MidReal Story
Liam and Ethan Carter , both soldiers in love with
Scenario: Liam and Ethan Carter, both soldiers in love with the same woman, Harper Daniels, have their lives torn apart and must fight for what they want as their relationships are tested and secrets are revealed.
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Liam
I’m not just friends with Ethan Carter.
I’m brothers with him.
In every sense that matters, I belong to his family like he belongs to mine.
When we were kids, Ethan and I did everything together.
We played football and basketball; we got in trouble with the same kids, and we snuck our first beer together, too.
We both had to grow up fast in this town, where we came from an area with nothing but broken families and poverty.
It was hard to be poor, but it was even harder to be a kid who couldn’t see a future.
Ethan was my rock in those days.
He was the one who stood up for me when my dad came home too drunk to remember right from wrong, and he was the one who sat up with me all night long when my mom got sick and my dad couldn’t stop blaming me for it.
I’d have been lost without him, without the Carters, actually.
We both joined the service as soon as we were legally able to.
It’s what saved us, really.
The military gave us both a way out, a way up, and a way to learn how to be men of honor—which is more than I can say for any of our families.
And then Harper came along.
The day she came to Clearwater is one I’ll never forget.
She was visiting her grandmother and introduced herself to Ethan and me while we were walking downtown.
She was so sweet and kind—and I’d never seen eyes like hers before, ones that were the same color as emeralds on St.
I fell hard for her that day, but so did Ethan – only I didn’t know it then.
It wasn’t until after she left that he let me know how he felt about her, too.
It wasn’t long after that when things started to get complicated between us—between all three of us.
I was the first one to admit how I felt about Harper.
Ethan had just beaten me in a game of basketball, and we were lying on the hood of his car looking up at the stars when I told him how I felt.
He’s my best friend, and if I’m being honest with myself, brothers are probably more accurate.
If anyone was going to understand, it was going to be him.
He didn’t say much about it that night, but we both knew things were never going to be the same between us again.
And they weren’t.
Ethan was always going to be my first priority, but Harper wasn’t so sure.
In fact, she was so torn between Ethan and me that she didn’t know what to do.
But she made a choice, and now everything has changed.
The moment Harper walked into The Rusty Nail that day, Ethan and I knew something was up.
She walked with purpose, her eyes on a man who looked like he belonged in a surf shop instead of in this bar.
He was tall and lean with shaggy blond hair that covered his eyes.
And Ethan and I both knew who he was right away: Chris, Harper’s college boyfriend who lived here in Clearwater.
I thought Ethan was going to lose it when Harper walked right over to him and put her arms around his waist.
I knew how much Ethan wanted her, how much he thought they had together, but she basically told him there was no chance for them.
She said she was sorry, but she had a boyfriend now, and she planned on making things work with him.
I felt horrible for my brother, but there wasn’t anything we could do or say.
This was what Harper wanted, and we had no choice but to give her what she wanted.
But it was hard—for all of us.
I didn’t want to lose Harper—she knew that—but Ethan needed me right now.
So, when Harper walked outside with Chris, Ethan ordered another beer from the barkeep while we waited for her return.
He was angry, I could tell.
I’d seen him this way before, but it only made me feel worse than I already did.
“What’s wrong with her?”
he said under his breath.
I shook my head and gave him an apologetic look.
“She’s doing what she thinks is best,” I said.
Ethan snorted at my answer.
“Best for who?
She’s going to be with some fucking guy who doesn’t appreciate her the way you and I do?
She’s going to be dating some dude who can’t even see her the way she deserves to be seen?”
“I know,” I said.
It was how I felt, too.
But it was Harper’s choice, not mine or Ethan’s.
“What can we do?
If this is what she wants…”
Ethan shot me an angry look as he leaned back against the bar.
“What can we do?”
he repeated the words I’d just said to him.
He shook his head and looked away as he took another sip of his beer.
The tension between us was thick as I waited for him to say more.
I knew he was thinking the same thing I was—what could we do?
The only answer we both came up with was nothing.
Harper was a smart girl who made up her own mind.
She knew how we felt about her, but it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered because when it came down to it, it wasn’t up to us.
It was up to her.
Ethan shook his head as he turned back around.
We made eye contact for a moment before he looked away again.
I knew he felt the same way I did: that we were powerless to do anything about it.
It was up to Harper what happened next.
