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“Drat,” she said. “Foiled again.”
Seo-Joon lifted his palms in a possibly facetious show of shock. “Again—?”
Derek left the table to stand in front of Ken Goh, who looked like the kind of man who you’d seen as the hunky middled-age spy hero in a Hollywood action film.
Ken grinned. Like a goddamn hyena’s that grin was. His teeth were too white and too straight for him to seem trustworthy. “Derek, it’s so nice to meet you after we talked on the phone. Can’t tell you how surprised I was when I came over here that first day.”
His mom glared with her hands on her hips. “You told Ken I was an elderly widow living alone.”
Derek’s mouth fell open. “I did not say elderly. I might have said widow. I think I said grandmother. Which, you are. There was a potentially rabid family of flying rodents in your attic, Mom. I did what I had to do.”
“Angie taught me a lot about expectations that night.”
Oh god no.
Was Derek having a stroke? This had to be what having a stroke felt like.
Derek wished he’d accepted that second glass of wine when his sister said he might need it. He should have downed the whole bottle.
“And to answer your question, Derek, I’m forty-three.”
Yes, this was absolutely a stroke. Derek turned back to the table, reading in Dylan’s face that he had done the math too. His mother’s new husband was closer in age to Derek than to her. To borrow one of Dylan’s most recent favorite swears, Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick.
Derek tugged his collar. “Yeah, so that’s my—er—boyfriend, Dylan.” He searched Ken’s face for any sign of judgment, but there was none.
Dylan rose from the table and warmly greeted Ken. Stupid gentlemanly man that Dylan was. “It’s so nice to finally meet—”
“Yeah, so Ken…” An irrepressible growling noise rattled Derek’s throat. “What held you up tonight? You go on a lot of jobs on short notice? Just miss important family dinners a lot?”
Ken’s smile stayed put. “I wouldn’t normally have gone on a job tonight, but it was special circumstances. Angie told me I should go when she heard the situation. I still do calls when I’m short-staffed or when they’re important.” He gripped Derek’s mother’s hand, twisting his fingers around that iceberg he’d put there. “And, boy, am I glad I do.”
How hard would it be to clean vomit off of his mother’s immaculate white carpet?
“That makes sense.” Dylan gave Derek’s arm a prod toward the table. “So, we should probably finish eating, right, Derek?”
“What were the special circumstances of this ‘really important’ job tonight? Not judging. Just curious,” asked Derek.
“Oh, yes that is quite a story, let me tell you.” Ken Goh had one of those television laughs. Too rich and too cool to be real. The kind actors used on Jimmy Fallon when they were retelling some rehearsed story about themselves and trying to make it seem off-the-cuff.
Derek didn’t buy it. He crossed his arms.
Ken exhaled melodramatically. “Raccoon got loose in a nursing home. Terrified the residents half to death. Turned out it made a nest in one of the dryers that hadn’t been used in a while and had a bunch of babies who were crawling in through a broken vent. Then when someone opened it…” Ken playfully sprang at Derek, lifting his hands like claws and making a sound that honestly did sound a lot like a raccoon.
Jolted off-balance by the jump scare, Derek’s feet tangled underneath him as he lurched back, clutching his chest. Dylan caught him before he crashed into Derek’s mother’s beloved Meyer lemon tree.
After Derek was upright and steady, Dylan lost it. And it had always been hard for Derek not to laugh when Dylan laughed, because it was one of the most wonderful sounds in the whole damn world. Everyone else seemed to agree, because within seconds everyone in the room was laughing too.
At the end of the dinner, his mother stood up. “We have another thing we wanted to tell you.” For a moment her eyes flickered to the two empty chairs at the end of the table, but then she refocused and the sparkle returned to her eyes. “Since meeting Ken, I’ve been able to find a side of myself I didn’t know I was ignoring for years.”
“Please don’t go into detail,” Derek said before he could stop himself.
Dylan elbowed him.
“Derek Chang.” His mother’s glare was sharp enough even to cut through the rock-hard lemon cake they were all trying to chew as politely as possible. Unfortunately, the dessert had not been catered. “I’m still furious at you for making Ken think I was a day away from the old folks’ home.”
“I never said—” Derek gave up on the concrete citrus cake. His fork clinked down on his plate.
She tsked at him and took her husband’s hand.