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Dylan took a bite of pizza. “So Olive, Gus is staying here because you’re traveling?”
“Yep.” Olive rifled through the stacked boxes.
While Olive was distracted, Derek fixed Dylan with a pointed tense head shake and then made a motion that either meant Cut it out or I’ll kill you. Either was possible.
“Uh… where are you going?” Dylan said, trying to keep the conversation going while he worked out what Derek meant.
“Stella has a few interviews all up and down the East Coast. We’re going to explore a lot of the cities we’ve never been before and then visit Maine and Canada for a few weeks. Gone about two months in total.” She pulled out the last piece of veggie supreme. After a bite, she grinned at Derek. “I’m really lucky Derek’s willing to keep Gus since the fella’s not really up for big car trips anymore. Tough on his big doggy joints, according to the vet.” Olive scratched behind the areas of gray peppering the dog’s floppy ears. His tongue lolled out as he lifted his head to her from where he was sprawled over her feet. “Aren’t you glad to be staying with Uncle Derek?”
Dylan nodded “Yeah, he’s lucky to have Derek so attached to him, especially with Derek’s neighbor—”
“Falling through the floor and almost landing on him.” Derek handed Dylan his beer as if to say Drink this and shut up. “Yeah, oh, and that other neighbor is really up in arms about the repair work.”
Oh… So Olive had no idea that Gus wasn’t technically allowed to stay here at all. Interesting. Another secret Derek Chang was keeping…
Dylan picked at his bottle label. If the dog was hers, it meant that its previous owner—the one who died—was her brother. This meant that Gus’s former owner was probably pretty young. Far too young to have died so suddenly. Shit. Well, now Dylan felt even more like a jerk for almost spilling the beans about the HOA dog situation.
“What are you going to do if Parakeet Karen gets upset about the renovation work?” Olive picked mushrooms off her veggie pizza and plunked them onto Derek’s plate.
Derek shrugged, eating Olive’s mushrooms as if this was what they did every time they got pizza. “Invent some other plausible explanation for why Dylan is coming over at all hours of the day. Bandwidth thieving maybe?”
“I mean, you guys could pretend to be dating,” Olive said with a suppressed smile.
“No. No. No.” Derek’s eyes did that angry glittering thing that both scared Dylan and made him feel a little… something else. This viscerally negative response only further delighted Olive. He waggled a finger at her. “Not in a million years. I mean it. Don’t even say that out loud. Not even as a joke, Olivia.”
She stood to face him, crossing her arms in mock defiance. “That’s not my name.”
“Olivia.”
“Darryl.”
“Olivia.”
They locked into a fierce, silent glare battle.
Dylan leaned toward Joni. “Are they always like this?”
She grabbed another piece of pizza. “Yep. You kind of get used to it and then eventually find it endearing.” She arched an eyebrow. “Most of the time.”
Chapter 8
Joni and Stella each called out a last goodbye to Dylan as they left Derek and Olive standing alone in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the sidewalk. Awkwardness knotted beneath Dylan’s sternum as he looked away. Derek’s forehead rested on his best friend’s shoulder like he was breaking at the thought of her being far away for even a few months. It seemed like they had been through a lot together recently.
Dylan scanned the room to make sure he wouldn’t forget anything here this time. Tonight had been fun, but what was he supposed to do now? He’d slept until late afternoon before coming down here to get trapped in a closet. They had one functional bedroom between the two apartments, and because of the text he’d just gotten, he needed to give Derek more bad news as soon as he came back inside.
The shuddering sound coming from the doorway might have been Olive crying.
If Dylan had picked up that giant ladder he’d wanted to borrow today from his brother, he could have escaped back up into his apartment through the still-gaping hole. Moving now would wake the dog hibernating on his right foot and probably ruin their moment. He kept his glances at the door as covert as possible. Derek’s shoulder muscles beneath his T-shirt actually rippled as he tightened their hug.
Dylan tensed.
Any time he was around Derek Chang, Dylan was transported to his days as a preteen baby gay when his older brothers brought their hot varsity hockey teammates over during summer vacation. He had felt like his attraction was as obvious as if he had a blinking neon sign above his head spelling out “I want to do butt stuff someday.”
Ever the self-preservationist, thirteen-year-old Dylan spent most of those hours hiding out on the family computer in the living room learning to code. This was unfortunately right next to a window looking out on the backyard where the hockey team’s pickup football and conditioning work consisted of stripping off their shirts and engaging in a sweaty group exercise routine so overtly homoerotic all it needed was a few ancient Spartan uniforms to be a shot-for-shot recreation of the movie 300.
And back then there had been the real terror of the ill-timed teenage erection. He could hide those more easily while sitting behind a computer desk. At least when he got older, he had some control over such things. Maybe he should be thankful for those hours trying to write programs. They had given him a successful career. Although, he had gotten inexplicably aroused by binary for a while during his first year of compu-sci classes.
Man, that Pavlov was a prick.