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

“Taste this.” He turned and the sun was in his diamond blue eyes. He pushed a spoon full of the most marvelous looking sauce to my lips. “Tell me what you think?”


He’d been cooking all day, trying out various new summer recipes. Happily, I’d been playing the role of the willing taster. I gathered the sauce with my tongue, and let it sit in my mouth for a moment, thenswallowed the decadent thing. “Wow,” was all I found to say. Another success.


He smiled and leaned back against the sink’s edge. “Not missing anything? Sure?”


“Escoffier, come here, boy.” The dog cocked his head and shuffled to Nick. “Here.” Nick dropped a piece of bone marrow in the dog’s jaw. “Enjoy.”


“Is that how you get rid of your competitors?”


Nick laughed, throwing his head back, and my soul soared with joy.


“So,” he said, more seriously. “Do you like the new job? Must be exciting to plug digits into a computer all day.”


Chapter 83