Page 30 of Fall for Him

DEREK

Says the man who ate a leftover Taco Bell Crunchwrap for breakfast.

DYLAN

Any burrito can be a breakfast burrito if you believe hard enough.

“He has to be doing this on purpose,” Derek muttered as he collected mugs and half-full glasses from literally every surface of the apartment. Did he just fill one then forget about it—he counted—sixteen times a day?

Over a month into this weird situation, and their time in the apartment rarely overlapped. Gallagher spent most hours in the kitchen demo-ing the rest of the floor or downstairs checking the progress of the mold abatement crew who had finally gotten started after several issues. He’d found a few other pipe problems in Derek’s kitchen needing more repairs Derek would have to pay for and more time stuck up here.

As frustrated as Derek was, he had to admit he was impressed by how much Dylan knew. He could remember a ridiculous amount of information like product numbers of flooring or exact measurements without always needing to write things down immediately.

And yet sixteen water glasses in a little over thirty-six hours?

The front door opened. Dylan walked in wearing a respirator mask under his chin. His safety glasses were perched on his head, holding back a white-flecked birds’ nest of hair. He started when he noticed Derek standing near the cabinets.

He grimaced at the dishes. “Shit, sorry. I was going to clean those up. My uncle called, so I just—”

“It’s fine.” Derek didn’t care about the dishes. He cared whether Uncle Liam had been calling to deliver more bad news about the small money-eating hell pit beneath them. “What’d he say?”

“They said a few more days on the bedroom mold abatement. My uncle said the pipes in the bathroom are fixed, and he’s going to send you an invoice. Two of the fixtures on the tub were not installed properly, so you’re going to need to pick new ones.”

Derek sighed.

“The drywall work’s going to be pretty extensive. I have an order in from a supplier who can get some of the materials wholesale if you’re good with not having a lot of choice? If you come down, I can show you what I mean.”

“Alright.” Derek petted Gus once and followed Gallagher downstairs.

Dylan gave Derek an overview of the work that had already happened and outlined the next steps. The living room area was crammed with stuff, but they had set up his bedframe there with an air mattress hoping that it would be possible for him to move back down sooner rather than later given that the crew had isolated the mold area. But since Gus was terrified of the air scrubbing machines, and Derek still didn’t have functioning plumbing, moving back down seemed several weeks out. After Dylan finished his explanations, Derek grabbed a gallon bag of large breed dog food from the pantry. As they stepped up to the sidewalk in front of the building, Derek realized his blunder.

The telltale squeak of rubber Crocs against Carol Taylor’s doormat made both men freeze. They wouldn’t make it back down the stairs to his apartment without her seeing them. If they walked around the sidewalk toward the entrance to Gallagher’s apartment, she’d see the bag of dog food.

Derek whirled around. “I’m sorry about this.” He wrapped his arms around Dylan so that the bag of food was hidden between them. Dylan’s back was pressed into the small brick wall beside the apartment building. Derek made sure his voice carried to Carol while he continued to “embrace” Gallagher, you know, in a friendly way. “Thank you so much for helping me—uh—”

“Unclog your toilet?” Dylan matched Derek’s volume.

Carol’s car door opened.

Derek made an Are you kidding me face at Dylan, who replied with a look that clearly stated, If you’re going to make me hug you to hide dog food, I’m going to make the world think your epic dumps broke your shitter. Dylan followed that expression with a small challenging nod.

Derek kept his voice serious. “Yes. Thank you so much for that.”

“My pleasure.” Dylan’s body shook with suppressed laughter. He spoke louder. “I’m always happy to snake a fella’s drain if he needs it.”

Derek clamped his lips shut.

Carol called out to them. “Mr. Chang, if you needed to borrow a plunger, you could’ve asked me for one.” She wasn’t more than five steps away from them, but Carol’s typical voice volume was a shout. “Mine’s pretty old, but with the right leverage it still works just fine.”

Dylan lowered his voice to a whisper. “Hear that? Hers is old but it works just fine with leverage.”

Derek locked eyes with Dylan. “Stop.”

Dylan was a breath away from absolutely losing it.

“Mr. Chang, did you hear me? Mine’s not quite as flexible as some of them they make these days, but it gets the job done.”

Dylan’s face could best be described as a kid on Christmas morning.

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