Chapter Ten - WEST
“West.”
Tori is prodding me.
“What?” I mumble, still mostly asleep.
“Wake up.”
“Why?”
“Ethan is gone again.”
“Fuck.” I lie still for a few seconds, forcing myself awake.
“I’m gonna go find him,” Tori says. “You stay here.”
“No,” I say, pulling her back into me before she can escape. “It’s an island,” I say. “How much trouble can he get in on an island?”
This is something Ethan’s been doing for a while now. It started a few weeks after we moved to Fort Collins and a part of me wonders if the move was too much for him. I mean, we did pull him from his life in New York—however messed up that was, it was still his life. And we moved him out to LA. Which is a culture shock all its own. And then a few months later, he was living in Fort Collins.
Colorado isn’t extreme in any way. It’s not New York and it’s not LA, which are the two most opposite cities in the entire US. It’s just a small-town place with looming mountains and unpredictable weather. It’s slow, and calm, and pretty. That’s it.
But he wasn’t used to slow, and calm, and pretty. He was used to big, and loud, and city.
“He could drown in the ocean,” Tori says.
“He’s a great swimmer,” I say. “He took to the ocean like he was born on Nantucket.” And then I turn to her, hug her close, and say, “We could make the most of it, ya know? Have a little sexy fun?”
“Weston Conrad!”
I swing my legs out of bed, rub my hands up and down my face, and look over my shoulder at Tori. “I’ll go find him.”
She smiles and squeezes my hand. “I know he’s fine. But he’s a little boy. We can’t let him keep doing this.”
“I know,” I say, pulling on my shorts and reaching for a t-shirt. “I get it.”
Tori sighs. “I know he thinks he’s big, but he’s not, West. He needs to learn how to be a kid.”
“I get it,” I say, deciding to go barefoot. This island is filled with sand. Probably gets filled on some kind of regular basis. Because all the pathways are white, and soft, and feel very fucking good on bare feet.
I stumble out of the cabaña and look around. It’s dark. I didn’t catch the time, and I’m not wearing my watch, but I grew up on the ocean. And one look at the stars—one look at the Pleiades high in the southern sky—tells me it’s about one AM.
I’m always the one who goes looking for Ethan at home too. I tell Tori he only goes to the porch, and most of the time he is on the porch, but I found him at City Park once. And sitting outside Shrike Bikes a second time. Both of which are about half a mile from our house.
I would’ve called the police both times, but then they’d start asking questions and… yeah. We don’t need that.
Besides, I think I get Ethan in a way that Tori doesn’t. A way that most people won’t.
So I wander down towards the closest beach first, because if I was eight again, and I was on this island, that’s exactly where I’d be.
I hear a weird humming sound before I get there and once I push past the final few palm fronds and the sea comes into view, I understand what it is.
Mr. Mysterious, lying down on the sand, staring up at the stars, singing some kind of army marching song under his breath.
“Hey,” I say, walking over to him. “What’s up?” I sink down into the sand next to him and he turns his head. Fuck, he smells like a goddamned bar.
“Drunk,” he says.
“I can see that. Why are you out here on the beach?”
“I dunno,” he slurs.
“Hmmm.” I stare at him for a second. I don’t think I know Paxton Vance all that well, but I don’t think anyone really knows him. So I don’t mind that too much. He’s a friend. For sure. He saved my ass—and Tori’s—couple times at least. So even though he’s mostly an insufferable jerk, he’s the kind of insufferable jerk you can’t help but like.
“We’re gettin’ married,” he says, after a long silence.
“Yup. You worried about that?” I ask.
“Are you?” he asks, turning his head towards me. But his eyes are closed. He’s too fucked up to even see me shrug.
“Not really,” I say. The seconds tick off and it’s pretty clear he’s not gonna offer up anything else. So I say, “But it’s weird, right?”
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “She’s probably gonna hate me in like… six months.”
“What?” I laugh. “Cindy Shrike? Dude, if ever there was a girl who could rein you in, it’s her.”
“I donwannabereinedin…” It comes out like one long, drunk word. And then he sings, just a little bit louder, “‘I wanna be an Airborne Ranger. Live me a life of blood and danger…’”
“Ah,” I say, leaning back in the sand to rest on my elbows. It makes sense now. He’s Mr. fucking Mysterious. And he’s about to get married. Which probably makes him think all that exciting shit he’s been doing for the past—well, his whole life, I guess—is now over.
I don’t really know what to tell him. Because you can’t play that game forever. Not if you want a love life. I know that better than most. Hell, I might just be plain old Mr. Corporate, but my childhood was about as mysterious as it gets.
Which reminds me of why I’m here. “You seen my kid anywhere?”
He points to the ocean. “There,” he says.
I squint my eyes and focus on where he’s pointing.
“I’m making sure he don’t drown.” Pax sighs. “Just being a good friend.”
