Part of him felt relief, though, that Val would always be taken care of. Brad was a good man who could and would treat Val better than Ethan ever could. He had to remember that he had Chris too, and even though Ethan had been a pretty shitty father up to this point, he loved that kid more than he’d ever loved anyone else on the planet. And he was going to start being the best dad he could from this point forward.
His legs didn’t seem to want to move up the sidewalk to the door of the house he used to call home. Even when he was at his worst, he’d looked forward to coming home…to the cream-colored walls inside, the beautiful plants Val had nurtured both inside and out, the blue-gray sofa and the matching overstuffed chair he’d called his, and her arms. It wasn’t his house anymore, though, and the trek to the front door felt difficult. He had to do it, though. The only way to make his past up to anyone—to his son, his soon-to-be ex, or his best friend—was by being a father to his son, being the dad now that he wasn’t able to be then.
He was able to force one foot in front of the other until he was walking up the steps to the porch. It sounded quiet, but he knew that was because the air conditioning was likely on, and they were probably also in the kitchen, which was near the back of the house. Part of him worried that they were gone, that they’d conveniently “forgotten” he was coming to get his son.
Stop it, for fuck’s sake. He unclenched the fists hanging by his side and straightened out his index finger. He punched the doorbell button and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more. Fuck. Seriously? Stood up? He took another deep breath, ready to go back to the car for his cell phone, but then he heard a hand on the doorknob. He pushed the rising ire (now unnecessary) down deep and tried to make his expression as neutral as possible.
He must have expected Valerie to open the door, because it was a bit of a shock when Brad did. Oh, he knew Brad lived here now too, but he thought Brad didn’t know he knew and wouldn’t be the one answering the door. But after the surprise was over, Ethan realized that it was good to see his old friend standing there. “Hey, Ethan, come on in.” Brad held the door open for Ethan, and Ethan stepped inside.
He still had a bad feeling about the visit. The house felt quiet. No…did Valerie and Chris split and leave Brad to deliver the bad news? Maybe they didn’t trust Ethan after all. But he kept it down. He couldn’t keep believing the worst. Maybe they were at the store and would be back in a while. Brad had invited Ethan in, after all, and he had to believe that was some sort of sign of trust.
Bottom line, living in the moment, Ethan had to admit one thing. “Goddamn, man, it’s great to see you.”
Brad smiled and Ethan saw the relief register in his friend’s eyes. He and Brad had been as close as brothers since they were kids, and he’d wondered more than once if their friendship was all over. The last time they’d seen each other in person, Brad had given Ethan the beating of his life. It hurt even through the haze of alcohol and heroin, but he’d been too far gone to defend himself well. Truth be told, Ethan at that time had been hoping Brad would beat him to death…but he hadn’t. In fact, when Brad stopped himself, pulling that last punch, Ethan could see the regret and guilt in Brad’s eyes as the man let go of his collar and let him fall on the couch in this very house.
Until this moment, Ethan had wondered if their friendship would survive all that had happened in the past year, but he could see in Brad’s eyes that those particular bygones were fucked. Their brotherhood was stronger than that. Brad grabbed his friend and embraced him in a manly hug, and Ethan was slapping his friend on the back before it fully registered inside him just how good it felt. As much as he’d loved his wife, losing Brad would have been harder.
When Brad let him go, he said, “You’re looking good…healthy.” He took a breath and shoved his hands in his jeans. Even Ethan had to admit his best friend was a good-looking guy, the one the girls always drooled over. Long black hair, tall, in great shape—rock star fit. So to hear his friend say that he, Ethan, looked good made him feel more relaxed. He hadn’t known that Brad would be able to see the changes in him. “How long?”
He knew Brad was asking how long he’d been clean. “More than eight months.”
Ethan could tell his friend wanted to ask more, but that’s when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He shifted his gaze and there she was…one of the most beautiful women Ethan had ever known…beautiful not just on the outside. She was breathtaking down to the soul. And the ugliest part of Ethan had once tried to destroy that, mar and ruin all that made her the lovely creature she’d been born.
