CHAPTER SEVEN

Ethan didn’t touch himself. He wanted to, when he was on the sofa half-watching a nature documentary, when he finally went to bed. He wanted to when he woke up in the morning. But it felt wrong, because Max hadn’t said he could do it.

He hadn’t said he couldn’t do it, either, and it was driving Ethan up the wall. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. He thought about calling Max and asking him if he could touch himself, but the very idea of that seemed absolutely preposterous. He was a fully-grown man. If he wanted to touch himself, he could damn well do it.

Except he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and by the time the next day had rolled around, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He went to the gym to try and burn as much energy as he could, got home and sat down on the sofa in front of the television. He was about to go in the shower when his phone rang.

He couldn’t help but smile when he saw that it was Max calling. “Hello?”

“Hey, Ethan,” Max said. “Are you busy?”

Ethan cocked his head. There was something in Max’s voice, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Rarely,” he replied. “Are you coming over?”

Max laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. “No,” he said. “I just need to talk to you for five minutes.”

“Okay…”

“Listen,” Max said. “I just had a call from the governor’s office.”

Ethan furrowed his brow. Whatever this was, he was sure it couldn’t be good. “Right.”

“He wants to withdraw his endorsement,” Max said. “There are other, stronger candidates. He feels they would have a better chance at winning than me.”

“That’s… he told you this?”

“No,” Max said with a chuckle. “Not at all. The governor doesn’t talk to me. It was Claudio and he seemed pissed.”

“Why?”

Max sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “He’s been pushing for me to be state’s attorney for a long time now. I think he thought I would be good.”

Ethan waited. He didn’t know what to say.

“But there’s this other person, and apparently, the governor prefers her over me,” Max continued. “She has been a… long-term contributor.”

Ethan shook his head. “That’s so shit, Max,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Max replied. “Well, it’s not, it means I can’t win. There’s no way I can get around this, you know? Without the governor’s support, I’m just an unknown lawyer.”

Ethan nodded. He closed his eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Max said.

“Why do you even care?” Ethan asked. “I mean, you’re successful, you’re rich… why would you want be state’s attorney? Is it just a step toward public office?”

“No,” Max replied. “I mean, yes, I do want to be a politician, but mostly because I think I could actually help people. Our state’s attorney is egregiously bad, with a host of diversity problems. I’m not saying I can solve everything, but I really do want to try and make a difference.”

Ethan sighed. He hadn’t expected an answer like that from Max. He wasn’t sure what to expect from Max at all, but it was become more and more clear that he needed to get rid of all the assumptions he’d made about Max in the first place.

The guy might have been an arrogant fuckwad, but Ethan, despite himself, couldn’t help but like him. “Shit, man,” he finally replied. “I’m sorry about that. Is there anything I can do?”

“No!” Max exclaimed, then cleared his throat. “Sorry, no. There isn’t anything you can do. You really don’t have to get involved.”

“Are you sure?” Ethan said, straightening up.

“Yes,” Max replied. “That’s not why I called.”

Ethan closed his eyes. He suddenly had a headache. For some reason, his head was throbbing. He didn’t want to ask Max why he had called, he suspected that he already knew the reason. “Oh?”

“Ethan,” Max said.

Ethan opened his eyes. It was the first time Max had said his name, ever, maybe, and Ethan could feel a shiver of electricity going down his spine. It was just his name, but it felt like a kiss, like a current of electricity had washed over his body, from his head to the tips of his fingers. “What?”

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said. “We can’t keep seeing each other.”

“Because you don’t need me anymore,” Ethan said.

“Yes,” Max replied, matter-of-factly. “And that makes me less okay with what you need me for.”

Ethan shook his head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m okay with being a stand-in for someone that’s gone if I’m getting something out of it,” Max said. “But right now, well… the only thing I’d get out of it is you.”

“And that’s a problem,” Ethan said. He was trying to laugh, but it wasn’t happening.

“Yes,” he said. “Because I like you a lot. I can’t do this.”

“Max…” Ethan said. He was surprised at the supplicant tone in his voice, at how upset he was by the idea that he would never get to see Max again.

“Sorry, darling,” Max said. “Nothing personal. Just wrong place, wrong time, right? I’ll see you around.”

Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Max had ended the call.

***

“We should get married,” Ethan had said. Alois had his head on Ethan’s lap, reading a book, while Ethan was half-watching a movie and playing with Alois’ long hair.

Alois had laughed. “Is that a proposal?”

“No,” Ethan had said, furrowing his brow and looking down at Alois. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“That was shit, Ethan,” Alois had said. “If you’re going to propose, I expect you to do it properly.”

“Properly, huh?”

“Yes,” Alois had replied. “With the appropriate pomp and circumstance.”

“I never realized you were such a gold digger, babe,” Ethan had replied as Alois had sat up and kissed him on the mouth.

“You know me,” Alois had said. “I need that sweet cash before I settle down.”

“Fair enough,” Ethan said. “And if I propose, are you going to say yes?”

Alois had laughed. “Now that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?”

***

Ethan thought about turning the car around several times, but as he got closer and closer to his sister’s apartment, he continued to steel himself. He was going to go in there and demand answers. Kelsey had already taken so much from him. Now it felt like he had endeavored to take the little bit of happiness he had managed to get back into his life.

Ethan doubted it was personal, but it still felt intensely personal. It felt like something, in any case, and it had been a long time since anything had felt like something to Ethan.

He hadn’t remembered just how much he liked it until it was happening. The prospect of losing Max, as weird as their relationship was, made Ethan feel a little bit of panic. Okay, more than a little bit of panic.

More panic than he wanted to admit.

