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Bringing it up when Dylan was half-asleep was also probably not the best time. How could he even tell him at this point and make it clear that it felt like it wasn’t even a big deal, when it was obviously a big enough deal before that Derek had intentionally avoided telling him the truth?
Dylan stirred, his eyes opening a sliver. “Did you remember to get the key back from Carol so Felicity could borrow one?”
Derek sighed. “I just got another copy made instead. She said to just leave it here in Sean’s place when I went back downstairs in the morning.” Yep, another way he was complete chicken shit.
“You know, I like you enough I’d go and march in there and take it from Carol, but…”
“But?”
Dylan pressed himself into Derek. “She’s got birds.” A yawn muffled his next words. “You know what? Maybe we should get Daddy Batman to do it.”
Two hours later a call on Dylan’s work phone woke him.
Dylan rolled off of Derek and grabbed his phone, pulling on clothes. Derek groaned but then snored and turned over. He snagged a T-shirt as he eased the bedroom door closed.
“What?” Dylan said into the phone. “I swear to god if this is about an error in that demo—”
“It’s not.” Chase said. “You missed the Pager Duty alert. There’s a system outage. All hands on deck with the engineering team.”
“Shit.” Dylan rubbed his head, dragging his hand across the areas on the side that were so much shorter now. “Call—”
“Already done.”
“And you’ve sent me the—”
“In your inbox.” Chase chuckled. “It’s really a shame you quit my job. You were good at it.”
“Just keep your phone on. I’ll update you when I can.”
“Well, I was planning on—”
“Yeah, not in a joke mood.”
“Who got your panties in a twist this afternoon?”
“It’s one o’clock in the goddamn morning here.” Dylan turned on his computer, and while it was booting he grabbed his medication bottle and a drink. While gulping down the cold caffeine, he made a snack.
“Unlike you to actually know what time it is. Do you have a new lucky man in your life? Is that why you’re a bit touchy about being dragged out of bed? You used to live for this action…” Chase’s kind of assholery was so ubiquitous in tech, and he hated it. “I was kind of hoping we’d reconnect during your trip out. I rearranged my schedule so I could be back in the country for it.”
“No.”
The gross, immature euphemisms and incubator frat boy wannabes with their hoodies and their casual misogynistic, homophobic bullshit. Dylan didn’t miss it. And he hadn’t been lying that Derek had absolutely nothing to worry about there. This minutes-long conversation with Chase made Dylan only more aware of how anyone else he’d ever been with couldn’t measure up to Derek.
“Oh.” Chase’s voice stiffened. Clearly not what he’d been expecting. “I was just joking anywa—”
“Hanging up now. I’ll be online in a minute.” He took the snack and drink to his desk.
“The team’s having a tag-up in thirty minutes.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
The next time Dylan checked his watch for non-work-related issues, it was nine o’clock in the morning. He’d forgotten to set any of his usual alarms, but if he didn’t pee and stretch his legs soon, he’d regret it.
Soon, but he couldn’t stop now. He had two more things to do.
“Dylan?” a hand touched his shoulder. Derek was awake.
“So sorry. Hold on a sec.”