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Something that changed everything…
“Where have you been?” Dylan gripped him by the shoulders, eyes scanning him.
Derek flinched. “I…”
Confusion glimmered on Dylan’s face. “Bad shift? Where’d you go? It’s nine forty-five. I thought… I thought you were coming up for dinner.”
“Shit, nine forty-five?” Derek was taken aback. He’d walked for two hours? He’d been lost in memories. It had sped through his mind like the B-roll of the dead wife in one of his favorite movies.
“I even called the hospital. They said you clocked out at seven thirty, and I don’t have anyone else’s number that I could think to call. I was worried.”
“Dylan…”
“What?”
Derek had never been as strong and capable as he wanted to be. He’d been a dumb emo kid who’d tried and failed to “fix” a heartbroken family. A family that didn’t need to be fixed.
They needed to heal.
Derek needed to heal. He still needed to heal.
Dylan’s jaw tightened. His glasses sparkled in the streetlights. He was almost shaking with what appeared to be anxiety. And something else.
There was a time a few months ago when Michelle’s words would have rooted so firmly in his head, they’d have sent him running back to the life he had been trapped in for so many years. But he was different now. Joni was right. There might have been truth, but like Joni said, she was angry and sad and hurting.
Old Derek might have forced himself into his most confident swagger. He would have said some bullshit like “This was fun, dude, but given that we’re neighbors right now, the hooking up thing’s probably not the best idea. You know what they say. Don’t shit where you eat. Or whatever.”
Old Derek would have believed a trapped life was safer, just like pining for Jake kept him from getting hurt.
Dylan’s hands dropped from his shoulders. “You’re scaring me, babe. What happened tonight?”
Derek dropped his backpack on the ground and pulled Dylan in a potentially bone-crushing hug. Dylan rested his head on Derek’s chest. One of his favorite things about Dylan was that so far he never ended a hug. It was like when he was hyperfocused on his work at that intense workstation. Every part of his consciousness stilled in a hug. Derek pulled way too soon this time because he couldn’t hold back the words anymore. None of this was fair to Dylan. Life was precious. He didn’t want Dylan to spend another second without knowing what Derek had figured out.
“Dylan, I…”
“What’s wrong?” Dylan’s frantic gaze flitted back and forth between Derek’s eyes as if he were trying to read the thoughts behind them.
“I have to tell you something.”
“I want to tell you something too. But first can we—”
Derek’s partially latched door pushed open. Gus galloped up the stairs and onto the sidewalk. He jumped on Derek just as the small form of a woman popped out from behind the azaleas like a pastel jack-in-the-box from hell.
“I knew it, Mr. Chang.”
Chapter 46
Dylan was a mess. He couldn’t pay attention to anything that angry woman was yelling. Was Derek going to break up with him? He hadn’t even been angry Derek was late. He’d been panicked. Last time that happened, Derek had been assaulted. Dylan had even taken Gus for a walk up and down Derek’s normal route home and hadn’t seen him.
He’d been about to beg Derek to tell him what the heck was going on when that goddamn Carol Taylor literally jumped-scared them out of the bushes.
Carol’s tone anticipated righteous comeuppance. “I’ve caught you red-handed this time.”
Derek sighed.
Another woman strolled up. At first glance, the two women could not seem more different. The stranger was several inches taller than Carol, and while Carol normally wore the kind of thing you’d buy in a Florida hotel lobby after your kid threw up on you in the airport shuttle, the other woman wore a crisp, tailored suit and held a briefcase. But their facial features were nearly identical.
“Janice, this is the one harboring a banned breed.”