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Jake got closer and smiled at Derek’s phone. “Oh. That reminds me. Found something today Olive said is yours.” He dug through a kitchen drawer and pulled out the old disposable camera. “Not sure it still works, but you could probably try to get it developed anyway.”
“Two shots left.” Derek held out the disposable like he had held up the phone. “I guess no time like the present. Smile.”
Just before the shutter clicked, Jake leaned close, his voice low. “Do you want to stay?”
Unlike now when Derek sat in a room filled with morning sunshine, that old farmhouse was pitch black when Derek slipped out of Jake’s bed. He’d realized he was caught when he heard Gus’s jingling collar and that same ear-flapping sound. Gus leaned on Jake on the landing.
“History is repeating itself.” Jake sat on the step, Gus resting a head on one of his knees.
“I just needed to go for a walk”
“At three A.M. when it’s thirty-eight degrees?”
“Crisp fall air.” Derek forced a casual smile as his fingers slipped on his first attempt at tying his shoelace.
“Last time was the same, Derek.” Jake frowned. “Have you ever considered that you like the idea of me and us more than what it would really be like?”
“You have to know I’ve always lo—”
“Don’t say… I’m not sure this is—”
“Jake.” Derek stood, focused on the distance between himself and the door. “Please… let’s just go on a date? It doesn’t have to be a big deal. When you get back from your trip. If you want to.”
“It’s not a matter of me not wanting to. I just don’t know if I’m—”
“You’re what I’ve wanted forever. It’s just new, and I’ve never been the stick-around-and-cuddle guy.” Derek gripped the railing at the bottom of the stairs, feet glued to the floor as he looked up at Jake. “But I really want to go on the date we talked about last night.”
“You’re sure?” Jake glanced from Derek’s coat to the door.
“Maybe I just want to be wooed?”
Despite Derek’s attempt to be flirtatious falling flat, Jake smiled. “When I get back, I’m going to take you out on the best date ever.”
Derek’s stomach should have been full of that fluttering happy sensation he used to have every time he saw Jake, but instead it felt queasy. And he couldn’t blame it on a hangover. This time they’d both been sober.
The farther Derek walked that day over fields of frost-covered grass, the more loudly his mind screamed for a redo. Part of him wanted to take it all back.
At the time, he thought it was a reflexive fear of relationships.
Cold feet. Both the literal and figurative kind on that blustery morning. When his feet went numb, he started back. Derek fell asleep on the couch, and when he woke up, Jake had left.
Jake was still on that last business trip when an envelope of photos arrived. The note explained he couldn’t help getting them developed. Derek flipped through, oddly relieved that the last photo, not the Power Ranger one… the other one… must not have turned out.
The next time Derek saw Jake was at the Baltimore trauma center after Olive got the call.
He’d loved Jake for so long, but he couldn’t wait to leave afterward both times. After a night sleeping beside Dylan, he’d never wanted to leave.
Derek dug his fingers into that damned tight spot above his eyes. Was this another post-concussive thing? A sinus thing? He grabbed a tissue box from the side table and blew his nose.
When Jake was around, no one compared. After Jake’s accident, Derek needed easy release and fun. If he actually stopped numbing and felt all his feelings, he might crumble.
Dylan had assumed Derek wasn’t looking for anything real, and the more he considered this, he couldn’t blame him for the assumption. Derek had hated feeling Dylan go hot and cold on him, but hadn’t Derek also held back to hide his own growing feelings? Maybe part of him reflexively pushed Dylan away because the attraction felt so vital, so easy, that it became unwelcome proof things would never have worked with Jake.
And acknowledging that should have felt like betrayal.
But it didn’t.
How had the memory of that that dark, bleary walk gotten lost in the hazy devastation after the accident? He’d known Jake wasn’t right for him. Not in the way Derek had fantasized him being.