IX

I march around the car so I sit right behind Blake, and as I get in the car, I seeth into his ear, “I thought you didn’t like him.”

Blake doesn’t show any contempt for my words, if anything, he’s amused. Blake says back to me in a normal tone of voice, “Just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean I don’t want him to tag-along.”

It should, I want to exclaim.

“Besides,” Blake continues, “he’s just as important in my plan as you are.”

“I’m right here,” Ethan pipes up. He shoots a look back at me and I wish I could keep the blush off my face as his scrutinizing gaze examines my face.

“We’ve put up a curtain, sorry,” Blake says sardonically, as he gestures to close a curtain between Ethan and himself.

I huff and cross my arms.

“Why are you in such a foul mood?” Blake asks me.

It’s a fair question, I guess, though not one I really want to answer right now: whether or not it’s because I don’t actually have a good answer or because I just don’t want to talk about it remains to be seen. Despite this, I’m well aware I’m out of line in taking my frustrations out on them, particularly Ethan, but a small Mom-pleasing part of me wants to blame Ethan for the current rift in my relationship with Mom. However, a bigger and more rational part of me knows that even if it’s easier to call Ethan the culprit of my poor relationship with Mom, it’s me and Mom that are to blame.

Mom because she’s a raging racist.

Me because I’m her daughter.

Blake nudges Ethan’s arm. “Tell her,” he says to the quieter boy.

In the rearview mirror, Ethan’s face contorts and his nose scrunches. “No, she doesn’t need to know.”

Blake shrugs and turns over his shoulder to talk to me, Ethan’s hands fly to the wheel. Blake says, “Your witchy mother showed up at his house this morning. She figured you were out last night with him.”

I just shake my head lamely while sitting on my hands because I know that if I wasn’t, I’d be messaging Mom right now. Of course she showed up at the Stock’s house bearing what likely she claimed were ‘condolences’ but what really were words of backhanded compassion. Of course she knew about me being out with Ethan and of course her asking me was just a way to see if I’d lie right to her face. I passed that test, thankfully.

Ethan slaps Blake’s arm when he turns back to actually drive. “You didn’t have to tell her that,” he says in a low voice.

Blake shrugs. “I figure it’s best not to keep secrets.”

I look into the rearview mirror to try and see Ethan’s face, but he does the same thing at the same moment and our eyes meet. I’m stuck there for a second, focused solely on the softness his eyes hold. I blush and look away.

I don’t know how far we’re going but it’s going to be a long car ride nonetheless.

We pull onto a one lane road, that despite that fact is still two-ways, shrouded by trees and it’s the first change of scenery from the sprouting vegetables the other ten minutes of the drive offered. And despite having only been in the car for ten minutes, I think I’ve aged ten years: still confined with both Blake and Ethan⸺who, mind you are sitting within a foot of each other⸺while they dispute on anything that can have two opposing opinions.

“What’s the plan?” I ask after Ethan has gotten the final word in during his argument about⸺about music? “I’m not going in blind, I hope you know.”

“The plan is I talk to Rosemary and you two keep quiet.” Blake parks the car.

“Yeah,” I say, “that sounds about right.”

Ethan doesn’t acknowledge my comment. “What are you going to talk about?”

“She has something I’d really like.”

“Yeah?” Ethan’s tone is condescending and Blake doesn’t miss the unspoken words.

“Who do you take me for?” Despite the relaxed look on his face, I know Blake is losing his patience. “My brother?” It hurts Blake to say the words.

It must have been what Ethan was going to say because he doesn’t have a snarky comment to refute what Blake so open-heartedly claimed. Blake Weber, if anything, is not an offendable man: I’ve watched someone call him a dirty Mexican and his only response was a smile⸺and not even through his teeth. But I’ve seen Noah call him a slacker, any and all slurs for gay men and Blake’s only reponse was to shrug his shoulders and continue about his business. Until his brother wasn’t looking, then Blake went up to his bedroom and didn’t come back until dinner.

And it’s for that reason Noah Weber isn’t a good topic of conversation for Blake. Ethan, an outsider from the Weber life, would only now the best way to hurt and he found it without any search needed.

As if forgetting his own hurtful words, Blake switches the somber look and his face to a more light and passive expression. He says, “Rosemary doesn’t know you’re coming so I want you to keep your heads down when we pull into the diner. I don’t want to get arrested for a second time this month.”

“Excuse me?” Ethan asks in a tone so free of sarcasm, I think Blake’s request has shaken him to his core. “Arrested? You know who my mother is right? What the Hell are we going to be doing?”

“Yes, I know who your mother is,” Blake says to Ethan. Then Blake turns over his shoulder to me, “He never lets me forget it.” While Blake’s eyes are off the road, Ethan’s hands are on the steering wheel.

I don’t take Blake’s facade at face value. “What are we going to be doing, Blake?” I don’t leave any room for argument in my voice, nor would I take any argument from him.

Blake, as if defeated, slumps. “Break into her car, that’s the plan.”

“Why didn’t we get any say in this?” Ethan demands. He’s gone frighteningly pale.

“Charlotte helped me,” Blake says.

“No I didn’t!” I insist, hoping to wipe that look of betrayal off Ethan’s face.

Blake thinks for a moment. “Right,” he says, “that’s why you’re on that job while Ethan pretends to be a waiter.”

“Oh my God,” I exclaim.

“Oh, how different is it from breaking into the farmhouse?” Blake doesn’t seem to read the tension in the car, or maybe he just doesn’t care. To be honest, the latter is more likely.

“You told him?” I ask Ethan. My tone isn’t as level and calm as I’d like it to be. “Why’d you do that?”

“I didn’t,” Ethan says, putting his hands up.

