Page 6 of Fall for Him

“Wait.” This time when Dylan appraised Derek’s body, it wasn’t with heat—it was a cool calculation. “How tall are you exactly?”

Chapter 4

Dylan searched for a place to grip along the intact floor. It felt sturdy enough. The useless pieces of his glasses were in his pocket, so he couldn’t be sure, but the damage to the joists appeared fairly isolated even from this angle. Someone had cut out the drywall and done a poor patch job on the pipe to hide the problem. Probably whoever sold Derek the apartment. Damn. Such a shitty thing to do to someone.

“Can you pull up already?” Derek’s muffled voice was strained. “This has got to be the dumbest idea anyone’s ever had.”

“I know you don’t know me very well”—Dylan grunted, stretching the extra inch he needed to reach the best grip point. The bruising probably covering his entire right side hurt enough that he barely noticed the pain in his hand anymore—“but you can be assured this doesn’t even scratch the surface of bad ideas I’ve had in the past.”

“That’s not actually very comforting, Gallagher.”

Dylan balanced his weight as he prepared to pull up. At least Derek had thrown on a sweatshirt, so Dylan’s bare feet weren’t slipping on the skin he’d been caught ogling minutes earlier.

That hot, arrogant ass had known exactly what Dylan had been thinking while looking at him in the bathroom. And sure, Dylan’s mouth had gone bone-dry as Derek’s ridiculously chiseled muscles had actually rippled in front of him. Anyone would be disconcerted by a fitness magazine–worthy V-cut staring at them while sitting pathetically crouched on a toilet lid so the V-cut owner could gently tend their wound. Those stupid muscles had been taunting him to the point that even now Dylan couldn’t get “U Can’t Touch This” out of his head, and it would probably echo there every single time he saw Derek from now on.

Christ, he hated MC Hammer.

Dylan anchored the back of a borrowed hammer into the linoleum. As he pulled himself up, he was newly grateful for every hour he spent at the climbing gym over the last few years.

Once up, he slid away as if spelunking across a slippery cave cliff to the structurally sound hallway. The runner rug wasn’t even damp. The uneven hardwood had sent the flood directly into Derek’s bedroom rather than flooding the rest of his uncle’s apartment.

Great for Uncle Sean. Doubly shitty for Derek. Woof.

“I’ll unlock the front door.”

The only response from below was a vaguely affirmative growl.

Those growls were going to murder Dylan.

After pulling on a T-shirt, he estimated having ten minutes to make the bedroom less awful. Clothes were everywhere. Especially the clothes in that no-man’s-land category of clean enough to potentially be re-worn, but too dirty to go back in the drawers. His uncle’s bedroom furniture was exactly the kind that was incompatible with his brain. Antique dressers with deep drawers that swallowed his T-shirts like a black hole. It was nothing like his perfectly designed closet at his own house, but he shouldn’t complain. Not with everything his uncle was dealing with.

Although this certainly would be easier if Dylan’s actual house wasn’t contractually unavailable. He could have immediately jumped in his car and let Derek and the dog have Uncle Sean’s entire apartment to themselves.

The unexpected surge in professional work stress over the last few weeks meant Dylan had started to make big mistakes again. Like forgetting to take his meds, and thus forgetting to do all the things that had made his recent life so much better. Flooding the entire stupid kitchen was bigger than any mistake he’d made in years, and it was difficult not to fall back into the old patterns and intrusive thoughts from before he’d gotten all the diagnoses that changed his perspective.

Breaking something sometimes doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Dylan mentally repeated the phrase his sister had gotten from a therapist over and over as he stuffed things into the small closet. He’d redone the closet already, but it was filled with Uncle Sean’s boxes. The old desk in the corner had already become a catchall drop area of doom. After five minutes of quasi-tidying, every other surface was covered in random tools, tile samples, diagrams, and receipts. But at least the floor was clear now. Dylan yanked off the sheets and then remembered he had no idea where the hell he’d put the extra ones he bought last week.

He walked through the apartment grabbing forgotten cups and mugs he never seemed to notice until someone was coming over. “Shit.”

After a thorough excavation of another crap pile next to the repurposed hall closet, he found the Target bag with the new sheets. Hopefully Derek wasn’t like Chase, Dylan’s California ex-boyfriend/quasi-boss, and could tolerate box store thread counts. If he was used to sleeping next to a furry…

“Shit. The dog.”

Dylan set up the baby gate they used for his nieces and nephews in the hallway and filled a bowl with water. Derek might legitimately murder him if something happened to his allegedly “visiting” massive were-dog.

Just as Dylan tossed the comforter back onto the bed, the front door opened. He ran into the living room and scanned it. Yeah, he’d missed a lot of messy shit.

While walking in, Derek, whose apartment had been perfectly neat and minimalist except for the bedroom Dylan had wrecked, eyed the mess with cool skepticism. If the guy hadn’t been such a royal pain in the ass since he first met him, Dylan might apologize or explain the chaos. But Derek’s jab about fainting still stung more than Dylan’s hand wound.

Derek’s athletic shirt was snug against his shoulders. He was wearing very thin heathered gray sweatpants. Christ, was Dylan sweating suddenly?

Derek cleared his throat. That conceited half smile was back.

Jesus Christ on a Popsicle stick.

“I wasn’t checking you out.” Dylan’s mouth snapped shut too late.

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