We're happy to have Ryan Loveless make her first clubhouse appearance today!
Hello everyone. Thank you to Boy Meets Boy for hosting me today. I'm excited to share "Ethan" with you.
Blurb:
Carter Stevenson is looking forward to a fresh start in a new high school on the other side of the country. It’ll give him a chance to escape his reputation for twitching and stuttering. He’ll have the summer to himself in his new home in California, and in the fall, he won’t get involved in any activity that puts his Tourette’s center stage. He won’t stand out as different.
But his new neighbor, Ethan, isn’t just going to change his plans. He’s going to change Carter’s life.
Ethan Hart is recovering from a traumatic brain injury, but it doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm or love for life. As soon as he sees Carter, who moves like the music Ethan sees between the clouds and the grass, he’s determined to become his friend, and then his boyfriend. And even if his parents say their romance can’t get physical, Ethan won’t let it stand in the way of falling in love.
Stepping into the spotlight was the last thing Carter ever wanted, but Ethan, along with a group of friends who like him just the way he is—tics and all—starts to change his mind.
Adapted as a YA edition of the award-winning novel Ethan, Who Loved Carter by Ryan Loveless.
Cover Artist: L.C. Chase
Buy Link: https://www.harmonyinkpress.com/books/ethan-by-ryan-loveless-422-b
Excerpt:
Carter:
“Cuh cuh cuh-ca—” I stopped. Not this. Not now. I took a breath and lowered my eyes from the barista’s wince. She was probably seventeenish, small-statured, with a russet brown skin tone and logic-defying hairstyle. Framed by her visor, her hairdo involved a few hundred thin, dark brown braids twisted on top of her head into a loose bun that had no business staying in place from what I could see. But I didn’t know much about girl hair. She had better things to do than listen to me make an idiot of myself, but apart from the wince, she didn’t rush me despite the line. I tried again. Café au lait. The air was hot around me; my throat strangled the consonants and didn’t give the vowels a chance.
“Maybe you could just point,” came a woman’s not unkind voice from behind me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I hadn’t dared a glance behind myself, but I could hear as the rumblings got louder and knew that the line had increased while I’d stood there. The barista drummed her nails against the side of the register. They were three inches long and each painted with a different immaculate flower. I recorded the absent rhythm. Tap scrape tap tap scrape and twitched, neck and shoulder, to it.
“Just give him a coffee,” a guy said. “Come on.”
I shook my head. Caffeine, no, bad. That would tighten me up even more, make it impossible to unwind, make the tics worse. “Duh duh de deca—”
“Decaf?” the barista asked.
I nodded. I hated having my sentences finished; it reminded me even more that I was the one slowing everything down. Getting stuck on sounds was one of my suppression tics, meaning I only stuttered when I was suppressing the tics my TS really wanted to do, and also my mind was too fast for my mouth, but no one saw that part of it. They simply thought I was stupid or, if I was lucky, shy, which was another reason for my stuttering.
She held up different sized cups. Humiliated, I pointed at the smaller one.
“What are you, a moron?” A different voice this time, the angriest one yet. I folded in on myself, shoulders scrunched and head down. Get your money out. Get ready to go. I had it in hand already: a five dollar bill clutched from the start of this debacle. The barista emerged from behind the counter and stormed past him.
“N-no, p-puh please.” I didn’t think I could ever come back here as it was; if she came to my defense—oh God, was there anything more humiliating?—I wouldn’t be able to talk myself into leaving my house. She was five feet tall at a generous guess. What was she going to do? Head-butt the guy in the stomach? I turned around, using the motion to hide a tic that started from my side and jerked up to my shoulder, to watch the carnage.
I froze as I took in the tableau. The man who had yelled stood red-faced and arguing with his hands; the barista faced him, pissed off and waving back, and off to the side, my new neighbor held a dripping towel. His hair wasn’t dark as I had thought. Rather, it was a deep orange-ish red. It stuck up from his head in thick tousled points that went every which way. I was right about him being tall. He was a comfortable six feet at least. He wore an apron that matched the barista’s over a white long-sleeved shirt. I followed the trail of drips from his towel to the table that the customer stood beside. The relief I felt when I realized the man’s outburst hadn’t been directed at me ended the moment I saw my neighbor’s fragile expression.
“I’m sorry,” my neighbor said.
“Ethan, do not apologize for someone else being a jackass,” the barista said.
“He knocks my coffee over and I’m the jackass? You get what you pay for when you hire re—”
The barista stepped into the man’s space. “You finish that word, Ned, and I’ll ban you for life.”
“You can’t do that. You’re only—”
“The owner’s daughter,” she snapped.
Ned closed his mouth.
“For now, you’re banned for today. Get out.”
Ned looked at the overturned cup on the table as if he were considering taking it with him. Glancing at Ethan, who stood squeezing the towel and staring at the floor, he left. For a moment, no one spoke, although everyone pretended not to be looking. The barista had a quiet conversation with Ethan. When they finished, Ethan stepped over to the table and wiped up the mess. People resumed talking.
The barista returned to the counter. She sighed at me, as if settling in for another challenge. “You want milk?” she asked.
“Yes.” I was too shaken by the distraction of what had happened to notice I hadn’t stuttered until the transaction was over. I had started for the door, coffee in hand and change in my pocket, when I switched my course and headed for Ethan. I could at least introduce myself. We were neighbors, after all.
“Hi.”
Ethan looked up. He’d polished the table to a shine. Now he held the towel in front of him like a shield.
“I’m Carter. I just moved in next door to you.”
“I know. I saw you. You have a lot of stuff.” Ethan talked faster than me, but each sound seemed selected with care. Instead of making him sound robotic, the effect was musical. He had a warm voice, softer than I had expected from his size.
I laughed in agreement. We’d unloaded a lot on Catholic Charities before we left Jackson, but there was still a lot that came with us. I’d wanted to leave a larger portion of my things behind, but Molly and John had interfered. They’d said, “You never know when you’ll need a….” and dropped in the name of the item I wanted to toss. “I saw you too. You were in the yard with another man. Was that your—?” I hesitated, not wanting to say “boyfriend” in case Ethan was in the closet.
“My dad,” Ethan said. “I was showing him the music in the clouds. But he doesn’t always understand it.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never met anyone who heard music in the sky. “Your name’s Ethan? I heard her—” I pointed at the barista “—call you that.”
“Yes. She’s Vera.” Ethan peered at me. “You’re talking better.”
“I… guess I’m more comfortable with other freaks.” I grinned; I felt good and safe talking to Ethan, but Ethan’s smile disappeared. Too late, I realized what I’d done. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m not a freak,” Ethan said.
“No, no, no, I’m sorry.” I flailed my hands, trying to catch the words before I tensed up too much to say them.
“You’d better go.” I turned to see Vera standing beside me and, again, the line of people oriented toward us. This time, her sharp glare burned into me.
“Yes, I’m sorry, I…. Ethan, I didn’t mean….”
But Ethan had already shut down. His face flooded with hurt that I couldn’t bear to see.
“Now,” Vera said.
Silent and shamed, I retreated. Outside I took my first sip of coffee. I winced at the sharp taste and threw it away, the wasted $2.50 a bitter reminder of my stupidity.
Author Contact:
Twitter: @ryanloveless
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