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

I couldn’t tell Nick that I loved him, because he always stopped me, but I could at least tell his brother. “I’m in love with him,” I said, my heart pounding at the sound of those words.


Boone held his breath for a moment and then shook his head, smiling.


“Something tells me that you two are going to make quite the pair, that’s all.”


Last Monday, Mona, Spencer’s mother, agreed to allow Nick to make up for lost time with his son.


To my surprise, Nick took five consecutive days off, which he’d never done before, and we spent those days together.


Spencer was a whimsical child and I enjoyed his personality very much, but the first night we spent together, hidden away in Nick’s newly furnished loft, was quite a challenge.


Chapter 81