25
I’ve also set my alarm for four thirty because I’m the mother and the person with the responsibility to get home. When it goes off, it’s still dark out, and I briefly don’t know where I am. I get up and find my way to the bathroom. I splash water on my face and finger-comb my hair.
When I come out of the bathroom, my dry clothes are waiting, folded on the made bed. He’s left me a toothbrush and I am oddly moved by this, another adult thinking of my needs and comfort. I hold the toothbrush in my hand like it’s an engagement ring.
I get dressed and find Ethan in the kitchen. He’s sitting at the counter, drinking coffee and opening his mail, and I don’t know how to approach him. Can I walk right over to him and put my arms around him, riding the momentum of last night? He looks up from his mail and smiles. “Hey,” he says, and I get a melty feeling all over.
“Hey,” I say, and don’t move.
“There’s coffee, but no milk,” he says.
“That’s fine.” Coffee gives me a reason to move my feet. I pour myself half a cup and stand on the other side of the kitchen island. There are three feet between us, but it feels like more.
“Thank you for drying my clothes,” I say, finally. “I left yours on the bed.”
He smiles at me, so comfortable here in his body, his home, his town. “Come here.” I don’t know why I need the invitation, but I do. He pulls me into a hug and it feels dangerously good. He kisses my hair and then takes a big breath. “I need to get you home, and for some reason I’m super worried about your kids seeing me drop you off, walk-of-shame style. So let’s get moving.”
“You can fall asleep,” he says once we’re on the highway.
“I would never. That’s such bad passenger etiquette.”
“Okay, good, then tell me some things.”
“I feel like you know all my things. You’re my fake lawyer and I cry in front of you all the time.”
“True.” He’s quiet and I watch him watch the road. He catches me looking and smiles. “I promise I’m going to get you home on time.”
I like that he’s worried about it. There’s no traffic and we should get home with enough time to spare that I can shower and change and get myself back to normal. But I have a feeling there’s no getting back to normal.
As we drive in the dark, dogs snoring in the back, the sun rises slowly over the long ribbon of highway. I feel like we are sealed in our own world, and things are easy between us again. In the same way that I talk to my mom, I just say things to Ethan. I tell him about my mom’s illness and how badly I handled everything. I tell him that I knew my marriage was over before I was pregnant with Cliffy, but I wasn’t ready to know it. We talk about Frannie. He says he’s grateful that she wants to run the diner because he never would. He confesses that he’s never liked her signature sandwich, ham on a biscuit.
What we don’t talk about is last night. Something monumental inside of me has cracked open, and he’s the only other person who knows. I want to say, Wow. So, last night was kind of intense, right? and have him agree with me that taking this to the next level is a great idea. I want him to hold my hand while he drives.
Instead, I say, “You’re really going to sell the house?”
“I am,” he says.
“You never feel like you want to be a Hogan and live in the center of town and pick up where your parents left off?” Last night I fell asleep imagining waking up in that house with Ethan. And going to bed in that house with Ethan.
“Exactly never.”
“Huh.” I turn my body completely toward him. “Why not? You’re all grown up now, and you know who you are.”
He hesitates before he speaks, concentrating on the road. “Devon feels like solid ground. Back in Beechwood, I feel like I’m in quicksand.”
“You feel pretty solid to me.”
“With you, yes. For sure.” He takes my hand and turns back to the road. “But I finally have a life that I feel good about. I’m not going to walk away from it to run the inn or whatever.”
“Do they want you to run the inn?”
“Oh my God, are you kidding? Besides me being a high school quarterback, that’s pretty much always been their big dream. Bigger than the corporate law job and the two point five kids. Frannie at the diner, me at the inn. The thought of it makes me feel like I’m disappearing.” He laughs.
I sit with this for a second. I try to imagine being Ethan and living in Beechwood and finally giving in to his parents’ vision of his life.
“Is that so weird it’s made you go mute?” he asks.
“No. I get it. You have a life up there that’s your own. And if you stayed in Beechwood, you’d lose that part of yourself.”
It’s nine fifteen when we pull into my driveway. I want to invite him in, which is ridiculous because my kids could be home at any time. I turn to him and try to think of something to say, because I don’t want to get out of the car.
“You should go in,” he says.
“I guess.” He should kiss me now. We are at that part of the movie. Overnight date and a kiss goodbye. I don’t like thinking there’s a possibility that he’s watching a different movie than I am.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he says.
“You have a good life up there.”
“I’m glad you saw that, thanks. Sometimes I think my family thinks I’m crazy.”
“They definitely think you’re crazy.”
He laughs, and then we’re just sitting there looking at each other. It’s like when you’re a teenager talking on the phone with your boyfriend in the dark and neither of you wants to hang up.
“You should go in,” he says again. He leans in and kisses me softly, just the press of his lips against mine. It’s a we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world kiss, but I am aching for all of it, the rest of it, right now.
“Of course,” I say, and undo my seat belt. “Thanks again. And for dinner.” I reach into the backseat to grab Ferris, and Ethan walks around to open my door and help us out.
As I walk into my house, there’s a knowing coming at me all at once, and I don’t really want to take it in. This is not going to be a lighthearted summer romance where we ride bikes with ice cream cones in our hands. It’s going to be the kind where the waves crash over us as we feverishly make love on the sand. It has a different soundtrack, but it ends the same.