Chapter Six: The Call

Packing day came and went without a word about it. Ethan simply collected everything they had brought. Jack moved it into the car, then he locked the front door, and they drove off, hands clasped over the gearshift.

“Seriously,” Ethan said about an hour into the drive. “When are we going to meet up again?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack honestly.

“Well…Let’s shoot for Christmas. I’ll come with Chance. We’ll have, like, two weeks. Then we can meet up again on spring break. I’ll have a car by then, and I can just come back to Lakeview on my own.”

Jack nodded. “Talk to Laura when it gets closer. We’ll see.”

“Remind me to write down your number at Chance’s. That way, I can call you.” Ethan laughed, and added, “And you won’t almost pee yourself again when I show up.”

Chance’s mother lived in an apartment above an empty storefront on First Street, across the alley from Wolf’s Tavern. Ethan and Jack both laughed at the “and-a-half” added to the end of her house number before following Chance upstairs. The apartment was clean, but disorganized. Chance’s half-sisters were all running around their bedroom, the younger two chasing each other with toy swords, the older in her bra and panties, screaming at them to close the door. Chance led them into the living room at the back, where his mother, a big dark-skinned woman still in her work clothes, sat smoking a cigarette and trying to ignore the screaming in the hall.

“Don’t mind them,” she said to Jack and Ethan. “Girls…I swear to God. I’m Angela.”

She gave Ethan a warm, but crushing hug, and shook Jack’s hand.

At Jack’s “Pleased to meet you,” she squealed, “Ooh! Chance didn’t tell me about the accent.” Then to Ethan, “You got yourself a real gentleman, honey.”

They looked at each other, panicked. Chance had told her?

“Now, don’t ya’ll give me that. You’re a sweet couple, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. If Chance found himself a nice older man I’d be the happiest woman alive. Now, any time ya’ll need an excuse to run off for a while, you just give me a call, and I’ll tell your mother you and Chance are staying with me. Girls like her are too uptight. She should be glad you ain’t running off with boys your own age. Cleo has a little boyfriend, and I just wanna choke him every time he comes in this house. Not saying nothing about Chance’s taste – that boy he brought home two summers ago, oh my God…”

Chance played with his lip-ring, waiting for Angela to run out of breath.

“That reminds me,” she said, her shrewd eyes falling on him. “What did your daddy think of that lip of yours?”

Chance grinned, “He said he’d file for a restraining order if you ever let anybody near my face with a needle again.”

“Oh, yeah, I can hear that coming outta his mouth. Who can I sue today? Good lord. Well you tell him to lighten up. Ain’t nothing wrong it – I think it looks good on you. Ain’t like it’s a tattoo. If you decide you don’t like it, you can take it out and it’ll heal right up.”

The oldest girl, darker than Chance, but lighter than Angela, poked her head in the doorway. “Mom, have you seen my white jacket? Logan’s on his way over. We’re gonna walk over to his house.”

“It’s in the drier. Jack, Ethan, this is my daughter, Cleo.”

“Logan’s coming over?” Chance asked. Cracking his knuckles protectively, he hissed, “I need to meet him.”

Cleo rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like he’s really afraid of my gay brother.”

“Ooh! You gonna let her talk to you like that, Chance?”

“That’s alright, Mama, she’s just afraid I’d turn him.”

Cleo rolled her eyes again and left.

Jack, Ethan, and Chance went out to dinner in Evansville after giving Angela their thanks and goodbyes. Chance drove his car, and Jack and Ethan went back to Evansville together, savoring the long drive alone. It all went too fast, and before they knew it, they were outside the restaurant, prepared to go their separate ways.

“Well, I’ll see you in December, hm?” Jack said, too terse, his teeth grinding.

Ethan smiled sadly, “Yeah. I’ll see you then.”

Too disinterested.

Jack wrapped his arms around the boy, trying to memorize the feeling of his fingertips sliding over his shirt, into his hair to cradle the back of his head. Ethan’s fists grasped at Jack’s button-down, and they clung to each other more desperately than they had all summer. A long, slow kiss, unaware of anything else.

Chance coughed. Across the street, people were starting to stare.

Inhaling the scent of Jack’s cologne, Ethan fought the stinging behind his eyes, and reluctantly broke the embrace. He shifted his backpack to the opposite shoulder.

Before he pulled away, though, Jack cupped his cheek and whispered into his ear what he had been holding back all summer.

“I love you.”

Four blocks from the restaurant, Chance glanced over to Ethan, who was biting his bottom lip and staring resolutely out the front window.

“You okay?” Chance asked.

Ethan shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s…I’m fine.”

“Sure?”

Nodding, Ethan slumped back into the seat. A few long seconds passed.

“Fuck!” Ethan shouted suddenly, slamming his fist onto the door handle.

“What?”

“I forgot to get his fucking number before we left! How the fuck am I gonna call him?”

“Look it up. I can have my mom do it. Henderson’s on the same book as Evansville.”

Ethan covered his eyes with his hand. “He’s unlisted. It showed up on our caller ID. Shit…”

Giggling, Chance said, “You could ask your mom for his number.”

“Yeah,” said Ethan bitterly. “That’ll work out great. Let’s practice. You be my mom, I’ll be me…Hey, Mom?”

“Yes, honey?” Chance asked in an affectly white falsetto.

“Can you give me your ex-boyfriend’s number? I forgot to get it when we split up in Evansville. Oh, and by the way, I didn’t go to camp, I went up to his vacation house with him and we spent the whole summer all alone there. Oh, yeah, and we almost fucked, like, four times.”

“812…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ethan said, with a little less bite in his voice.

“Boy, you got a mouth on you toda – Wait, hold up!” said Chance. “Almost? Like, ya’ll didn’t?”

“Yeah, don’t rub it in.”

“Whew!” Chance whistled. “Two months, and nothing?”

“I was kind of in bed most of the time. Broken rib?”

“Yeah, but still…”

“Look, lay off, okay? I’m not gonna see him for another six mo–“

Ethan’s phone started to ring.

“Shit, that’s probably my mom. Can you tell her I’m asleep or something?”

Not really interested in finding the phone on time, he dug it out of the front pocket of his backpack.

“What?” asked Chance, noticing the confused look on Ethan’s face.

“It’s not my phone,” he said, turning it to show the blank screen. The ringing was still coming from his backpack. He checked through it, and found another phone in the side pocket. “Must be Jack’s. I guess he accidentally stuck it in my bag when we were packing.”

“Maybe there’s a home number on it!” said Chance excitedly.

“Should I answer it?”

“Nah. What if it’s one of his friends or something?”

Ethan watched the screen until the missed call message appeared, then looked at Chance.

“Should I check the voicemail? What if he was calling it trying to find it?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Ethan dialed the voicemail number stored in the phone.

“You have one unheard message,” the cool, robotic female voice on the other end said. “First unheard message…”

“Ethan,” Jack’s voice came through the speaker. “Right now, you’re probably throwing a fit about not having my number. Don’t think I didn’t remember. My home number is stored on your new phone. I’m calling from my cell, so you can store that, too, but don’t be stupid and save it under ‘Jack’. Give me a nickname in case Laura decides to look through it. In fact, it’s best if she doesn’t know you have it at all. Delete this message when you’re through with it…I love you.”