5. Ethan

CHAPTER 5

ETHAN

"Are you sure he's okay by himself?" Taylor asked when Ethan showed up for work that morning, just like he'd always done.

"His fever broke overnight. He's tired and still sick, but he'll be okay." Ethan busied himself getting things ready for opening. Things that were routine and should have taken no thought at all but that, for some reason, he kept screwing up. Or forgetting entirely. Taylor said nothing. Thankfully. Sometimes his boys could be merciless.

"Does he need anything?"

Whenever Ethan went into the kitchen, Taylor had another question for him.

"He needs a lot of things." First and foremost, he needed a family who gave a shit about him. Ethan had looked up Mickey online, but hadn't found anything. His parents, however, were known to Ethan. They came into the diner from time to time.

It was hard to say exactly what had gone on between Mickey and his parents, so Ethan tried not to judge them. He wasn't even sure how much they knew of Mickey's current situation—if anything. Mickey had so far been tightlipped, offering nothing to Ethan in the way of an explanation of how he ended up on the streets. Not that Ethan had asked. He'd made a point of not asking and it was starting to bother him.

Mickey's family lived in town. Did they not know he was here? Or did they not care? It was hard to imagine someone not caring about their own child, but Ethan knew it happened a lot, although he'd had the luxury of having had great parents once upon a time. Up until the chapter of his life when his parents died, Ethan's life had been a fairy tale.

Ethan had lost his parents not long after Jonah was born. He took over the running of the diner and he and Sarah went on to have two more beautiful children. Then she died and it was just Ethan and his three boys. The diner had saved him. His children gave him purpose, but the diner gave him a way to financially support that purpose. And a family of people willing to help out.

Ethan had brought his kids to work with him. Taylor hadn't even been in school when Sarah died, so he'd spent the first couple of years after her passing hanging in the diner with him. No one seemed to mind, even on days when Taylor was harder to look after than others. Ethan had tried to keep him in the office at first, but Taylor liked to be where the people were—he'd said to Ethan one day with a very serious expression on his little face, and Ethan had relented.

Without the diner, Ethan couldn't imagine what he would have done. It saved his life, and now it had saved Mickey's.

Even if sometimes he quietly cursed how many hours of his life he'd spent in this building, he could never be sorry that he had. Because of Milo, Ethan now partnered with the women's shelter, hiring women who needed money, skills, and experience to enter the workforce so they could rebuild their lives. Ethan had never imagined his diner to be something that could provide something so meaningful, and he'd never stop being grateful that he was in a position to help people.

Jonah and Colby had both worked here at one time or another, but it had never been what they wanted to do. And that was fine. Ethan was happy that his children were happy. But Taylor loved this place probably more than Ethan did and, one day, it would be his.

"You've been distracted all morning Dad," Taylor said to him at some point after the breakfast rush. It had been a bit of a mess, to be honest. He'd delivered orders to the wrong tables. Forgotten items completely a few other times. It was a good thing that Taylor was such a whiz in the kitchen because he'd pulled Ethan's ass out of the fire a few times that morning.

"I've just been thinking a lot about Mickey. He has family in town, why is he not with them? Or at least being helped by them?"

Taylor shrugged. "Some people have shitty parents. It's like Jonah says about parent-teacher interviews. It's never the parents he needs to talk to who show up. You're a good dad, so it's hard for you to wrap your head around the concept of people having kids they don't give a shit about." Taylor worked as he talked, grilling up a couple of hamburgers with extra onion and a couple slices of crispy bacon. Ethan didn't realize he was being dismissed until Taylor boxed up the burgers and thrust them at Ethan. "Julie is here now. How about you go home and check on him? Have lunch. Take the afternoon off. Maybe you can find out why he hasn't gone home."

Ethan wasn't about to argue with his son, not when he really didn't want to be at the diner that day. He'd worried all morning about Mickey disappearing, even though he'd promised not to.

The drive home was short, but treacherous. Only the main thoroughfares had been cleared and the smaller side streets had been left to languish with the deep snowfall still on them. Vehicles going back and forth had packed some of the road down, but it left snow in the center between the tire tracks and Ethan's truck dragged bottom a few times.

When he arrived home, he was relieved to see Mickey was still there. He'd wrapped himself up in a blanket and was sitting on the couch watching television.

"Did you get more sleep?" Ethan stepped out of his boots and kicked them onto the boot tray so he didn't get water all over the floor.

Mickey nodded.

"Taylor sent lunch for us." Ethan took the containers to the coffee table and set one down in front of Mickey. "Bacon double cheeseburger."

Mickey still didn't talk much and Ethan wasn't sure if it was because he was still sick and it still hurt, or if not talking was a way of protecting himself. But from what?

