“You weren’t jealous, were you?” Ethan gave me a playful, smirking smile, which I immediately turned away from as my face warmed up. He laughed again. “You were!”
“No, I was not,” I said, defending myself even when I knew it wasn’t true. “I just thought it was rude when you were obviously there with a date.”
“Miss Manners probably wouldn’t have approved.” Ethan nodded. “I think my mom would have liked you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because manners were very important to her,” he said. “She was always telling me to be careful of what I said and did because I could affect other people. Then she’d bring out a storybook about bullying or something to make her point. I swear she had a kid’s book for every social situation there was. Shit, they’re probably all still in the library somewhere.”
Ethan looked down at his hands for a minute, then jumped up and started clearing away the food containers and putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. He was quiet for a while, and I wondered if he was still thinking about his mother, and then I remembered the book he had been holding when I first found him in the library.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you like me to, um, read Dune to you?” I asked, not sure if this was really a good idea or not. The offer alone could bring up memories of his mother, and he might have had enough of thinking about her. I could also have been insulting him.
“Are you serious?” Ethan turned and stared into my eyes, his expression one of shock.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, if you would like to hear it, anyway. You wouldn’t have to, I just thought…”
“Could I hold it while you read it?” he asked, his voice holding the slightest tone of desperation.
“I think that would work.”
“Yes, please.” Ethan’s voice was a raspy whisper. I looked closer at him and realized there were tears in his eyes. “No one’s ever…um…wow…”
Ethan dropped down onto one of the kitchen chairs with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?” I asked, sitting next to him.
“Yeah,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. I haven’t talked about any of this for a while. I guess it kind of brings it all back.”
“Ethan, don’t apologize.” I reached over and took his hands in mine, pulling them away from his face. I leaned in and kissed his tear-stained cheekbone. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”
I kissed the other cheek, then his lips. He coiled his arms around my waist and he pulled my body up against his.
“Can we start now?” Ethan asked.
“Sure," I replied, “if you want to.”
“Please,” he said.
He grabbed my hand and led me down the hallway to the library. I sat in the oversized chair first, and Ethan positioned himself between my legs, scooting himself down a bit so he could rest his head against my shoulder. I slipped one arm underneath Ethan's, wrapping it around his side to hold the book. He turned his head to look up at me and smiled a delicious smile—so delicious I had to taste it before I could begin the actual reading.
Ethan moved his head back to its place on my shoulder, wrapped his fingers around mine, and we held the book together. I turned past the title page to the first chapter.
“A beginning is the time for
taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows…”
I read for almost two hours before we decided to take a break so Ethan could smoke, and I could run to the bathroom. I came out and walked into the great room, raising my arms up over my head and stretching a bit. We had been sitting in one place for a long time, and I was a little sore. I saw the large glass of water left over from dinner still sitting on the kitchen table and went to quench my dry-from-reading throat.
The sliding door of the balcony opened and Ethan came back in, tossed his pack of cigarettes on the table near the couch, and came up behind me. He trailed his fingers over my sides and around my stomach.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for that,” he said, placing his chin on my shoulder.
“You don’t have to,” I told him. “I love reading, and I’d never read that one before.”