Quiet and imaginative, Derek O'Reilly spends a lot of time watching a movie in his head. His fiancé Nathan wonders why Derek hasn't taken any interest in their wedding planning, and Aunt Fran -- his spiritual guru -- would like to know when her guilt-tripping nephew became a kept boy. When she drops Derek's childhood journal on his lap, he's forced to remember the name he's been trying to forget since he was twelve years old. Nicolai Lund. Nick was Derek's neighbor ... and first love. Weeks before Derek's engagement party, a chance meeting with Nick catapults Derek into the past. But Nick isn't that seventeen-year-old rebel anymore. He's a man hardened by invisible scars. A man struggling with grief. As Derek reads through his childhood diary, he realizes what Nick was to him, still is today, and yet might be ... NOTE: This edition has been expanded and substantially edited.

Split

Nick was more beautiful than I could bear, but still, I hadn’t truly seen him.


Just caught sight of the nature of him.


“Nick.” Some alien voice had streamed out of my throat. I barely recognized my own tone. “Hi…”


He frowned a little and ran his tongue along his sculpted lips. I watched a subtle transformation come over his face.


Oh, and what a face he had. Made me believe in God.


Then he tilted his head, searching my eyes with his. “Wait…”


“It’s—it’s me. De—derek.” No, I was stuttering. I took a breath and tried one word at a time. “You don’t recognize me?”


His arctic gaze slowly moved over my body as though I was an empty canvas he needed to fill with color. “O’Reilly?”


To hear Nick speak my name after all these years, cut the last string that held me to the ground. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”


“No fucking way.” He drank me in with greedy eyes. “No way,” he said again softly, coming a little closer. “No way,” he whispered now, his fiery blue stare burning my mouth.


Chapter 61