Ethan, Who Loved Carter (11 page)

“Where do you want to start?” Carter asked.

“I had another idea,” Ethan said. He hummed the new notes like a secret. Carter found them on his guitar and strummed until Ethan was satisfied they had a match. Then he painstakingly wrote them on the staff and showed it to Carter to check.

“Looks good,” Carter said. “I’ve been thinking of words for the second measure, the one we had some trouble with before?” He softly sang them to Ethan, who nodded, his face shining with happiness.

When Elliot finished his homework, Ethan made popcorn and they watched
White Collar
together. Carter had never seen it. Both Elliot and Ethan looked at him in disbelief when he said that.

“It’s good,” Ethan said.

Carter didn’t understand everything in the episode, but he still enjoyed it. More than that, he enjoyed watching Ethan’s reactions. Ethan laughed most at Peter the FBI agent and Neal the criminal’s good-natured interactions, and Elliot seemed to have a soft spot for Neal’s partner-in-crime, Mozzie, a little guy who was always one step ahead of the game and yet could never catch a break.

At ten o’clock, Ethan yawned. It was full-fledged, wide-mawed, and uncovered. “Tired?” Carter asked. Nodding, Ethan nuzzled against his shoulder.

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re sleeping in Mom and Dad’s room,” Elliot said. “You want me to show you?”

“Yeah.” Carter nudged Ethan off him. “Come on. Elliot says it’s bed time.”

“Uh-huh.” Still drowsy, Ethan got up with Carter and trudged after him. Carter picked up his bag and followed Elliot up the stairs with Ethan tagging behind. His room was the first at the top of the stairs. “Night,” Ethan said. Giving a nonenergetic wave, he disappeared inside.

“It’s this way,” Elliot said. Carter followed. Elliot stopped at a door adjacent to the bathroom and reached in to turn the light on, illuminating a king-size bed, white carpeting, and mahogany furniture stained dark brown. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Carter said. He watched as Elliot walked away. He’d expected Elliot to have something cutting to say now that Ethan was out of earshot, so the silent departure left him confused and a little unsettled. He didn’t know what to make of Elliot. Setting his bag down on the dresser, Carter opened it and pulled his pajamas and toothbrush out. Hooking them under his arm, he headed to the bathroom for a shower. He wasn’t a morning person and preferred showering at night. Undressing quickly, he found that the bathroom wasn’t as cold as he’d anticipated. Instead, the heat was at a cozy level, and the plush carpeting felt nice under his bare feet. He peed—the toilet revealed directions for aiming and shaking himself clean without making a mess written in marker on the inside of the lid—washed his hands, and turned his attention to the bath. The faucet had a child lock on it to prevent the water going too hot, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to turn it on. There was a metal bar attached to the shower wall. Carter’s grandmother had had one installed after she broke her hip. It took him a minute to realize this one was probably for Ethan.

Once he got into the shower, he noticed a laminated sheet of paper stuck to the wall at the end of the tub, a few inches above his head.

“Steps for a Successful Shower,” it said. Then, beneath the title:

1. Wet your hair.

2. Shampoo your hair. Rub well!

3. Rinse until water runs clear (no soap).

4. Condition your hair. Rub well!

5. Rinse until water runs clear.

6. Wet loofah.

7. Add soap.

8. Wash your body. Remember your ears, face, and privates (front and back).

9. Rinse.

10. Turn water off.

11. Towel your feet off before stepping out onto the carpet.

As Carter followed each step, he realized the list was at Ethan’s eye-level. After getting out of the shower (toweling his feet first) and putting his pajamas on, he opened the door to release some of the shower’s steam. Looking for toothpaste, Carter found another note inside the medicine cabinet called “Brushing your teeth” that started and ended with what to do with the toothpaste cap. He read it as he brushed and rinsed his mouth. The paper was yellowing and curled up at the corners. When Carter touched it, a piece broke away.

“I don’t use those anymore.”

