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“Sure you weren’t.” An exhausted yawn made Derek’s smugness vanish. He left his keys on the small bookshelf by the front door. “Bed?”
The dog, for what it was worth, whined almost apologetically at Derek’s curtly demanding tone.
Good hellhound.
Dylan’s sweeping gesture to the door was somehow a blend of crossing guard and concierge. “Your accommodations are right through there, sir.”
WHY DID HE SAY THAT?
Dylan’s furiously pumping blood seemed to scald his ears. He had been trying to make a joke about Derek’s tone. Zero out of ten for execution.
“Sir,” Derek repeated with a cocked-eyebrow nod that made Dylan wish the polar dog had just eaten him when he had the chance so he didn’t have to live through this moment. “Kay.”
Dylan glanced to the front door—half to make sure it was locked and half to give himself an excuse to look away from Derek’s pitying derision. “It was just a jo—”
The bedroom door closed. Derek (and the polar dog) had disappeared behind it without sparing him another word.
Dylan sighed. “That’s fair.”
Realizing he was speaking to a door, Dylan decided he’d been pathetic enough for one night and grabbed his laptop to make sure there were no more emergency emails from Chase about the project. There weren’t. Small mercies were the best kind he could hope for right now. Chase was in Singapore and was the kind of Stanford business school tech bro who thought that whatever time zone he was in should determine the hours for every coding minion (Chase’s term) reporting to him. Dylan was not one of the aforementioned coding minions, but his contract with Chase’s company required responses when system errors occurred. Even if those system errors occurred in the middle of the night and the subsequent distraction caused a major household catastrophe.
He headed to the bathroom and braced himself on the sink for a couple of breaths before looking at his reflection. Sludge coated his hair. He definitely needed a haircut before seeing his mother again. Grime coated his chest. His back right ribs ached but weren’t excruciating. He’d probably have some impressive bruises tomorrow. At least the bandages on his messed-up hand survived the climb.
He shuddered. As a kid, his brothers tried to cure his blood-related passing-out episodes by showing him every gruesome hockey injury they got. Clearly, it hadn’t worked.
Dylan rinsed his unbandaged hand and pressed the cold, wet palm to his cheek.
He might never recover from the humiliation of waking up in the brawny arms of the man Dylan’s sister Felicity called Hottie McDickhead. Well, it had started as Dr. McDreamy when they first saw him standing outside Uncle Sean’s kitchen window in those light blue scrubs that showed the perfect amount of bicep. The jogger bottoms had made it obvious how rarely Derek skipped leg day. Like never. What exercises even gave a person an ass like that? It was like his butt muscles had muscles. Dylan had whispered the word dibs to Felicity, just as Derek turned around and looked up at the window. When his eyes locked on Dylan they actually glittered with cold, highly perplexing rage.
“What’d you do to that guy, Dylan? Key his car?” Felicity asked as Derek drove off.
“No clue.”
They hadn’t even met before, and Derek glared at him like he thought Dylan tortured kittens or listened to Creed or something. He couldn’t blame Derek for being an asshole tonight, though. Dylan had fallen through his ceiling.
Dylan groaned. “Of all people, I had to wreck the apartment of the grouchy local homosexual Adonis.” Dylan pulled on his old and favorite Stanford hoodie from the back of the bathroom door.
At least he could make it up to Derek by tackling the worst of the mess now.
The longer water sat, the worse the damage could be.
Dylan could get a few hours of cleanup done and then sleep in the bed after Derek left for the hospital. Maybe this roommate situation could work for long enough so that his family wouldn’t know about the flooded kitchen. He could almost hear his brothers’ guffaws in his head.
He pocketed Derek’s keys, grabbed some contractor-grade trash bags, popped in his earbuds, and headed downstairs.
Dylan was closing his fifth sack of trash when a strong hand nudged his shoulder. Dylan whipped around and pulled out an earbud so he could hear what a very angry-looking Derek was saying.
“What are you doing?”
“Water damage gets worse, and I had a lot of caffeine and that accidental nap before the whole disaster happened so…” He shrugged.
Derek’s eyes darted to the stacks of items next to the towels in the corner. “You went through…”
“Oh right.” Dylan had been a little surprised at what he found under the bed. Honestly, he didn’t really know people had DVDs anymore. He’d found several large decorative baskets containing a collection of TV shows and movies. And they were alphabetized. Like he was an actual serial killer.
“I—ugh. It’s—” Derek’s cheeks and neck went deeper into that not-unpleasant rose color.
“The water saturated the baskets, so I had to take everything out. I was surprised that there were three different collector’s editions of Burlesque to choose from, but I’m not judging. I was always more of a Meg Ryan kinda guy… when I watched those kinds of movies… with my sisters, I mean.”