“We can call the cab company,” Lily said. “We can find out where they took him.”
He lowered his head, shook it slowly. “He knew he’d been ID’d,” he said. “So he knew I’d be comin’. That’s probably why he left.” The elevator doors opened, and he stepped out, hands in his jeans pockets, heart somewhere in the vicinity of his boots.
Lily couldn’t get a minute alone with Ethan for the next several hours. They’d returned to the cantina and worked all the rest of the day. He’d driven back, readjusting his seat and mirrors to their previous positions with the push of a button.
It had been a long day, but the crews had finally cleared out. The cantina was missing a wall, and industrial plastic had been draped in the opening, inside and out. The parking lot had been jack-hammered to pieces and hauled away in dump trucks. The bare ground underneath looked rough, and so did the building.
You had to break a few eggs, she figured.
Finally alone in the place, she leaned her elbows on the plastic-covered bar top. “How are you holding up, Ethan?”
He looked her way. He’d been standing in the doorway, looking outside, but he turned then. She could tell he was trying for all the world to act normal—as if his life hadn’t been turned upside down today. Again. “I’m all right.”
“That’s not a real answer,” she said.
He shrugged and changed the subject. “Sam left us a copy of his purchase order. Likes to get approval as he goes, so there’s not an issue later, he says. Mainly it’s lumber, nails, insulation, wiring, about forty other things like that. I went over it item by item, but there are a few choices we need to make before he can send it in. Seating, fixtures, flooring.”
“The fun stuff,” she said. “We can do it now, if you want. Everyone’s gone. It’s quiet.”
He looked at his phone and she thought he was checking the time. “Why don’t we do all that after dinner? Chelsea will have it ready and waitin’, and I feel like a jerk when I drag my carcass in late after she’s worked so hard.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to brush you off.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just everyone’s always there. It’s hard to get a minute.”
He reached out and broke their rule, as if they hadn’t shattered it already, by stroking his thumb across her cheek. She braced her spine to keep from shivering.
“Why don’t we meet on the front porch after everyone’s gone to bed?” he asked.
She let her eyes latch onto his, because there was no point fighting it. She said, “How are you, really, Ethan?”
His brows bent a little, as if he were asking himself the same question. “I don’t think I know.”
“I can’t even imagine,” she said. “You find out de Lorean’s dead and left you everything including the cantina, your reputation is flayed in the press only to rebound higher than ever, you have another hit song on your hands, then you learn you have a brother, only to have him vanish. And all within the space of a week.”
She’d left out the part where they’d made love, because she didn’t think it had been as life-altering to him as it had been to her. Especially not in comparison to all the rest.
“I’ve been thinkin’ how he’s been here this whole time, watchin’ the place. And then that brown paint on the Caddy.”
She nodded slowly. “You think he’s the one who caused the accident,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
He lowered his eyes. “Part of me wonders?—”
“Whether he’s a chip off the old block?” she asked.
Ethan nodded. “Maybe he’s a piece of shit like his father. On the other hand, how wrong can it be if he did ram the Caddy? The dead man had just threatened the woman I-I-I…”
“Ay-i-i,” she muttered when he trailed off, but she kept it low and her head down.
“…obviously care about.”
It was the lamest finish ever. He kept going, though, and she tried to follow along, but the only thing she could hear was the voice inside her mind wondering if he’d been about to say, “the woman I love.” It seemed like what predictive text would have filled in.
“Jeremiah…he seemed like a good guy, didn’t he?” Ethan asked, taking the focus off them and putting it back onto his newfound sibling. “I don’t really trust my judgment here.”
She wanted his brother to be a good guy, for Ethan’s sake, so she pulled her head out of her heart and tried to focus on helping Ethan find his footing in the storm. “I already told you I thought he was a decent guy. Maria’s ex beat the tar outta my brother over tacos, right there.” She pointed at the spot.
