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

He went to a box and pulled out a bottle of wine from it. “Take your shoes off. Relax.”


He then went to his laptop, which was set atop a wooden crate, and began scrolling down some list. His eyes were fixed to the screen, and I indulged myself while I could. He wore faded blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt that stretched beautifully over his sculpted chest. Everything on him was long and hard.


His ass in those blue jeans tortured me.


As my eyes wandered over every inch of his body, I remembered the L shape couch in the Lunds’ basement. I recalled the blue ink that had stained my sweaty fingers that day when I’d asked him questions for that stupid oral presentation. “Wing it O’Reilly,” he’d said.


I could do this. I could bring us together tonight.


Chapter 70