Finley Embraces Heart and Home (Love Austen 4)

Was he saying . . .

I rethink all the weekends Tom stayed in Cubworthy. Ethan might have got day trips with Mum, but the rest of the time he’d been alone in a mansion.

I drop the arm from my face. That slightly square jaw is set tight and he’s frowning into space.

He shakes it off and looks down at me. “Did you leave a lot of friends behind?”

I shove myself into a sitting position and cock my head. Will he still think he’s gaining something when I tell him?

He waits for my answer, taking off his cap and sliding his fingers through his hair before resettling it.

“It’s not about how many I left behind. It’s about how much they meant to me.”

He nods. “Sure.”

“I’ll miss my boyfriend most.” My ex-boyfriend, now.

I wait for a reaction, and I’m satisfied there is one. His body shifts as if on the brink of recoiling. There. He’s changing his mind about having company.

The bed moves again and I think Ethan is getting up, but he’s still there in the corner of my eye. His cheeks are flushed.

I look directly at him and raise a brow.

He lurches to his feet and hoofs out of my room.

The hurrah inside my chest turns stodgy, and then transforms when Ethan reappears. He tosses a cordless phone and I snag it out of the air on instinct.

“Call him.”

I blink. “You want me to call him?”

“You’re, uh, upset. Maybe he makes you feel better?”

I frown at the buttons on the phone until the numbers seem gibberish. Like words do with me sometimes.

Ethan leaves, and I call Bennet, frowning at the delicate mouldings on the ceiling. He’s not so far away, and that’s comforting. I’d had big romantic ideas about long distance, but now I’m glad we decided against that. I need a friend right now, not something that might break apart just when I find my footing. He asks about Ethan. I’d told him about Tom, his concern I’d fall for his boy. We’d agreed: Tom was stupid.

And he is.

Totally.

“Fin?”

“I don’t know. He’s taller than me.”

We say our goodbyes as Ethan knocks on the doorframe, balancing a plate. At my nod, he comes in and settles it between us on the bed. It’s full of halved scones spread with jam and dollops of cream.

I pick one up and grumble, “I’m supposed to hate you, Ethan.”

His dimple pops. “I mean, you can always try to.”

Somebody to come when he called them

K. Mansfield, “Fairy Tale”

Ethan is all baseball caps and fleeting dimpled grins.

Half the summer has passed, and I still haven’t figured him out. He gets up at a despicably early hour and swims—I think. By the time I drag myself from bed, he’s finishing up an exercise routine, stretching against the wall, completely soaked with sweat and the smell of the river.

While I listen to audiobooks—earbuds in my ears, draped over the couch in our shared living area—he’s in his room. The door is always open; I see him at his desk, typing away at summer projects for school. Sometimes, I catch him looking at me. But he hurriedly looks away.

With Mum, he’s always polite, thoughtful, kind. He offers to help prepare dinners, but we’ve witnessed his absolute incompetence in the kitchen and steered him toward table-setting instead.

When it comes to Tom, he’s respectful. Their conversations are tedious, serious. Usually about how Ethan is getting along with his studies, and Ethan’s part time job at Tom’s firm. Lots of shop talk. Numbers bore me; I don’t pay too much attention.

Sometimes I think they bore Ethan too.

His shoulders curve inward every time Tom starts grilling him, and twice, when Tom’s left the room, he’s sighed.

So, like, I have this picture of him . . . but something about it feels off. Like there’s more to Ethan that nobody’s seeing.

I want to see it.

Which is the reason I’m dragging myself out of bed at fucking-hell-o’clock. His footsteps are pounding rhythmically down the stairs; I shove my shoes on, plunge into a jacket, and follow.

In the soft glow of a frosty dawn, he jogs under the pear trees in the backyard to the river at the base of the hill. The water is still and looks deep, and I watch from behind a tree as Ethan, stripped to his swim shorts, swims lap after lap. Freestyle. Butterfly.

Water glides over him, silky against the strong planes of his back. He lurches from beneath the surface with a splash and water wakes behind him, unsettled. Over and over. How many ripples can one guy make?

I stare at the disturbed water and shiver.

Ethan dives deep and then bursts up, standing. He’s all toned skin and clinging shorts. He shakes his wet hair, haloing himself in glittering droplets.

My hands press against the rough bark and a splinter weasels its way under the skin of my palm. I hiss and a twig snaps under my foot.