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

A shadow moved through Nick’s eyes. “O’Reilly. This is Spencer.” Then his voice weakened, as thoughit couldn’t quite carry the weight of what he had to say. “My son.” The boy squirmed in his arms, and Nick combed his white blond hair. “Where’s your pacifier?” Nick looked around, toting this little blond elf on his hip, fumbling through the toys and blocks in the play pen. “Where d’you put it, Spence?”


I stood stiff as a mannequin, with my eyes pulsing inside my head.


Nick pulled a pacifier out of a toy truck and dangled it. “You want this?”


The boy smiled and jerked the pacifier out of Nick’s fingers. He stuffed into his pink mouth.


“Okay, buddy.” Nick set the baby down in the play pen again. “Give Daddy a minute, because I need to make sure O’Reilly here is still breathing.”


Nick carefully made his way to where I stood. “I didn’t know how to say it. I couldn’t find the right time or words, and then I just figured that—”


Chapter 79