by Amy Lane
Finally, he could roll over to his side and off and out of Jonah, and Jonah turned to face him, reaching for the come cloth under the pillow so he could wipe off Ethan’s chest.
“God,” Jonah said quietly, like he always did when they were done. “Are you sure you want me to move in? We could kill each other, easy!”
“You’d better move in,” Ethan threatened. “I’m gonna be, like, Mr. Nanny here—I’m gonna need someone to tell me I survived in the evenings.”
“Kelsey will,” Jonah said, rubbing noses with him.
Ethan grinned. Jonah and Kelsey got along pretty well. Maybe it was because Kelsey, as scattered as she was, had a good heart. Maybe it was because Jonah and Ethan were used to taking care of strong women. Maybe it was because Jonah, like Ethan, knew what sisters were like, and understood how to make that dynamic work when all the odds said it shouldn’t. Whatever the reason, Kelsey and Jonah learned to watch the same movies (thank God she liked sci-fi) and talk about television and even read the occasional sci-fi book, all to make their proximity easier to deal with.
Ethan was about a hair’s breadth away from being happy.
In February he’d gotten a long letter from Belladonna, catching him up on the news. She’d apologized for the radio silence, begging his forgiveness.
I’m sorry, little brother. I know you probably thought we hated you, but we were just so busy licking our own wounds, learning not to hate ourselves or each other, it just felt like you were a reminder of how badly we’d failed at everything. Even life. We’re over that now—and we’re sorry. We’re especially sorry we left you alone to work out all that shit we worked out together.
Of course he forgave them. He couldn’t even blame them, because God, hadn’t he been just that fucked up? Hadn’t he been walking proof that some shit didn’t heal with one fuck-you to your mother as you walked out? It had been hard for all of them. Daniela had probably been another day, or week, or month away from not walking out alive. They had to forgive each other, because they had been brothers-in-arms. Sometimes brothers (and sisters) broke in the face of the enemy. If you couldn’t forgive that, you became worse than the thing you were fighting.
So that was something. Hell, that was a lot, as was the letter from his father, asking him and Jonah to come visit sometime.
He did have family. He wasn’t alone. And the family that he’d made, well, that was even better than the family that had held together somehow by will and desperation.
Kelsey was getting bigger and ornerier by the minute—and Ethan and Jonah were taking a whole lot of pleasure in helping her get ready for the baby. Tommy and Chase had bought out Toys ‘R’ Us in an effort to get ready for their baby. Tommy had ended up taking Chase’s ex-girlfriend to Lamaze classes. Jonah said he wanted to be a fly on the wall when that happened, but Ethan was getting really used to the fact that there were some things in this life you just didn’t want witnesses for. He’d wait for Tommy’s stories, thank you very much.
Ethan watched Frances four days a week while Dex and Kane went to school and Dex ran Johnnies. He felt like it was his practice for when all the babies got there—and God, had it been awesome.
He remembered his niece, Felicia, and how happy she’d been to be hugged, and how she’d been just as insistent that she was ready to play. Frances did the same thing. She snuggled into Uncle Ethan’s lap for a few minutes every hour. And then she hopped down and toddled off to go color, or to play outside on the play structure Ethan had bought for her, or to bake cookies in her play oven like her Uncas Dex and Kane.
She was headstrong, opinionated, and just as independent as her uncle—and Ethan loved every minute he spent with her. Jonah told him once that no wonder she liked it at Ethan’s during the day—she ran the place.
Ethan replied, “Yeah, that’s okay. She knows about power, and she knows she gets some. All kids should know that. It’s important.”
Jonah’s eyes grew really soft when he said that. Ethan didn’t know why—but he liked it when Jonah looked at him like that. He felt like what Jonah was always saying—like he was some sort of hero.
But today was Sunday. Dex and Kane and Frances were in their own home, although Dex had some sort of announcement about how to save Jonah and Tommy’s jobs. Their PetSmart branch was threatening to close down, and Jonah and Tommy had been stressing about it for weeks. Ethan wasn’t sure if Dex’s announcement was today or some other day, but he trusted Dex. He’d hate to be that guy that everyone hung on, though—it made him immeasurably happier that Dex was up for the job.