Mickey unwrapped himself from the blanket so he could eat and Ethan saw that he'd changed clothes. He was in the pants that he'd arrived in… well, the softer set of flannel bottoms that he'd been wearing under his worn-out jeans. The shirt looked familiar, though. A band shirt from a couple of decades ago that had been Ethan's favorite. Colby had borrowed it and he'd never seen it again.

"I like your shirt," Ethan told Mickey.

Mickey looked down at his shirt like he couldn't remember what it looked like and needed to refresh his memory. "Taylor loaned it to me, but I sort of kept it."

"He won't mind," Ethan said. "How are you feeling?"

"A lot better."

Mickey went silent again and it made it hard for Ethan to stick to his agreement not to ask questions. He didn't have a right to know Mickey's story, and the younger man didn't seem too eager to share it. But there were some things Ethan had to know.

"Are you in danger, Mickey? Is there someone you're running from?"

Mickey nearly choked on his burger. "No. Nothing like that."

Ethan's chest loosened, but he wasn't completely relieved. "Do your parents know you've been on the streets?"

They lived in a small town, so maybe they did know, but then again, Mickey had been good at hiding in plain sight. They probably knew Mickey was here, but they might not be aware of how dire his situation was.

Mickey shrugged. "Don't know."

"Did you want to call them?"

"I'm twenty-five. I haven't lived at home since graduation. I went for a visit once and they told me not to come back. So I didn't." Mickey's expression was dark. His lips were pressed into a thin line and it was clear that Mickey had been hurt by them. "I made a lot of stupid mistakes, okay? My parents washed their hands of me."

Ethan wasn't stupid enough to believe the best in everyone. "I'm sorry they treated you that way."

Mickey shrugged. "It wasn't anything I didn't have coming."

"I find that hard to believe. All my kids have done some stupid shit in their life, and they're always welcome in my home."

"They didn't do what I did." Looking miserable, Mickey picked at his food.

"Jonah almost set the diner on fire one night. Colby changed the alarm codes as an April Fool's joke. I could go on all day about the shit my kids have done. Did you try to kill your parents?"

Mickey's head snapped up and he gaped at Ethan. "What? No! What kind of a question is that?"

"I feel like even if my kids tried to kill me that I'd still love them. So if you didn't try to kill your parents, there's probably hope. But you don't have to reach out to them. I don't want you to think that I'm trying to get rid of you or push you into a toxic environment. I'm just at a loss about why they wouldn't want you around."

"They have their reasons," Mickey mumbled.

"I'd like you to stick around, Mickey. If you don't want to stay upstairs, I'll give you the keys to the basement and you can stay down there. No charge. It'll give you a permanent address so finding work will be easier. And you won't die in a snowbank somewhere. I don't want to be pushy, but you can't go back out on the streets, Mickey. You're still sick and you'll only get worse."

"One condition."

Ethan nodded.

"You'll keep a total of how much I owe you. I don't want to owe anyone anything. It's important to me."

"I can live with that, but on the condition that I don't have to start keeping track until you're healthy and employed. You need to rest and recover."

Mickey was quiet for a long time as Ethan watched him pick at his burger. He took the pickle out and set it aside. "I don't know how to do anything. And I don't have anything to wear."

"I'll hit up Jonah's closet. He's a teacher now, and he has more button-downs than he can reasonably wear. I'll get you some new things, but I won't go crazy, I promise. As for work, I don't have any open positions at the diner, but I know about half the town, and I'll keep my ears open for something, okay?"

Ethan already had an idea of who he could talk to about a job for Mickey when he was better. "Do we have a deal?"

Mickey nodded. "It's about time I start making smarter choices. I'd be fucking stupid to refuse help."

"I'm happy you've decided to stay. I'll get Taylor to hand his keys to the basement over and I'll see what all you'll need down there to be comfortable."

"If it's too much, I could stay on the couch up here. Unless you mind," Mickey added hastily, like he hadn't meant to say the first part.

"I need the keys back anyway, but you can stay up here for as long as you want. It's kind of nice to have someone else in the house again. I'll leave the choice up to you. There's a door in the kitchen that goes to the basement and it locks from both sides. I do have a key to that, but I only use it in case of an emergency. Which has been exactly never."

Mickey set his container on the coffee table and pushed it away. "I don't think I thanked you for all you've done for me. You saved my life."

"I'm just happy I was in the right place at the right time."

Ethan might not have gotten any answers out of Mickey, but he'd at least secured his continued safety and that felt like the biggest win of the season. Whatever had happened to Mickey had left him scarred and skeptical. He clearly didn't trust anyone, but it felt monumental that he'd trusted Ethan enough to agree to stick around.