“What?” Carter jumped back, feeling guilty for his uninvited exploration into Ethan’s life. Ethan stood in the doorway dressed for bed in his red pajamas.

“I have bad days; that’s why they’re still up. But I don’t use them much.” He moved past Carter toward the sink. “A few years ago, the house was covered in notes. I couldn’t remember the steps to do anything. I even had a note telling me to turn my alarm off in the morning.”

“A lot of people use lists.”

“Brain-damaged people.”

“Everyone.”

Ethan picked up the toothpaste and unscrewed the cap with the same care he put into every task. “I don’t think so, Carter. I never saw a regular person’s house with lists like mine.” He squeezed a pea-size amount—the same quantity the yellowing directions advised—onto his brush and put it into his mouth.

Carter watched him, but Ethan didn’t seem inclined to continue the conversation. “Goodnight,” Carter said.

Ethan waved at him over his shoulder and kept his focus on the mirror as he brushed his teeth.

Nolan and Liz had a king-size bed. Carter lay in the middle with his arms and legs sprawled wide and didn’t reach any edge. The window had dark curtains over it, but he had the door open and the hall had a window with lace curtains that let the moonlight through. Plus, the bathroom light shone from the other end of the hallway. The Harts’ bedspread smelled freshly laundered. Maybe Liz had done it earlier that day and then learned about Aunt Amelia, so she hadn’t had the chance to enjoy it. Instead, Carter would break it in. He was glad he’d showered.

He was almost asleep when Ethan appeared in the doorway, his silhouette a hulking giant blocking out the little light. Carter forced himself to sit up. “Ethan?”

“Can I sleep with you?”

“Um—” If this was a last ditch attempt to ensure Carter wasn’t a babysitter by pushing him into a role he couldn’t return from, Carter wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of it. Sure, they held hands all the time and sat together engaged in absent touches, but even if they didn’t touch, being in the same bed was still something that maybe they shouldn’t do. “Shouldn’t you go back to your own room?” Carter asked.

Ethan’s shoulders crumpled forward. “I’m sorry. I tried not to come but… but….” Carter leaned forward, trying to hear what reason Ethan refused to say.

“Mom and Dad let him sleep with them if he has a nightmare.” Elliot appeared next to Ethan. Laying a hand on Ethan’s elbow, he nudged him into the room. Ethan moved, head down and cowed as Elliot revealed his secret

“Oh,” Carter said. “That’s, that’s fine.” God, what a stupid thing to say! As if he should be giving permission for what Ethan already had a right to do! Carter was the interloper here, not Ethan. He moved to the edge of the bed and pulled the covers back. Ethan climbed in and planted his face in the pillow, refusing to look at him.

Carter imagined him in his bedroom, torn from sleep by a nightmare and not seeking comfort because he didn’t want Carter to think he was a child. How long had he stayed put before the need for reassurance sent him here?

“I get nightmares too,” Carter said. Ethan huddled deeper into the pillow. Elliot nudged Ethan until he moved over and crawled in beside him.

“You should rub his back,” Elliot said. “It helps.”

Carter could have spent hours, years, analyzing the situational change in Elliot’s behavior, or in his own willingness to take orders from the teenager who thought so little of him. But he rubbed Ethan’s back. It was chilly despite the nightmares, which always made Carter feel hot.

“Up and down, not in circles,” Ethan said.

“So you’re awake enough to boss me around?” Carter gave him a light pinch in the soft place on his side near his belly. He smoothed his hand over the spot as Ethan turned to frown at him. “Sorry. Only teasing.”

“Uh-huh.” Ethan shifted, nudging his back against Carter’s hand, like a cat wanting to be stroked.

“Okay, up and down, not in circles.” Carter made good on his promise. Ethan sighed, a good sound. Content.

Elliot leaned in close to touch his forehead to Ethan’s and whispered something to him that made Ethan wrap his arms around his brother. Carter hummed, a lullaby at first, but thinking that Ethan wouldn’t appreciate that, he switched to a song he’d played for him.

