‘‘All you wanted was to get between her legs, and she spread them for you.’’

‘‘Watch it.’’ In a lightning move, Ethan grabbed Seth by the shirt and hauled him up to his knees. ‘‘Don’t you talk about her that way. You had sense enough to recognize right off what kind of person Grace was. That’s why you trusted her, why you cared about her.’’

‘‘I don’t give a shit about her,’’ Seth claimed and had to swallow hard before the hot tears poured out.

‘‘If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so mad at both of us. And wouldn’t be feeling like we let you down.’’

He let Seth go, then rubbed his hands over his face. He knew how miserably inept he could be at explaining emotions. Especially his own. ‘‘I’m going to talk to you straight.’’ He dropped his hands. ‘‘You’re right about what went on before you came home, you’re just wrong about what it meant.’’

Seth’s lips quivered into a snarl. ‘‘I know what fucking means.’’

‘‘Yeah, the way you know it it’s ugly sounds in the next room, fast gropes in the dark, sour smells, money changing hands.’’

‘‘Just because you didn’t pay her doesn’t—’’

‘‘Be quiet,’’ Ethan said patiently. ‘‘I used to think that’s all it was, or the only kind there was. Hard and heartless, sometimes mean. All you want from the other is what you can get for yourself. So that makes it selfish, too. You get some release, pull your pants up and walk away. It’s not always wrong. If it doesn’t matter to either one of you, if it gets you through the night, it’s not always wrong. But it’s not the only way, and it sure as hell isn’t the best way.’’

He remembered now thinking that he hoped someone else would explain such things to the boy when the time came. But it appeared that the time was now and he was in charge.

He couldn’t say it all with a grin and a wink as Cam might, or smooth and fancy as Phillip surely would. He could only speak from the heart and hope it was right.

‘‘Sex can be the same as eating. Just filling a hunger. Sometimes you pay for a meal, sometimes you trade something, and if it’s fair you’re giving as much as you’re taking.’’

‘‘Sex is just sex. They just pretty it up to sell books and movies.’’

‘‘Do you figure that’s all there is between Anna and Cam?’’

Seth moved his shoulders, but he was thinking.

‘‘They’ve got something that matters, and lasts, that lives get built on. It’s not what you’ve grown up with, or what I spent the first part of my life with—that’s why I can tell you straight.’’