He’d passed Brad’s judgment and fought to relax his hands once more while awaiting hers. She walked down the hallway from the back of the house, her brown hair pulled in a ponytail, holding his son Chris on her hip. As she got closer, Ethan tried to smile, but her blue-green eyes, once brimming with affection and adoration for him, were cool.
Wow. So he hadn’t known what to expect, but he hadn’t anticipated that.
He should have, though. He’d been a real rat bastard to her, and he was only getting what he had coming to him. By the time she got to where he and Brad were standing, though, her expression had softened. Ethan thought he saw relief in her features, just as he’d seen in Brad’s eyes. That hit him like bricks. They could just tell by looking at him that he wasn’t using anymore. Had he looked that bad before?
She pursed her lips for a moment and then a tiny smile crossed her face. For just a moment, Ethan thought, That’s my girl. But, no…she wasn’t his, never would be, probably never had been. Still…there would always be part of him that loved her, loved her to the bottom of his soul. He took in a breath and she said, “Ethan…you look good.”
He nodded, trying to maintain his cool. “Thanks. I’m feeling pretty good.”
Her smile was gone and she inhaled sharply. “I hate to go there, but I have to ask. You’re really clean, right?”
It hurt, but he didn’t blame her. He had no right to expect anyone to believe him. It would take a lifetime to change their expectations. He knew that. So he swallowed…both the saliva in his mouth and his pride (his pride…that fucker that had gotten him into more trouble than anything else) and said, “Yeah…about eight months now.”
He could tell she was nervous. Valerie did this thing with her teeth when she was stressed. She wouldn’t quite grit them or grind them and she wasn’t exactly a jaw clencher, but it was akin to that. If a person weren’t standing next to her, he wouldn’t even notice it, but she and Ethan had gone through a lot together. Hell, he’d been the main source of her stress, so he could tell. He knew. She let out a breath and said, “I’m grateful to hear that…and glad for you. I know it’s been difficult for you.”
Oh…she had no idea, and having her, Chris, and Brad out of his life didn’t help. But…he was pretty sure their absence had been part of what had opened up his eyes, because two near-death experiences and a beating that took close to a week to recover from hadn’t done it. When he woke up feeling like shit one morning and realizing he had lost them all (including his other friends and bandmates, Nick and Zane, who were sticking with Brad), he had one of two choices: Either just finally fucking end it like he’d been halfheartedly attempting to do or pull himself up and do what his friends had been begging him to do for years.
He’d almost chosen death.
But then he thought of his son, and if Ethan had chosen to be a shithead like his father, he would wind up hurting the kid just like his dad had him. Ethan still had father issues—he knew that—but goddamned if he was going to do that to his kid. No…he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. And at that moment, he pulled out his wallet and looked at the picture of Chris at six months old. He remembered that day. He and Val had taken Chris to a professional photographer. They’d wanted it to be special. So the kid was pictured sitting in a gorgeous nursery surrounded by stuffed animals, but it was really just a backdrop. The only thing real was the furry rug his son sat
on and the big stuffed panda bear next to him. That damned thing had distracted the hell out of Chris, but Ethan and Val had finally managed to get their son to look at them and the camera and show a toothless grin. That picture had made Ethan smile and nearly cry at the same time…and that’s when he’d decided to live for his son.
He was at last in a place where he thought he wouldn’t be a harm to the kid, and he thought maybe he could also forgive his son’s mother for running to Brad. When he’d first found out—thanks to Fully Automatic bassist Zane’s loose lips—that Val and Brad were together, he’d punched a hole in the drywall, something he was experienced at, but that was when he’d checked into rehab, determined to win her back. By the time he got out, he knew he’d been gone too long. Besides that, Val and Brad were living together by then. He’d been so pissed, he was determined to make them regret it, and that was when he’d refused the divorce.