I
N
THE
morning, they woke in a bundle. Ethan in the middle, Carter’s left leg caught between Ethan’s, and Elliot’s hand wedged beneath Ethan’s stomach. Elliot woke enough to look annoyed before closing his eyes and dropping back to the pillow.

“I’m starving,” Carter said. He pushed Ethan’s bangs off his eyes. Ethan was beautiful always, but especially like this, half-asleep and peaceful. Ethan blinked up at him, languid and sleepy. His pajama top had ridden up above his stomach. Carter looked away and concentrated on sorting out his own clothes, which had been twisted up during the night too. Although he’d slept like a rock, it was pretty clear that at least one person among them had windmill tendencies.

“I can make coffee,” Ethan said.

“Okay.”

They went downstairs together. Ethan kept a hand on Carter’s shoulder. When they sat down with coffee and cheese danishes from Pepper’s, which Ethan dunked into his mug, he was silent and not smiling. Carter asked the question he’d convinced himself not to, since it wasn’t his business, about what kept Ethan up so often at night that he had a habit of needing his parents’ comfort, and that Elliot knew this tradition too.

“Red,” Ethan said in answer. “And hands.” He watched a bit of cheese melt into his coffee. “And it hurts,” he added with a cracking voice.

Silently, Carter pushed the rest of his danish toward Ethan. He didn’t know what to say. Ethan looked at it, looked at Carter.

Ethan smiled.

T
HE
nightmares always threw Ethan off balance and made him sleepy during the day and dread the night. He’d struggled to remain awake, but in the end he’d had to go into his parents’ room to sleep with Carter and Elliot.

“Ethan, are you all right?” Vera asked.

Ethan nodded. It was downtime at the shop and he’d finished wiping the tables. “My parents are gone. Carter is staying with us.”

“I could stay with you if you wanted me to.”

“No. Carter is fine.” Ethan remembered too late to look at her face to see if she wanted him to say yes, but she didn’t seem bothered.

“Are you sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Ethan.”

“
Yes
.” She wasn’t his mother. He could lie to her if he wanted.

Her face said she didn’t believe him. He pushed the hot chocolate with extra whipped cream he’d been drinking across the counter and got up. He wiped the spot where his bottom had been. “I have to go back to work.”

In the backroom, he found boxes to stack and started noting inventory. With each slash his pen made on the paper, he remembered the motion the hands in his dream made—how each movement tore him open, filled him with pain and terror. How he thought he wouldn’t wake up. He stopped, hands shaking. When the pen fell to the floor, the clatter broke him out of his daze. He picked it up, gripping it tight, and started again.
Concentrate
.

Ethan jumped when Andy touched his elbow. “My dad says people who jump are guilty of something,” Andy said.

Ethan didn’t understand why anyone would smile when they said something like that. It didn’t sound like a teasing thing to say.

“I’m not,” Ethan said.

“Okay.” Andy looked serious.

People only looked at Ethan serious or happy. People he didn’t know very well, anyway, which meant that Andy shouldn’t be looking at him that way.

Ethan snatched his towel off one of the boxes and walked back into the main shop area before he could think about Andy’s face anymore.

T
HE
second night at Ethan’s, Carter slept alone. He didn’t know if that meant Ethan hadn’t had a nightmare or if he’d managed to resist the need for comfort. By the third evening the routine had gained a comfortable security. Dinner at the table, television after, homework for Elliot, showers, and then bed.

Carter lay in bed straining his ears to hear suspect noises. He hadn’t slept well the night before between waiting for Ethan and the relative strangeness of the room. Giving up on sleep, he padded down to Ethan’s room and nudged the door open.

“Ethan?”

The comforter on the bed shifted and Ethan’s rumpled head peeked out. “Yeah?”

“Just wanted to see how you’re sleeping.”

“Fine.”

“Oh. Okay.” He had no excuse to dig his toes into the carpet and stand there like he was waiting for something.