Ethan, Who Loved Carter by Ryan Loveless Page B

which had been twisted up during the night too. Although he’d slept like a rock, it was pretty clear that at least one person among them had windmill tendencies.
    “I can make coffee,” Ethan said.
    “Okay.”
    They went downstairs together. Ethan kept a hand on Carter’s shoulder. When they sat down with coffee and cheese danishes from Pepper’s, which Ethan dunked into his mug, he was silent and not smiling. Carter asked the question he’d convinced himself not to, since it wasn’t his business, about what kept Ethan up so often at night that he had a habit of needing his parents’ comfort, and that Elliot knew this tradition too.
    “Red,” Ethan said in answer. “And hands.” He watched a bit of cheese melt into his coffee. “And it hurts,” he added with a cracking voice.
    Silently, Carter pushed the rest of his danish toward Ethan. He didn’t know what to say. Ethan looked at it, looked at Carter.
    Ethan smiled.

Chapter Nine

     
    T HE nightmares always threw Ethan off balance and made him sleepy during the day and dread the night. He’d struggled to remain awake, but in the end he’d had to go into his parents’ room to sleep with Carter and Elliot.
    “Ethan, are you all right?” Vera asked.
    Ethan nodded. It was downtime at the shop and he’d finished wiping the tables. “My parents are gone. Carter is staying with us.”
    “I could stay with you if you wanted me to.”
    “No. Carter is fine.” Ethan remembered too late to look at her face to see if she wanted him to say yes, but she didn’t seem bothered.
    “Are you sleeping?”
    “Yes.”
    “Ethan.”
    “ Yes .” She wasn’t his mother. He could lie to her if he wanted.
    Her face said she didn’t believe him. He pushed the hot chocolate with extra whipped cream he’d been drinking across the counter and got up. He wiped the spot where his bottom had been. “I have to go back to work.”
    In the backroom, he found boxes to stack and started noting inventory. With each slash his pen made on the paper, he remembered the motion the hands in his dream made—how each movement tore him open, filled him with pain and terror. How he thought he wouldn’t wake up. He stopped, hands shaking. When the pen fell to the floor, the clatter broke him out of his daze. He picked it up, gripping it tight, and started again. Concentrate .
    Ethan jumped when Andy touched his elbow. “My dad says people who jump are guilty of something,” Andy said.
    Ethan didn’t understand why anyone would smile when they said something like that. It didn’t sound like a teasing thing to say.
    “I’m not,” Ethan said.
    “Okay.” Andy looked serious.
    People only looked at Ethan serious or happy. People he didn’t know very well, anyway, which meant that Andy shouldn’t be looking at him that way.
    Ethan snatched his towel off one of the boxes and walked back into the main shop area before he could think about Andy’s face anymore.
     
     
    T HE second night at Ethan’s, Carter slept alone. He didn’t know if that meant Ethan hadn’t had a nightmare or if he’d managed to resist the need for comfort. By the third evening the routine had gained a comfortable security. Dinner at the table, television after, homework for Elliot, showers, and then bed.
    Carter lay in bed straining his ears to hear suspect noises. He hadn’t slept well the night before between waiting for Ethan and the relative strangeness of the room. Giving up on sleep, he padded down to Ethan’s room and nudged the door open.
    “Ethan?”
    The comforter on the bed shifted and Ethan’s rumpled head peeked out. “Yeah?”
    “Just wanted to see how you’re sleeping.”
    “Fine.”
    “Oh. Okay.” He had no excuse to dig his toes into the carpet and stand there like he was waiting for something.
    “Carter?”
    “Yeah?”
    “You can sleep with me if you want.”
    Carter moved toward the bed before his brain caught up with how much he’d hoped Ethan would offer that. Ethan lifted