“He didn’t. Rosemary tipped me off.”

“What does Rosemary know about the farmhouse?” I ask.

“Besides the fact that it’s her family’s?” Blake asks sardonically.

That shuts me up and immediate elevates any pressure that was building in my skull.

Once we reach then end of the road, we’re just off the six-lane highway coming from the tri-cities. I’ve still not mustered up the courage to say anything after Blake completely embarrassed me⸺yes, I was being difficult but there’s a difference between trespassing on abandoned property at night and breaking into a presumably expensive car at dusk⸺and Ethan has also remained silent. He hasn’t looked into the mirror to see me at all since then.

As soon as the car is parked along the back, windowless side of the diner, both Ethan and I hop out of the car before the ignition is even off. Blake told us to meet at the trunk because Ethan’s uniform which is really just a white button down and slacks is hidden in there.

Ethan opens the trunk to pull out his clothes, and I’m standing beside him as I prefer his company right now over Blake’s. No, I actually always prefer Ethan’s company to Blake’s.

Ethan holds the pants upto his legs and then I realize another flaw in Blake’s very flawed plan. “Blake,” I say, “couldn’t you find a longer pair of pants?” There’s at least four inches between the hem of Ethan’s slacks and where his ankles actually start.

Blake makes a snarky comment about doing everything himself and then retreats back to the car, he digs through the front seat and Ethan and I are left alone.

“How’d you get dragged into this?” I ask as Ethan shrugs off his hoodie and begins to button the shirt over his white t-shirt. “Surely, you’re being held captive.” My smile is tight.

“No,” Ethan says adjusting the arms of the shirt which are far too short but too wide⸺likely for Blake’s objectively impressive biceps⸺before looking back at me. “I heard you were coming.”

I take a step back. Should I be flattered?

I don’t know.

“Too bad Blake didn’t tell me,” I say, reaching my hand into the trunk before Ethan can slam it shut. His eyes widen at the sight of my fingers only an inch or two away from being crushed. “I wouldn’t have agreed so quickly.” I pull out a shoe box holding what must be the final component of Ethan’s outfit, given it was from a cheap to medium price shoe store. “Don’t forget these.”

I meant my words to be in jest, but the expression on Ethan’s face tells me either he hasn’t understood my joke which is the highly unlikely option, or he hasn’t appreciated my comment.

Pulled away by Blake towards the front of the car, I know which one it is when Ethan gives me the cold shoulder as he walks into the ditch by the side of the parking lot.

“Here’s your job: you stay in the car until I message you and tell you to come in. Then I want you to sit next to me, not Rosemary. Don’t say a single word. Ethan knocks off Rosemary’s purse, and her keys fall out. Ethan will pass you the keys. You excuse yourself to the washroom, you meet Ethan in the back and he takes you two out of the back exit. Get to her car and take everything in the glove box. Her’s is the Roadster.”

My ignorance about cars must be evident on my face.

Blake continues, his hands gesturing so wildly I wonder how he hasn’t slapped me across the face by accident. “License plate MTCF 849.”

I just nod.

Back with his complete uniform on, Ethan must have forgiven me because as he walks by me, he whispers, “Shit plan.”

Blake doesn’t look too offended so my stomach drops. Either Blake is so confident in this convoluted plan that relies on so much chance he’s undisturbed by Ethan’s worries, or Blake has already come to terms with that fact and we’re following because it’s the best we have.

I don’t want to know which is the truest answer. I don’t know if I want to know.

“Charlotte get in the car and move it to a further parking spot around front,” Blake says. Maybe, I should call it an order but Blake doesn’t have enough authority over me for it to be an order. I follow his instructions because I want to, not because I think I have to.

I open the driver side door, only to remember I haven’t driven a car since before Ava went missing. I haven’t had to opportunity too, and even if Dad lent me his keys, I don’t have my driver’s license. That went missing with Ava too.

I lower myself into the front seat, shamefully impressed by the value and prestige of the car I’m about to drive. I reach to close the door but Ethan’s hand grabs the edge of the door. I decide I don’t want him to lose his fingers so I let go of the door.

“Are you willing to get in trouble for this?” His voice is low, in a measure of the level of nervousness I can feel radiating around his body.

A few things go through my head: Ethan is concerned for me, and for himself, and this is the most uneasy I’ve seen him. I want to make a snarky comment because I’d prefer his cold shoulder and then I don’t need to go home and face Mom knowing with whom I’ve been spending my time. With whom I’ve been enjoying it.

“Move your hand. Blake needs you.” I see Blake in the reflection of the mirror.

“Waters.” His face is plain. “You are risking a lot.”

My shallow, shaky breath is almost a gasp but I really wouldn’t admit it even to myself with any sort of conformation. It’s the sincerity in Ethan’s words that makes me second guess my choice to follow Blake so obediently, not blindly, but still to follow him. For a moment, I can pretend Ethan is worried not just about the short-term consequences of this endeavour, but the long-term ones that don’t leave a record on paper. I suppose, in a way, Ethan is reminding me what I, just me, have put at stake here.

My family’s reputation will be confirmed. My own reputation will be ruined. And my isolation from Ava’s reputation? That will erase.

Maybe, I would appreciate Ethan’s concern if it didn’t collide with my current concern for myself, which was none. Maybe if I had the slightest concern for my well being in this moment, Ethan’s worry would confirm my gut feeling that I am not where I belong. I don’t have any of those feelings now, so his words seem unneeded.

They throw me off balance.

“I know what’s at risk.”

Ethan’s face tells me the thing I think he wants to say: come to me when you regret it.

His lips set into a grim line and he nods his head. “Alright.”

Ethan remove his hand and I’m the one to pull the door shut.

I’m in too deep with this now. In too deep with him now.