Unforgettable (9 page)

 
I wanted to scream. Perhaps that would loosen something in my mind. Without a second thought I opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs. It felt liberating until Ethan flew into the room with a look of terror on his face.

 
“What happened?” He took hold of me and gathered me to him as he looked around.

 
“Nothing,” I responded, ashamed of myself for giving in to such a childish desire. “I was just frustrated.” He released me slowly, but not before I felt his heart pounding. I felt bad for scaring him and for forgetting I wasn’t alone. Lucy was standing up on the couch looking around in confusion. I felt even worse.

 
“You scared the shit out of me, Juliet.” He ran a hand through his already disheveled looking hair.

 
“Sorry,” I whispered. I seemed to be feeling that a lot today. We stood there for what seemed like a long time, but really was only a few seconds. I was happy to hear the timer on the stove start beeping.

 
“I need to get that.” I made my way around him, leaving him standing beside the couch. He looked lost too. At least it wasn’t just me feeling this way. I turned off the burner and looked around. On closer inspection I could see that there were some changes in here as well. There were orange and brown woven placemats on the table and some kind of ceramic napkin rings holding real napkins. I was used to paper napkins, it was less of a bother and I’m a busy woman. But, the look worked, it was warm and inviting. I approved.

 
The doorbell chimes jolted me out of my thoughts. Yay! Carrie was here and I don’t think I’d ever been happier to see her.

Chapter Seven

 
My smile was one of happiness as well as relief. I could count on her to tell me the real deal on things. Not that Ethan wouldn’t, just that I didn’t really want to ask him
everything.
There were some things better left with girls. I made my way out to the living room as Ethan was opening the door. My smile got wider as I saw Nigel’s blond head behind Carrie.

 
“Carrie, Nigel, I’m so glad you’re here.” They couldn’t possibly know how glad I was right then. I was still feeling foolish about screaming a minute ago. Just thinking about that made me cringe. Great, now I was blushing, too.
 
I met them in the middle of the room as Ethan took their jackets. Just like he lived here. I reached out and gave Carrie a hug and then Nigel pulled me in for another.

 
“You doing okay, dear?” he asked me in his British accent. Carrie had met Nigel our senior year while he was here on a student visa. They fell in love and he never went back.

 
“I’m all right. A little freaked out, though.” I shrugged as I stepped back and motioned them to come in farther. “Are you hungry? I just finished the rice. We can eat anytime.”

 
“I can smell my favorite enchiladas, Juliet. You know I’m ready.” Nigel put me at ease immediately. I was glad he had come along and I was also glad I had made the enchiladas. Suddenly I felt that maybe everything
was
going to be okay. I took a deep breath as Ethan turned back from the coat closet. I met his eyes and he sent me a smile. A real one. Not one like he’s just humoring the weirdo who screams out loud for no reason. I felt warm inside.

 
“Let’s eat, I haven’t had anything since lunch yesterday,” Ethan said this as we walked into the kitchen, and I felt a tug on my heart. Even I had eaten and I was the one who was in the hospital.

 
We all busied ourselves with various tasks. Carrie got drinks for everyone while Ethan and Nigel set the table. I pulled out a bowl and poured the rice into it just as Ethan came over and grabbed the pan. I picked up the bowl with my free hand and followed Ethan to the table. Once everyone was seated we started serving ourselves. I was glad they were here. It just felt like a family. Not like my family, which consisted of only Gloria since my father had ditched her before I was born, but a close, normal family that actually liked to be around each other.

 
“So Juliet, any breakthroughs since you’ve been home?” Nigel asked.

 
“Uh no, nothing.” I was embarrassed to admit to no improvement.

 
“She’s only been home for a few hours, give her a break.” Ethan was speaking to Nigel but looking at me. I hurriedly looked back down at my plate and scooped up some rice, shoving it into my mouth so quickly that some of the grains went down my throat. I started coughing and grabbed for my water, gulping it down. I looked up and everyone was staring at me.

 
“Sorry, it went down the wrong way,” I croaked out. Why couldn’t I just be smooth for once? I slowly brought a bite of enchilada to my mouth and daintily started to chew. Everybody else went back to eating so I turned to Carrie.

 
“How was the christening?”

 
“Fine. The parents went all out on this thing. There were almost as many guests as my wedding. I hope they call me to plan his first birthday party.” The mention of her wedding made me feel bad again. I didn’t know how many people came to her wedding. That was something a best friend should know.

 
“How are you coming with the cookbook?” Nigel asked between bites.

 
“I don’t know,” I said stupidly. I looked at Ethan and waited for him to answer. He was probably the only one of us that knew.

 
“It’s coming along. She’s pretty much figured out what she’s putting in there. We were just talking about if she was going to make the food for the pictures or hire a food stylist.”

 
Hire a food stylist for my own book? I don’t
think
so. Then again, I didn’t even know what recipes were in there so maybe I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

 
“Oh yeah, sorry Juliet, I keep forgetting.” Carrie groaned at his statement. “What?” Nigel was clueless and that made me happy. Things felt kind of normal in a weird “time moved forward two years overnight” way.