Now, though…he’d been humbled. He’d had time in rehab to think, enough time to regret much of what he’d done, and once he was able to cool off, he was able to see more rationally. He gave Jenna a lot of that credit. She’d helped him see things from a new perspective, and he was beginning to feel like he’d been born again.
“Yeah, it has, but I think I’m stronger for it.” He meant that.
It was kind of funny. Yes, he felt Val’s place in his heart, especially upon seeing her, but it was different. He was starting to think it was love as the mother of his child and someone who had done some growing up with and beside him. Jenna was still heavy in his thoughts. She and Val were so different, except for one thing—they both believed in him. Well, Val didn’t anymore, but she had at one time, even when others didn’t. He understood now why she didn’t, and that was fine. Jenna, though…she seemed tough enough to handle anything Ethan dealt out, but she wasn’t the type to take any shit.
Val smiled then, a big smile, the kind she used to have for him all the time. Okay, not all the time, just all the time when things were sunny for them. “That’s good, Ethan. We’ve…been worried about you.”
He couldn’t help what was rising in his chest. “Look…um…I’m really sorry I’ve been such an asshole. I…uh…had to just kind of…accept where things were, and it was kind of a hard pill to swallow.”
Brad shifted then and said, “Ethan, man…I’m really sorry about that. I—”
“No, bro…no. I don’t want to talk about it.” No fucking touchy-feely it’s okay bullshit. No. Brad should be sorry about it, but it was over and done, and—as Ethan had reminded himself so many times before—his best friend and wife had seemed destined to be together. He’d been the only thing stopping them all those years. “I just wanted to apologize for refusing you the divorce and threatening to take Chris. It was immature.” His words were coming from a place of deep hurt, but he wasn’t going to say that. “Anyway, I hope you can forgive me and move on. I just want to be as big a part of Chris’s life as you’ll let me, and I feel like I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”
Brad nodded and kept his lips pressed together. Val blinked twice and then looked at Chris. “You remember I told you who was coming today, right?”
Chris nodded and pointed at his dad. “Daddy Ethan.”
Oh, fucking A. That hurt like no knife in the chest ever would. Daddy Ethan? He figured out why…because certainly Uncle Brad was now known as Daddy Brad. Fuck. Oh, God, he hoped none of this shit was showing on his face. There would be no fence mending if it did. He breathed in through his nostrils and put on a smile for his son. “Yeah, buddy. Do you remember your daddy?”
“Daddy Ethan?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah. Wanna come here?”
His son was hesitant, holding onto his mother. That too hurt, but Ethan was better able to understand. The whole Daddy Ethan bullshit was something the kid had been taught, but Chris couldn’t help it if he didn’t remember his dad enough to want to jump into his arms. Chris kept his eyes on Ethan, watchful.
“Uh…” Ethan looked at Val. “Maybe I should hang here for a while and see if he relaxes?” As soon as he’d gotten the words out of his mouth, though, Chris held out his arms to his dad.
That hit Ethan like a tsunami of emotion. He felt a sting in his nose and wetness flooding his eyes. The whole fucking world could wash away now, and he took that little miracle in his arms and pulled him close. He had to close his eyes to stop himself from completely losing it.
But there it was—no judgment, no misgivings, just total love, and that’s when Ethan felt that he had a fighting chance in this life.
Chapter Twenty-six
JENNA LAY ON the couch in her living room Friday night. She had a movie on, but she hadn’t been watching it…not really watching it. She was instead thinking about Ethan, wondering how the visit with his son was going.
He hadn’t said much about it, but she could tell he was nervous. He’d even said something about making amends, and Jenna wondered if he was trying to go through the twelve steps that Alcoholic Anonymous encouraged its members to follow. A lot of those suggestions were great for recovering addicts, but some folks just didn’t believe in a higher power, at least not in the personal God way, and—as a counselor—she wouldn’t let their beliefs (or lack thereof) stand in the way of their recovery.
