Ethan, Who Loved Carter (5 page)

“Where’s that?” Nolan asked.

“Tennessee.” He lowered his hand under the dining counter that separated them and snuck out a few twitches as Nolan and Liz examined him.

“You don’t have an accent,” Liz said.

“Well, my puh-par-parents are from Illinois and they didn’t really want me to have one, so I guess I got drilled a lot on s-sounding more general Mi-mi-midwestern.” Under their scrutiny he couldn’t relax enough to speak.

Nolan and Liz nodded at him as if he were the most interesting person in the world. He twitched from his shoulders down to his wrists. “I don’t know if, in case you’re wondering about why I, there’s nothing wrong with me, I have, um….” He couldn’t stop babbling. He had to be red with embarrassment from the verbal spatter coming out of his mouth.
Just say the word
. “The twitching and, I, um.”

“You have Tourette’s. We know.” Carter sagged in relief when Liz saved him from saying it.

“Ethan told you?”

“I’m a teacher,” Liz said. “I see it more often than you’d think.”

Carter sucked his lip trying to calm down. It was always fucking nerve-racking to talk about. Moments like this happened so rarely that they left him just as winded, although from relief rather than stress. “Um. About those chips?”

“In the cupboard behind you,” Liz said. Carter bent to get them, glad for the chance to escape examination.

“Are you a turkey man or roast beef?” Nolan asked.

“Turkey, please,” Carter said. “With mustard.”

“Coming right up.”

Carter opened up the cabinet door. Each shelf had several typed labels on its edge that delineated the items above it. The chips sat in their appointed spot. Carter pulled the bag down.

“Where’s Ethan?” Liz asked. She took the bag.

“He’s in the bathroom. Um, there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.” Liz and Nolan shared a glance. Sometimes the secret language of couples made Carter jealous; sometimes it made him hurt. Carter took a breath. He could get through his embarrassing confession if he dove right in. “Last night when Ethan was over, I was playing my guitar and he started singing and… I kissed him.” Carter stared at the counter, waiting for the justified outrage to come.

“We know,” Nolan said.

Carter looked up. “You do?”

“He told us last night.”

“You aren’t angry?”

Nolan put the butter knife down. “Honestly? We’re glad you came to talk to us. It shows you’re a good person, and we appreciate that. As much as we want to, we can’t control our sons’ lives, so it’s good to know you’re a friend who is concerned for Ethan’s well-being.”

Carter let this sink in. “I didn’t mean to do it. I got carried away. He really was, I mean last night, we were having such a good time, and happy, and I wanted to share it, I guess. I’m so, so sorry. I swear to you it won’t happen again.” Liz and Nolan regarded him with twin expressions of amusement. It was as far away from Carter’s expectations as possible.

“You know, Carter,” Liz said after a beat, “Ethan is a twenty-seven-year-old man. He’s sexually active.”

“But he’s not—” Her expression stopped him from carrying that thought further.

“A lot of people ask what his mental age is, but we don’t like to think in those terms. He looks at situations in black and white, and he needs help finding gray areas and navigating through them. Some physical and mental things he does pretty well, but there are a lot of things he needs assistance with, and some he can’t do at all. He has feelings that are more astute than anyone I know. He deserves to be loved by someone who understands that he lives in a world of absolutes when all around him nothing is certain, because it’s scary for him, and he needs to be cared for. We’ll be honest with you, Carter. He hasn’t had much luck finding the right person yet.”

Nolan nodded as Liz spoke. “We’ve had to lecture him a few times about having sex. He tends to think that if he’s got an erection and the other boy is cute and willing, sex is a good idea. We’ve hammered into him that he has to use condoms and be in a private place, but it’s difficult to make him understand that horniness is not the end-all excuse to have sex.” He paused. “Actually, we have the same problems getting Elliot to understand that. Must be a boy thing.” Nolan and Liz shared a chuckle. Nolan turned back to Carter. “Does Ethan think you’re dating now?”

“He did.”

“I can sit down with him.”

“No, I… I already did. We straightened it out. I think he’s upset with me, but he agreed we could still be friends.”

“He did speak highly of you last night.”

Carter’s hand flew out from his side to smack his shoulder.

“Not about the kiss, although I understand that was quite a moment,” Nolan said.

“Oh God.” Carter buried his face in his hands in a futile attempt to muffle his embarrassment.

