believe it. That crap talk of Hugh’s can’t be true.

  We were practically fucking in the booth at The Cockyard. No girl could fake arousal that well, and even if they could, Avery would never do that.

  Leaning with my elbows on my knees and holding the phone with both hands, I stare at it for a moment then hit callback for Avery and speaker.