The man looks like he’s about to cry as he scurries past me. I feel a flash of anger. Ethan has always been proud and confident, but the last year has torn all that away from him.
“Are you okay?” I ask as I lead him to my living room.
He collapses on the couch.
“What do I do, Georgia?” he asks desperately.
I was expecting that question. He’s asked the same thing several times over the last year, each time more urgently than the last. I wish I knew what to tell him.
“I don’t know, Ethan,” I say dutifully, as I do every time. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to find her!” Ethan says, suddenly flaring up, but I don’t even twitch. He slumps back, momentary fire gone. “No one’s telling me anything.”
I reach out and rub his back soothingly. It’s the same pattern, always, ever since Polly Truman left him one year ago. I wish I knew what to say to him, but her disappearance was as sudden to me as it was to Ethan. As far as I knew, Ethan and Polly were very much in love, both before and after Polly’s pregnancy.
Then little Lily was born and, three weeks later, Polly packed up and left, abandoning her boyfriend and daughter.
“She probably just wasn’t ready to have children,” I say. It’s a poor excuse, but it’s all I have. “Though she should have said something.”
I wish Ethan would be angry at Polly. More than once, I’ve had to hold my tongue from saying something less-than-nice about the woman, but Ethan won’t hear a word against her. He’s angry at her family who won’t tell him where Polly is. He’s angry at the situation that led to Polly leaving him. On occasion, he’s even angry at me, for being there when Polly isn’t. But he hasn’t yet gotten to the stage of being angry at the woman he loved so dearly.
Ethan sighs and slumps down on my shoulder. I try not to freeze at the feeling of his breath against my neck, but it’s hard when he’s so close. I push away my own feelings and gently run my hand through his shaggy hair, as he used to do for me when we were children.
“That’s nice,” Ethan murmurs.
He scoots in closer, his body pressed against mine. All my nerves are on edge and I feel like crying; Ethan has no idea what he does to me.
“Where’s Lily?” I ask, trying to distract myself.
“Mom has her,” Ethan sighs, his breath wisping against my over-sensitive skin. He pauses and then suddenly sits up, looking me dead in the eye. “Sorry… I didn’t even ask if you wanted me over tonight.”
“It’s fine,” I assure him. This is different, and my heart unwillingly races at the intense look on his face. “You’re always welcome.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been putting up with a lot lately,” Ethan argues. “I keep coming over and whining about Polly, and you’ve been helping me with Lily…”
“As I said, it’s no problem,” I say firmly, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You and Polly were together for four years before this. I’m not surprised you’re a mess. I want to help you get back on your feet.” His face crumples. “Ethan?”
“I’m not sure I will,” Ethan confesses. “It’s so hard; I keep expecting to wake up. I miss her so much but she isn’t there anymore. The loneliness is the hardest part, even with Lily.”
I don’t like that. I’m here, and I always will be. I turn to face Ethan and grip both his shoulders in hard hands. He looks at me in surprise.
“You’ll never be lonely,” I swear. “Not as long as I’m around.”
It’s too much, I know. The desperate love I feel for Ethan leaks into my words, and his eyes are searching mine, trying to figure out what has suddenly made me so intense. I stare back at him, willing him to understand how strong my feelings for him are; even if he never loves me the way I do him, he’ll always have a place in my heart.
I think I move first. The moment is too perfect, too overwhelming, and I can’t help myself. Ethan’s sad eyes are breaking my heart, and I want him to know that he is loved, no matter what. When I realize what I’m doing, my lips are already pressed to his.
It should have ended there. But Ethan was lonely and he needed to know that there was someone out there for him right now. His hand rises and tangles in my dark curls, pushing closer into the kiss as his mouth opens, touching his tongue to mine. Any panicked thoughts I might have had about pulling away before this gets any more awkward immediately disappear.
I’m not going to pull away from this, not when, for whatever reason, I’m finally getting something I’ve only dreamed about for years. Ethan’s hands are on me, his lips are crashing against mine and it awakes a strong, fervent lust within me, one that I’ve spent so long stamping down on.
&nb
sp; I half expect him to pull away and apologize. But he doesn’t. Instead, Ethan’s hands tighten in my hair, and the kiss becomes harder, more desperate. I kiss back with equal fervor and my hands find his shirt, scrabbling at it as I force it up over his abdomen so that I can touch more of him.
At this moment, things like Polly and Lily and what will happen next don’t matter anymore. It’s just Ethan and me, sitting on this couch, our world narrowed down to only each other.
Finally, we pull away, needing to breathe. I take in huge gulps of air, and a tiny bit of logic finally wriggles into my mind. What the hell am I doing?