Nolan laughed. Liz smacked him on the back of the head. He brushed her away and squeezed her hand. “We’re glad you told us,” Nolan said. “And we are glad that you’re Ethan’s friend, in whatever capacity that might take.”

Carter’s eyes stung. Liz held the cooler out. “Why don’t you take this to the van? We’ll round up Ethan and Elliot.”

Grateful, Carter escaped before he lost himself to emotion. He sat in the Harts’ minivan alone, trying to figure out what the heck had happened. He and Ethan were still friends, even if Ethan was upset. Ethan’s parents hadn’t come after him; they’d endorsed him. Now they were all going to the beach. Too preoccupied for control, he gave himself over to a barrage of tics. He wrapped his arms around himself when he finished, needing the feeling of being held together and having his limbs tucked in close to his body again.

The Harts emerged from the house in friendly chaos. Elliot came first, alone, hands shoved in his pockets and earbuds in his ears. He didn’t hold the door, but Liz caught it and said something to him Carter couldn’t hear. Elliot turned and shrugged. He ignored Carter when he got into the van and climbed into the backseat where he pulled his phone from his pocket. Liz took the front passenger seat.

“Doing okay?” Twisting around, she patted Carter’s leg.

“Yeah.” Nolan and Ethan’s arrival interrupted further conversation. Ethan crowded in next to Carter as Nolan got into the driver’s seat.

“You’re going to help with the sand castle, right?” Ethan asked. “We always make one.”

“Ethan, let us get on the road before you hit Carter with your plans,” Nolan said.

“You’ll help, right?” Ethan repeated.

Carter glanced at Nolan, who gave a small shrug, not dissimilar to Elliot’s from a few moments earlier. “Yeah, I’ll help.”

“You can carry water. We have a pail.”

“Okay.”

“How long has it been since you’ve been to the beach?” Liz asked.

“Too long,” Ethan said.

“I was asking Carter.”

“Oh.”

“I went once last year,” Carter said.

“This beach is good,” Ethan said. “You’ll like it.”

It was an hour’s drive to get there. Along the way, Ethan laid out his plan for the sand castle, so by the time they arrived everyone had a job toward its achievement. They parked and headed down to the beach. Carter helped Liz and Elliot carry beach bags and towels. Ethan stood beside the van with his sunglasses and hat on as Nolan rubbed a streak of sunscreen on his nose. Reaching out, he caught Elliot too.

“Dad!” Elliot faux-slapped his hand away.

“Carter?” Nolan held the bottle out.

“Thanks.” Carter reached for it. At the last second, Nolan yanked the bottle away and swiped Carter’s nose, leaving a dollop on the bridge. Carter froze, uncertain what to do at the unexpected familiarity. Liz, Nolan, and Ethan’s smiles were infectious, so Carter gave into them and laughed. Elliot stood off to one side with his phone.

“Sorry,” Nolan said, amused, and tossed Carter the sunscreen. Carter rubbed it on his face and ears and dropped it into the bag he was carrying. Ready at last, they walked toward the beach. At the pavement’s end, Ethan took Nolan’s arm.

Carter hadn’t noticed Ethan’s limp before. Granted, they’d only walked on the pavement between their houses, but on the sand it was obvious. Ethan held onto Nolan and tottered across the uneven drifts like a duckling. He chose the place to stop, a patch of sand a few yards away from the ocean.

Taking the beach toy bag, Ethan handed out items. He gave a plastic spade to Elliot and a bucket to Carter. Nolan and Liz spread their towels out.

“We’re going to enjoy the sun first,” Liz said. “We’ll help with the castle later.”

“You said you’d help, though,” Ethan said.

“We will,” Nolan said. “You boys get started without us. Mom and I need a little quiet time.”

“Ethan, come on,” Elliot said. “You have to show me where you want the corners.”

“Well, okay I guess. As long as you help later.” Ethan looked disappointed, but he turned back to the area he’d set out. Elliot was already on his knees digging out the perimeter. Kneeling opposite him, Ethan indicated how far it should go. Carter got down to work on his assignment as water delivery boy with Ethan’s bright pink bucket (“The only one the store had left when I got it,” Liz confided. “It was a buy-or-face-the-meltdown situation.”).

Liz and Nolan pitched in after the walls reached four inches in height. By five o’clock, they had a moat and four seven inch high walls, and Ethan had started the first turret.

“My stomach’s rumbling,” Nolan said. “Time to eat?”

“I’m hungry.” Ethan rubbed his belly.

