Page 116 of Just (Fake) Married
He paid the bill. He always paid the bill, which I thought of as minor restitution for all the Calloway pain and suffering at the hands of the McGraws over the decades.
As we walked out of the café, the Darryls were coming in, and we did that thing you always do at a door, where you try to decide who goes through first. Finally, Ethan grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door and Darryl J. grabbed Darryl H.’s hand and pulled him in the door as we stood there laughing.
“Hey,” Darryl Jones said. “You guys should come over for brunch on Sunday. Darryl wants to try out a new mimosa recipe.”
“You going to make me look at your heel again?” Ethan asked Darryl H.
He held up his hands. “I promise. No shop talk.”
Ethan slipped his arm around my shoulders and said, “Then we’d love to.”
“I can’t,” I blurted out.
I don’t know why I said it, but suddenly it felt like it was too much. Amity calling us regulars, everyone in town looking to Ethan for his advice, and now a couples’ brunch?
How was I supposed to maintain any distance? How was I ever going to put my life back together once all this was behind us?
It suddenly occurred to me I was going to have to get divorced. From Ethan. And that sucked.
“You can’t?” he asked, turning towards me. “What do you have going on?”
“Jenny and Bruce,” I said, and somehow ran out of steam. “It’s bath day for them.”
Ethan looked at me and did that universal thing husbands do when they’re trying to bail their wives out of a jam. “Oh, yeah. I forgot. It is bath day. We’ll have to take a rain check, guys.”
We said our goodbyes and turned away to walk down the street. I did this small but noticeable shoulder dip, and Ethan dropped his arm.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said.
I would have liked to have said I didn’t go to his room that night. That I had some sense of self-preservation or willpower.
But just after midnight, I knocked on his door and he opened it wide for me.
No questions asked.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ETHAN
Carter: Calving season is coming. Seth? Can we count on you?
Seth: For what?
Carter: To help.
Seth: Isn’t that what hired hands are for?
Tag: Need all the free extra help we can get this year.
Ethan: It might be too soon for him to be on a horse. I had him send me his last X-rays.
Seth: Stop trying to doctor me, Ethan. I can sit a horse.
Carter: So? You coming home?
Seth: Fine. I’ll try.