Which makes me laugh. Like a real, honest-to-goodness laugh. “I don’t know if you’re really qualified to play lifeguard. But what the fuck is he doing?”
Ethan is nothing but a black silhouette against a gray night sky lit up by a rising moon. He’s standing on a rock, waves crashing all around him, one arm drawn back.
“Spearfishing,” Pax says, opening his eyes to look at me. Like that explains everything. “He came up. Asked me if I had a knife.”
“Why?”
“To make a fucking spear,” Pax growls. “So I gave him my knife.”
“OK,” I say, like this is all just normal shit for a Mister kid. Because it is. Ethan’s got some kind of story to tell, I’m just not sure he’s ever gonna tell it. “I guess I better go get him.”
“Prolly,” Pax says, eyes closed again. “I can’t watch everybody, Weston Conrad. I can’t. Not if I wanna be happy.”
And that explains everything too.
So I say, “You’ve been relived of duty, soldier.” And then I slap him on the stomach, which makes him groan and push me away. I stand up so I can look down at him. “Find another army to work for. This one doesn’t need you anymore.”
I walk out to the beach, swim over to the rock outcropping Ethan is standing on, and pull myself up, dripping wet.
It feels like coming home for some reason.
“Hey,” Ethan says, just before he throws his spear.
“Hey,” I say, watching it hit the target below the surface of the water.
Ethan jumps into the ocean. Fearless. Determined. He grabs his spear, and then hoists himself, and his catch, back up onto the rocks. He slides the fish off the end of the stick and it plops down into his pile.
He’s got… one, two, three, four… ten. Ten fucking fish on this pile of rocks.
“Looks like you’ve caught your quota,” I say.
He stares at me for a second, squinting in the bright moonlight, then looks at his catch and seems to do a mental calculation. “Do you think it’s enough?”
“For what?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Breakfast,” he says. Like this is obvious.
“I’m pretty sure Five and Rory have enough food for everyone. We don’t need to provide it.”
“I know,” Ethan says. And for an eight-year-old, he sure does come across like he’s walked this earth forever.
“So we’re good?” I ask. “We can go to bed now?”
He stares up at me like he really wants to say no. But then he looks out at the beach where Pax is still singing his Airborne Ranger song and says, “OK. But we can come back tomorrow, right?”
“Sure,” I say. “Sure. I’ll bring you back tomorrow to fish.”
Ethan nods at me and then produces a fishing line, hooks all his fish onto it, and hoists it over his shoulder. “Cool,” he says, jumping back into the water.
We swim back, drag ourselves out of the ocean, and head towards the bungalows.
“How old were you?” he asks.
“When?” I ask.
“When you had to fish for a living.”
“Older than you,” I say. Which is a lie. I was his age exactly. But I don’t want him to know too much about who I was back then.
“How much older?” Ethan persists.
“A few years.”
“And that’s when you found that gold?”
Shit. “Where’d you hear about that?”
“I heard Oliver talking to Katja a while back.”
I search my memory for when he’d have that opportunity and come up blank.
“I snuck out,” Ethan says, like he’s reading my mind. “And I was over at Oliver’s house.”
Oliver lives down the street from Shrike Bikes. And suddenly I realize, I have no idea what my son does at night. “Did they know you were there?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says through a smile. “I’m sneaky when I wanna be.”
“Very.” I laugh. “But it’s late, Ethan. And I need to think about this for a little bit before we talk anymore. So do you think—for your mother’s sake—you can stop being sneaky until we have that talk?”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because she’s worried about you.”
He stops walking. Which makes me stop walking. And he says, “Are you worried about me?”
My entire childhood flashes before my eyes as I think about his question. All the things I did. The people I was around. The danger, and the excitement, and the mystery.
And I decide… “No. No, I’m not that worried, Ethan.”
“Good,” he says, starting to walk again. “Because I can take care of myself. I like you guys, so I stick around. But I don’t need you guys.”
I watch him go. Just stand there on the path and watch him go. He disappears through the jungle of palm trees and tropical ferns.
“Yeah,” Pax says, stumbling up to me. “He’s here because he wants to be. And there’s nothing you can do to change that, West.” And then it’s his turn to slap me in the gut. “Because that kid is just like us. We were born this way. This is just who we are. And putting him in a pretty house, on a peaceful street, and giving him parents can’t change that.”
I watch him disappear through the trees too. Wondering if there’s any hope for us at all. Have we been through too much? Did we fuck it all up years ago and there’s no going back?
I mean, look at us. Even perfect Mr. Perfect is struggling with normal life. Nolan is in way over his head with that baby girl, everyone can see it. I’ve adopted a kid who’s lived through something big, and he’s never gonna forget it. Mysterious is already missing his old life and the new one hasn’t even started. And Match… Match is trying to pretend nothing’s happening. Nothing to see here. Everything’s great.
But it’s all an illusion, isn’t it?
Just one. Big. Fat. Lie.