Kelsey was upstairs with a book and a bubble bath and a new romance DVD in the television of her room, taking advantage of her nonbaby time to pamper herself. Ethan hoped she had included a pair of earplugs in her leisure day, because Jonah got almost as loud in private as Ethan did on-screen.
And that reminded Ethan.
“So,” he said into the lazy silence as Jonah cleaned off their privates with easy strokes of the damp cloth, “I had a thought.”
“While I’m cleaning your cock? I don’t even have a thought when I’m touching that thing!”
Ethan laughed, and if he hadn’t shot his energy with his wad, he might even have blushed. “No. I mean about you moving in. That’s a real grown-up thing, you know? Like, going to school and having a real job and renting a house and shit?”
Jonah looked at him, his brow and his nose drawn together by a little thread, like he was trying to figure out where Ethan was going with this. “Yeah, sure.”
“So, we’re being grown-ups, or growing up together, right?”
“Right.”
“So maybe, being grown-ups and all, maybe it’s time I let my security blanket go.”
Jonah blinked slowly and smiled just the same way. “You mean it?”
Ethan had shot three scenes between that soggy day in January and this bright one at the end of April. The last one had been six weeks ago, and he’d asked Dex to hold off on putting him on the schedule. Dex hadn’t batted an eyelash, but he had given Ethan a quick hug and said to hold off as long as he wanted.
“Yeah,” Ethan said, not even thinking about the last scene, not even remembering who it was with. “Dex said if I need money, I can come in and hold the light or help with the camera or the editing or something. But with what he’s paying me to watch Frances and the break he’s cutting on rent and, you know, with you moving in to help—”
Jonah kissed him hard and gratefully, and Ethan just held him, thinking that Jonah’s hug right there, skin to skin, as often as possible, would be the only hug they’d need.
Well, hugs from his friends—those couldn’t stop either.
They were in the middle of that hug when Ethan’s phone went off, and he would have completely ignored it, because it was Sunday, but he heard Kelsey’s shriek of joy from the upstairs bedroom.
Her shriek was followed by the sound of pattering feet, and suddenly she knocked on his door. “Ethan, dammit, check your phone! Check your phone! C’mon, man, throw on your clothes and check your phone!”
Ethan was already up and sliding into a pair of boxers and some sleep shorts. He threw Jonah his own sleep shorts and reached for his phone.
“What is it? Is anything wrong? Oh my God, Kelsey—what’s all the fucking noise!”
He threw open the door, and Kelsey was jumping up and down in her bathrobe—which was damned hard for someone her size too.
“Oh my God, Ethan! It’s a boy!”
“Hey, Ethan!” Jonah said behind him. “Dex texted. She’s right. Mercy had the baby. It’s a boy. It’s theirs. Your friends get to be the daddies!”
Ethan whooped and picked Kelsey up in a fierce hug and then put her back down delicately. Then he turned to Jonah and whooped and picked him up too, just because he could.
“Oh my God! Awesome!” he said in some relief.
“Yeah, absolutely! We should go to the hospital, bring them their present and shit!” Kelsey and Ethan had picked out the
ir baby gift the week before.
Ethan whooped again and put Jonah down, kissing him on the top of his head as he did so. “Yeah. But let’s get them breakfast first. And”—he looked a little sheepishly at Jonah—“you know. Shower.”
Jonah grinned back, and Kelsey hugged Ethan again before running upstairs. Ethan couldn’t stop smiling, and he pulled Jonah close for one long, sensual, promising kiss before breaking it off.
“We’re getting ready now?” Jonah panted, looking a little dazed and just as sexually rapacious as Ethan had ever been accused of being.
“Yup!” Ethan crowed. “It’s always a good day for family.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AMY LANE is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can't silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She's been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn't see any reason at all for that to change.
Website: www.greenshill.com
Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167
Twitter: @amymaclane
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