KDBookOnline
Share Us
He did look like him in that photo. The idea hadn’t occurred to him, and his mom had never pointed it out. Too many of his most acute memories of his dad were from when he was sick. “I guess I do. Michelle looks like Dad too. Though obviously in this photo she’s a baby, so she just looks like a baby. But when you meet…” Derek’s mouth closed.
Dylan’s voice was cautious when he spoke again. “Things with Michelle really aren’t good?”
“It’s all my fault. I was just trying to help her. Give her a fresh start. But I don’t even know where she is. I messed things up.”
“I get that.” Dylan’s hand pressed on his lower back. “You like being able to fix things. And you’re good at it.”
Derek shifted his weight, resting a slumped shoulder against Dylan’s chest. “I guess I just always tried to take care of her. All of them.” His focus narrowed onto his dad’s face in the photo.
As footsteps sounded on the staircase, they pulled apart. Had Derek pulled away first? Amy had changed out of her fancy dress and let her hair down into a glossy black curtain to her shoulders. Seo-Joon was a tall presence behind her.
“Who wants a glass of champagne? I’ll be drinking one to celebrate a successful kid-free evening.” When Amy was irritated, she kept her voice deliberately flat in an almost Aubrey Plaza–like tone.
Dylan looked like a student facing a pop quiz at the mention of alcohol.
Derek grinned. “I think he thought people who have Bible verses on their walls don’t drink.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “My first night out since a human creature was cut out of my actual body—”
“Gross, Amy.”
“—and it was cut short because the nineteen-year-old future Rhodes scholar I trust with the lives of my four genetic crotch goblins somehow missed the essential life lesson about parasites and gas station sushi.” She rubbed at her temple. “I think that warrants a glass of something hopefully actually French since I’m a snob, midshelf because I’m economical, and very dry because obviously. Some Protestants take the story of Jesus turning water into a wine as a theological imperative.” She held up her water bottle to her husband as if asking him to role-play Jesus in this scenario.
Seo-Joon smiled and left the room.
When Derek was halfway through his glass Amy leaned forward, giving his progress on the drink a cool evaluation. She turned to Seo-Joon. He nodded at her.
What the hell?
“The reason why our mother wasn’t answering her phone tonight was because she was on an airplane. I finally got ahold of her while we were driving home.” She swallowed the rest of her glass with a gulp more suitable for Natty Light.
“She’s going out of town?” Derek asked.
Seo-Joon winced. “Just tell him, Ames.”
Dylan downed his champagne as if even he could tell he would need it.
“Our mother is flying home tonight after staying at an Airbnb in Florida that the listing describes as ‘a place to make your magical fantasies come true—a sensual romantic paradise just steps away from the sparkle of Disney World.’ And yes, she sent me the listing… in case I needed a recommendation. I think hot tubs in bedrooms are a little gauche, but to each their own.”
Derek spluttered into his glass, inhaling dry, midshelf French carbonation into his windpipe.
Dylan patted him on the back.
Amy looked like a cat about to present a human with a dead mouse with the manner of handing out a Nobel Prize. “So… she was staying at this sensual romantic paradise—”
“Please—” Derek’s jaw twitched. “Stop saying sensual romantic parad—”
“With the bat man.”
As Amy’s revelation hit him, Derek inhaled a gulp of champagne that hardened to concrete in his trachea. He tried to stop the coughing fit that followed by downing the rest of his drink, but the carbonation made it feel like there were Pop Rocks up his nose.
“Your mom went to Disney World with Batman?” Dylan’s hand stopped moving on Derek’s back.
Derek pushed the glass back onto the table. Mom went on vacation with some random man? To a sensual romantic paradise with a bedroom hot tub—Jesus fucking Christ, he needed to burn those words out of his brain.
Before Derek recovered enough to speak, Seo-Joon smiled and spoke directly into his flute. “Not Batman, the bat man.” He separated out each word. “The one Derek called to help her get the bats out of her attic a while ago.” After taking a second sip, he exchanged his mostly full glass for the empty one in his wife’s hand.
“Oh…” Dylan’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, so do you mean—”