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 staring at me with an anguished expression.


“He died, O’Reilly.” Nick looked away again. “Five years ago.”


“No. I—I didn’t want to steal your moment. Just needed to share your grief.” He sighed and turned the heater on higher. It was cold outside. Fall was here. The trees were shedding their leaves. “I was with him. When he died.”


David. I remembered his clever dark eyes. His long black coat. His melodic voice. The last thing David Pinet had seen before leaving this world, too young and too fast, was Nick Lund’s savage blue eyes gazing back into his. That thought brought a small measure of comfort to me.


What had been the last whispered words between them?


When David had closed his eyes, had Nick been holding his hand?


“Oh, Jesus.” Nick shook a thought off, something painful, and put the car in drive. “Let’s get out of here.”


Chapter 75