Clapping his hands, Nolan rose. “Let’s go eat!”

There was a picnic area up the beach. Ethan went over to a couple nearby to ask them to watch the sand castle while he was away. After gaining their promise, he returned. Instead of taking Nolan’s arm, he stood next to Carter and looked at him expectantly until Carter held his elbow out like Nolan had. Grinning, Ethan looped his arm through. “This might be hard because you’re short, but I need you for balance, not to hold me up or anything.”

“I’m not short; you’re tall,” Carter said. He’d taken his shirt off, but Ethan still wore his. It brushed against Carter’s skin as they walked. Reaching out with his free hand, Carter grabbed a bit of loose fabric. He let go before he could decide if the movement had been a tic or something he’d wanted to do. Ethan grabbed his hand back and put it on his stomach.

“It’s okay if you want.”

“Sorry.” Carter took his hand away. “Your shirt was tickling me.”

“Oh. Okay.” Ethan didn’t speak for a few minutes as they continued their slow trek to the picnic tables. Then he stopped and pulled Carter in even closer until their foreheads touched. “Can I show you something?”

“Sure.” Glancing up the beach, Carter saw the others a fair distance away. Ethan pointed to the sky.

“Look.”

Carter looked. The sun had moved off its midday highpoint to begin its descent. The sky was a pale blue with broad clouds spaced among it.

“Can you hear it?” Ethan asked.

Realizing what was happening, Carter paused. Ethan was sharing his gift with him, his ability to hear music in everything. He stared up at the clouds. “Show me how.”

“It’s in between,” Ethan said. “Listen for the spaces.”

Carter closed his eyes. He listened to the wind and the ocean. And then, there, in the space between the water lapping the coast and the seagulls’ cries, he heard it. Silence. And in the silence, anything. Infinite possibility. Grabbing Ethan, he opened his eyes. “I heard it.”

Ethan’s eyes grew wide. “What did it sound like to you?”

“It sounded like… everything.” He yelped in surprise when Ethan pulled him into a hug.

“I knew you’d understand. It’s because you’ve got your own music.” Breaking away, he patted Carter’s chest. “People who don’t have it, they don’t understand. But that’s the problem.” Ethan took his arm again and started walking. “Everyone has their own music; they just don’t realize it. But you do.” He grinned at Carter.

“I didn’t until you showed me,” Carter said. “Thank you.”

“I knew it was in you, that’s why I liked you from when I saw you. And you’re cute too.”

Carter hid his embarrassment behind a cough as Ethan beamed at him. “Ethan, we’re just friends, remember?”

“Yeah.” Ethan’s smile didn’t falter. “There aren’t any rules against saying you’re cute, are there?”

“No. I guess not. Okay.” To disguise his embarrassment, Carter gave Ethan a light punch on his arm. “Good.”

The picnic area was near a caravan where Ethan knew everyone, if the number of jubilant shout-outs to him was anything to go by. “Horatio!” Ethan yelled out to a tall chest-tatted thirty-something man with dreads and a goatee who came over for a hug. He had a waifish teenage Asian boy plastered to his side. “Hey, Frankie!” Ethan said to the boy. “You have to meet Carter!” Ethan hugged Horatio and Frankie at once. From a safe distance away from the full-throttle greeting, Carter stuck his hand up. Frankie gave Carter an impish smile and Ethan a kiss on the cheek, which made Ethan red with blustery delight. Horatio greeted the rest of Ethan’s family with familiarity and soon tucked into the spread with them. Frankie squeezed up to the table next to Carter.

“Hey man, you surf?”

“No.”

Carter expected the conversation would end there, but Frankie looked aghast. He placed a comforting hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You will.”

Before Carter could assure him that he was quite fine on the land, thank you, a trio of women landed on Ethan and smothered him in kisses. Jules, Sal and Rolla, hastily introduced, dragged lawn chairs over. As Liz handed out sandwiches, Carter understood why the family had brought two picnic baskets. He wanted to make a joke about Jesus feeding the masses, but Ethan had told him his family was Jewish after noticing Carter’s Bible, so he didn’t know if they’d be familiar with the reference.

Ethan sat down next to Carter. He opened his sandwich and spread chips over the meat. Carter showed him that he’d done the same. They shared a secret smile. Secret until Ethan announced that Carter ate his sandwich with chips too, and Carter had to laugh.

“What’s funny?” Ethan asked.

“You even make sandwiches exciting.”