Letting her mind wander further from Ethan for just a moment or so didn’t stop it from snapping back to him after a little bit. She felt almost aglow, her emotions for him were so strong. Yeah, she’d felt that way before, and she knew it was stupid, but she hoped Ethan would be different.
That insecurity, though, that doubt, led Jenna’s thoughts backward, starting with her first real boyfriend, a fresh-faced young man with the cutest cleft in his chin. She’d been a sophomore in high school and he was a senior, and he’d managed to romance himself into her pants. She hated sex then and wondered what the big deal was, even after getting used to it. After feeling aroused by the guy over and over with no ultimate satisfaction, one night she touched herself. It had been leading somewhere, to a place she’d wanted him to take her, so she kept it up until she discovered release.
She still didn’t get the big deal over sex. If he couldn’t do it for her, why should she bother with a relationship? But he was a charming guy, and it wasn’t until his graduation that they both decided they should go their separate ways. Afterwards, she had other boyfriends in high school, but no one worth remembering.
In college, there was a string of semi-boyfriends and a few flings, and she discovered she liked getting naked with guys. Even without a breathtaking orgasm, she was beginning to enjoy the sensation of having someone else touch her and try to make her feel good in her quest to do the same to him. She found early on, though, that alcohol fueled several of those encounters, and it wasn’t until a couple of years later that the realization bothered her. She’d come from a family of alcohol abusers—her dad a heavy drinker—and she didn’t want to become like them. Her father was a great guy some of the time, but when he’d drink, he was a horrible human being, mean, nasty, and unloving…and he drank often. Then Jenna’s older sister would step in and take over, because their mom would leave when their dad was in the middle of one of his drinking streaks. Her sister would take over all the parenting duties, but she’d go overboard. She’d miss school, saying Jenna and their little brother needed her. What angered Jenna the most was how their dad would just let her sister do it. Just another stupid mean thing the asshole had done.
When Jenna realized in college that she was possibly alcohol dependent just like dear old mom and dad, she stopped partying and dug into school hard. She changed her major to psychology and used her studies to try to help her understand why she and her family did what they did. She went straight from commencement into grad school and decided she wanted to become a drug and alcohol counselor. Just those last two years in college spent reading and learning about human behavior helped her get a handle on understanding why she and her entire family did the things they did. Addiction
s, she found, didn’t just affect the addicted person. Those addictions often made the entire family behave in unhealthy ways and different members would often take on roles that helped the family survive. Outsiders would never get how those things worked.
Being away at school, though, and determined to make a solid life for herself, Jenna for the first time was able to look objectively at her life, her family, and her own person. She didn’t date during the last two years of school, afraid that she wasn’t ready. Knowing the type of dependent personality she’d developed, she was committed to changing herself. It all started with knowledge, and she had gained it in spades.
That’s not to say she didn’t have sex. She just didn’t commit and certainly didn’t want a messy relationship. She had to get to know herself first and learn new behaviors that weren’t just coping skills. She needed to grow strong for real.
By the time she was in grad school, she thought she was ready, thought she could handle a relationship, and believed she was strong enough. She dated a couple of guys and discovered immediately that she had a knack for picking the worst guys. It was like she was drawn to them. And then Donald, the boyfriend from hell…man, that guy had her fooled. He was a charming guy at first. So sweet, doting, caring, and thoughtful. Once she was under his spell, that’s when he started making her feel worthless. Really, his last blow—sexually abusing her—was just another form of making her feel like shit, but it was enough to wake her up. And it had. But by then Jenna could see the pattern…that she chose bad boys every single time, and they really were bad. They weren’t good for her, and it would be better to live alone than to succumb to that kind of relationship again. It wasn’t healthy, and Jenna often wondered if she were really “cured” of anything.
Bullet Series Box Set Books 1-8 Page 64
