Chapter 22

“What are you doing? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Trying to hide my screen, I corrected the transfer.

But Derek peeked at my phone. “Oh no, I made another mistake,” he said dejectedly. “On a payment.”

“The thing about mistakes is that they can often be corrected.”

“You’re always covering for me. I was supposed to be the one to watch over you.” My phone rang again and we both stared at it. “Gimme that.” Derek gently took it out of my hand, put it on silent mode and handed it back to me. “Now promise me something.”

“What. Anything.”

“Try to rest over there. Please. For the love of Thor.”

I nodded. “Ja.”

“And it’s not your fault. It hurts me just to know that you even think that, Nick.”

I looked around to make sure no one was watching and then briefly squeezed his hand.

“No,” Derek insisted, frowning. “You have a lot of power, okay? But the power to cause accidents is still out of your league, Chef Lund.”

“I wanted to give you the world and instead I closed it in on you.”