 
Lunch progressed without further incident and before I realized it most of the afternoon had gone by in idle chatter about nothing in particular. It’s not like I would be up-to-date on anything recent. That would have been cool on a regular day, but I kept waiting for something to clue me in to the present. Nothing happened and by four Carrie and Nigel were getting ready to go home. I couldn’t let Carrie leave without having an important talk.

 
“Carrie, can I talk to you for a second?” I motioned toward my bedroom. “In my room.”

 
“Sure.” She followed me into the room and shut the door. “What’s wrong?”

 
“Everything’s wrong, but I just needed to talk to you about Ethan. What am I supposed to do?” I sat down on the bed and she sat down next to me.

 
“Do about what?” She looked confused. Kind of like how I felt.

 
“Well, I mean, I don’t know where he’s going to sleep or anything. I don’t want to kick him out of his own bed, but I can’t have him sleep with
me
. What am I supposed to do with him tonight? I’ve never spent this much time alone with him before. I’m running out of things to talk about.”

 
She looked at me and didn’t say anything for a while. “I don’t know what to say to you about this, you
love
being around him. You guys spend all your time together. You’re always laughing at some inside joke or whispering between yourselves. I would feel left out if I didn’t have Nigel.”

 
I took a moment to absorb that. We were one of
those
couples. I couldn’t get my mind around it. I had
never
been like that with any of my boyfriends, not even in high school. It seemed like I was a completely different person.

 
“But what am I supposed to do with him
tonight
?” It didn’t appear that Carrie was getting the import of what I was saying.

 
“Have him sleep on the couch. It’s okay, he won’t be mad at you, he’ll understand. Don’t get yourself worked up over it.” She rubbed my upper arm. “Do you want us to stay a while longer?”

 
“No, that’s okay. I’ll be okay.” I said this more for myself than for her. I thought of something else. “Am I still on the pill or anything? I don’t want to forget to take it if so.” I found that after this afternoon I didn’t feel as self-conscious talking to Carrie about Ethan. It didn’t seem like she had any problem with me being involved with her brother. Anyway, if I couldn’t ask Carrie I had no one.

 
She looked at me with speculation. “No, you went off last year after you started having problems.”

 
We sat there for a few more seconds and then she stood up. We walked back out to the living room. The boys were sitting on the couch playing with Lucy who was burning around the living room in tight circles with her toy gripped in her teeth. Ethan looked up when we came in but didn’t say anything. Nigel stood up and handed Carrie her jacket.

 
We hugged goodbye and they were gone. It was just the two of us again. We hadn’t cleaned the kitchen after lunch, just set the dishes on the counter, so I made my way to put everything in the dishwasher. Ethan followed me and pulled out a clean dishrag as I started rinsing off the plates and utensils. I was nervous about being alone in the kitchen with him after what happened earlier, but the dishes had to get done and I couldn’t avoid him forever.

 
He wet the rag and squeezed a bit of dish soap on it. I thought he would be all anal and pre-wash the plates or something but he walked over to the table and wiped it down instead. I put everything in the dishwasher and Ethan put the leftovers into plastic containers. I noticed we were a good team as far as working in the kitchen. For some reason that made me extremely happy.

 
We were done in only a few minutes and I was stressing about how to spend the rest of the evening, but Ethan was ahead of me on that one, too.

 
“Want to watch a movie?” he asked as I turned on the dishwasher.

 
“Um, sure.” I was actually relieved. That would take up a couple of hours that I didn’t have to make conversation. It was starting to feel awkward again.

 
“We can see what’s on cable or we can go rent something if you’d rather.”

 
I knew he was being polite, letting me make the choice, but I was painfully aware that I didn’t know any of the movies from the past years, so anything on cable was likely to be new to me.

 
“Whatever’s on is fine. I’d like to just veg out.” That actually sounded like heaven right at this moment. I was still dressed in the yoga pants and tee shirt, so I didn’t even need to change into more comfortable clothes. I grabbed a fresh glass since I had just put everything away and turned to Ethan. “Would you like a drink?”

 
“Sure, I’ll take a Coke.” That sounded good to me too so I grabbed two cans and filled both glasses with ice. He took the cans from me and started for the living room. I trailed after him with a tingle in my stomach. We were going to watch a movie. Alone. I felt a little giddy. Foolish, I know, but I still have a pulse. Did I mention that Ethan is
hot
?

 
We settled ourselves on opposite sides of the couch and Ethan picked up the remote. He held it out to me, but I waved it off. This wasn’t the twenty inch TV I was used to, it was a big flat screen behemoth. Even the remote looked too complicated. He turned it on and started flipping through the channels. I was only vaguely aware of what he was doing; I was too busy watching Ethan’s beautiful fingers work the remote.

 
“Is this okay?” His voice broke me out of my reverie.

 
“Huh?” I jerked my eyes away from his hand and up to his face.

 
“
Slumdog Millionaire
, it won Best Picture a couple of years ago. It’s pretty good. You like it.”