Kelsey had already attempted to ruin his sister’s life and Ethan wasn’t going to let him do the same thing to him. He parked on the street and started to walk upstairs, ready to tear into Kelsey. He knocked on the door, loudly, and was bracing himself to shout when he saw who had opened the door.

“Uncle Ethan!” his niece said, her long brown her up in a bun. “Mom didn’t say we were expecting you.”

Ethan fisted his hands at his sides. He certainly couldn’t do anything with his niece there. She had nothing to do with any of this shit.

“Hey, Ava,” he said, hugging her. “No, it’s a surprise. Are your parents home?”

Ava shook her head. “No,” she said. “They’re at some sort of political luncheon. I’m supposed to be holding down the fort.”

“Aren’t you a little young?”

“I’m thirteen,” she protested with a pout.

“Okay, okay, my bad,” he said as he walked in. “Well, I came to talk to your parents, but I guess can wait for them. Did they leave you food?”

“They did,” Ava said. “But I don’t know…”

Ethan shook his head. “We’ll order in,” he said. “And watch some Netflix movies. How does that sound?”

“I have homework,” Ava said.

“Great,” Ethan replied, smiling at her. “Then I’ll help you with it after the movie. Okay?”

Ava smiled at him. “Okay,” she said. “That sounds good.”

A couple of hours later, Rosemary and Kelsey walked through the door. Ethan was busy cleaning the kitchen and Ava was on the kitchen island, getting through the last of her homework. Rosemary and Kelsey were laughing as if everything was normal, as if the two of them still had that loving marriage Ethan had admired so much when he was just out of college.

They both stopped when they saw him. His gaze darted between Rosemary and Kelsey. He wasn’t sure who he was supposed to start with and it seemed like his throw punches first ask questions later approach wasn’t going to work with his impressionable young niece there.

“Hey,” he said, trying his best to make his voice sound neutral. “I hope you don’t mind the surprise visit.”

Rosemary smiled at him. “No,” she said. “You’re always welcome here.”

Ethan looked at Kelsey, but he hadn’t said anything. The man was twice Ethan’s size, corpulent, robust, with thick black hair and eyebrows to match. He was as scary as he was good-looking.

At least he had been, Ethan thought, before everything about what he had done had come out.

“Can I talk to you?” Ethan heard himself saying.

Rosemary glanced at them, but she didn’t say anything.

Kelsey nodded, rather curtly, and Ethan followed him until they got to his office. He noticed that Kelsey hadn’t said anything, even as he closed the door behind him. He crossed his arms before Ethan started to talk to him, a smile spreading on his face. “I can guess why you’re here.”

Ethan watched him, saying nothing. Kelsey glanced at the wine glass Ethan had in his hand, the one he picked up as he had walked away from the sink.

“I see you made yourself comfortable,” Kelsey continued.

“I was looking after your child,” Ethan said. “Which you could have easily asked me to do, but you decided to leave her alone instead.”

Kelsey glared at him. “We were only gone a few hours,” he said. “Ava can easily take care of herself.”

“Well, I still want to see my niece,” Ethan said, more to himself than to Kelsey.

Kelsey scoffed. “That’s not true,” he said. “If you had wanted to see Ava, you would have. All these years—”

“That’s not fair,” Ethan said. “You know that’s not fair.”

Kelsey rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Your sister needed you, Ethan,” she said. “When everything happened. You abandoned her and—”

“I abandoned her?” Ethan said, his voice so loud it almost made him wince. “You were supposed to look after her while I was dealing with my own shit, Kelsey. I couldn’t even get out of bed, and then we find out you’re sleeping with a bunch of prostitutes behind her back?”

“Ethan—”

“I wanted to be there for her,” Ethan said, tears welling up in his eyes. “But I could hardly get out of bed. And you, you think you’re our savior, right? You think your daughter doesn’t notice. You think your wife isn’t hurt. You think we’ll all just get over it and be one big happy family, but you broke us.”

Kelsey’s eyes narrowed. “You might want to blame me all you want, Ethan, but I didn’t break you.”

Ethan opened his mouth to answer, but Kelsey waved his hand in front of his face.

“And yes, I made a mistake—”

“A mistake?”

“One I’ve paid dearly for,” Kelsey continued. “I’ve been to therapy, Ethan, I’ve dealt with my shit. Every single day, I try to make things up to my wife and daughter. And by the way, before you ask, yes, Max Walker was an attempt to make things right with my wife.”

“What?”

“She was so worried about you,” Kelsey said. “She kept saying that we should find you someone. She worries more about you than she does about me, Ethan.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I know,” Kelsey said. “I told her you weren’t good enough. Then Max Walker called me to tell me he wanted to drop out and I knew it had to be you. Now you’re trying to worm your way back into Rosemary’s life and I—”

Ethan felt like everything had become dull and gray around him, like everything had lost all its color. “What?”

Kelsey chuckled. “Rosemary might not notice, Ethan, but I’ve always been able to tell when you’re being a manipulative asshole,” he said. “Alois made you better, but then—”

“Don’t you fucking dare say his name,” Ethan said. He hadn’t realized that he had crossed the space between them and was holding his brother-in-law by the scruff of his neck, pushing him up against the wall of his little office.

Kelsey was smirking at him. He didn’t have to say anything, Ethan could see the smug look in his eyes, the way he seemed to think that Ethan had just proven him right.

Ethan let go of him, his hand moving away from Kelsey’s shirt quickly, like he had just burned him. Kelsey stared at him. “Get out of my house, Ethan,” Kelsey said, slowly, quietly.

Ethan swallowed. He nodded and turned around to open the door, trying to ignore how dizzy he felt.