19. Wyn

"So," says Derek, propping himself up on one elbow and curling his body toward me. "How'd I do?"

There's a cocky smugness to him that makes my blood boil.

"It was fine."

"What? Just fine? No notes?"

"I said it was fine," I say quickly. "It was average like I thought it would be, and you should feel good about that. It was pretty decent for a first time. A solid B-minus, and that's nothing to be ashamed o—"

"You know you screamed when you came, right?"

"Um, I think you'll find that was a roar, Mr. MacAvoy. And a very manly one at that," I correct. His eyes glitter, and I'm suddenly overly aware of how close he is to me. And how naked I am. "Okay, fine. It was a B-plus, but that's as high as I'll go."

Lies, total lies. If he kisses me or tells me I'm pretty right now, I'll bump that bad boy up to an A-plus so fast his head will spin.

Derek rolls off the bed and saunters to the bathroom, tossing a hand towel over to me. I clean up as best I can and will my legs to come back to life. I've regained sensation to about mid-calf when Derek comes back, towel around his waist, and perches on my side of the bed. He has his wallet in his hand. Soft, brown leather. Well used. Worn in. There"s a deep crease in the leather from years of being in his pocket.

Big hands handle crisp hundred-dollar bills.

One

Two

Three

Four

All of them drop onto my nightstand. Then a fifty, a twenty, and a ten. Finally, he scrounges in his coin pouch and finds two one-dollar coins. He rubs them together between his thumb and forefinger, humming as if he finds something amusing but is doing his best not to laugh, before setting them carefully on top of the stack of bills.

The shock of what's happened hits me like an icy splash straight to the face. One that slowly trickles down my arms and chest and puddles in my lungs.

Holy fucking fuck!

I just had sex for money.

With my boss. My employer. A deeply difficult man who I don't like. An unmanageable man who's made my life absolute hell since I met him. An impossible, infuriating man. The most impossible, infuriating man I've ever met.

A man I'd happily fuck for free.

I look at the money and flit rapidly through one emotion after another. There's shock, of course, there's oodles of that. A bit of horror too. And some disbelief. There's something bubbly and hot that swells under my skin. I think it might be humiliation or shame, but I've never managed to work out the difference between those two. Either way, it heats me up from the inside out. It's a thick, lumpy cocktail, but that's not all. Right beneath all of that, tucked away deeply, buried under my ribcage, fighting for freedom, there's something confusing. Something hard to explain and nonsensical.

A rambling, rampant sense of euphoria.

And it's growing by the minute.

"Come on, let's go," says Derek, grabbing one of my wrists and pulling me up. I clamber to my feet and struggle to find my balance. As I attempt my first step, Derek takes it upon himself to motivate me by landing a tidy slap on my right ass cheek. It's not all that hard. A firm pat more than a slap. It's friendly more than anything else. Familiar. It makes me color from my head to my toes and back up again. Light as it was, I feel it as I walk. His hand on my cheek. His flesh on mine. His hand on my skin.

It takes the euphoria I felt before and twists it hard, wringing it out. Squeezing it. Changing it. Making it different. Turning it into the deepest desire I've ever felt.

Derek is waiting on one of the loungers near the pool by the time I'm dressed. He's wearing navy-blue tailored shorts that fall to the knee, a white Hawaiian shirt with dark-blue palm leaf etchings all over it, and a pair of sunglasses that are doing astonishing things for his bone structure. He looks crisp and clean. Casual but put together.

I feel the exact opposite. I've lost control of my hair from the humidity and other things, and for reasons that are now unknown to me, I seem to have packed more running clothes than resort wear. I thus find myself in a pair of short athletic shorts and a pink tank with exaggerated cut-outs for the arms. The tank is one of those things I thought I could pull off—and sure, if I had a total personality change and started hitting the gym in earnest, I might be able to make it work. Things being what they are, I look ridiculous.

I clutch at my notebook, holding it over my chest in an attempt to bring something professional to the ensemble.

"I'm going to head out to buy Jamie's nuggets and all that," I say, with a little wave, "and then I'll be back to check the installation and the rest of the setup."

"I'll come with you."

It"s pretty much the last thing I need.

"What? Oh no, no, you don't have to do that. I'll be fine on my own. The car's ready for me. I just got a message from reception."

"Wyn, I'd never let my partner venture off on their own on an island they've never been to. Never. No one would believe that."

Well, that's great. Just great. More time in a small, confined space with Derek.

I accept defeat and whip my pen out as he tips the valet. Might as well make it a work trip.

"So," I say, as he puts the car into Drive, "the pressure is on. By the time we get back, all the guests will have arrived. We'll have a full house. We have cocktails on the beach this evening and the rehearsal dinner tomorrow. Cocktails should be fine as it's informal and we can mingle and move around, but we need to be prepared for the rehearsal and wedding dinners. The seating is set, and we can't stall or wander off if someone asks a question we don't know."

"Fair enough," he says with a light sigh. "Do your worst."

I flick through my questionnaire and pick up where we left off. "Favorite food?"

"Lasagna."

"Really? I thought you'd like something fancier."

"Nah, the less fancy, the better. You?"

"Depends if you're asking Healthy Me or Actual Me. Healthy Me is all about Buddha bowls and salads with lots of protein and hemp seeds and things like that."

"Sounds like someone who'd get along with The Awakening." I try not to snort. The last thing he needs is encouragement. "And Actual You?"

"Nachos forever. But only with real melted cheese, not cheese sauce. I can't stand that damn sauce. Totally ruins a perfect meal."

"Got it. Cheese good. Sauce bad."

I ignore that.

"Hey, Siri," I say, "remind me to add lasagna to The Dar—Derek's lunch menu rotation." A single dark brow arches. I move on swiftly. "Favorite sweet treat?"

"I'm not really a fan of sweets unless you can drink them. Milkshakes are good though. And Peruvian hot chocolate isn't bad."

Not bad, my ass. The man loves that hot chocolate.

"It's dark chocolate and hot cakey things served with ice cream for me."

I turn the page over, skipping over several questions. I was in a high state of agitation when I prepared the document and though I'd never admit it to Derek, there are a few questions that might not be absolutely essential.

"Hobbies?"

"Definitely not," he says with some heat. "No hobbies ever. Don't even like the word hobby."

"You're offended by the word hobby?" I check with some suspicion. I can't tell if he's being serious or not. He glances in my direction and cracks a smile so perfect and pristine it makes me feel like the car's gone into a skid. "Right." I jot down what I'm saying as I say it. "Hobbies include making money, terrifying people, and being difficult."

A throaty chuckle rumbles around the car, causing the temperature to spike so severely that I feel compelled to punch all the dials on the air conditioning several times. Hot air immediately starts blasting onto the windshield and into my face. I keep punching. Eventually, Derek swats my hand away and sets the dial back where it was, hardly taking his eyes off the road.

"Come to think of it," he says when order has been restored, "I do have a hobby. It's new, but I like it a lot…" I can tell from his voice exactly what he's about to say.

"Don't say giving blowjobs," I warn. "Don't you dare say—"

"Giving blowjobs," he says firmly. There's that laugh again. Throatier. Deeper. A soft cackle that makes my throat dry. "No, no, you're right. I don't think that qualifies as a hobby. More of a hidden talent, I think. D'you have a question about hidden talents in there? If not, you should add one."

"Sports?" I ask, moving on.

"No, no, we're not done with hobbies." I glare at him until he concedes, "I collect art and fast cars."

Art and fast cars. The fucker. How dare he make hobbies hot.

"Art. Cars. Got it. I like—"

"I know what your hobbies are."

"You don't."

"I do. You collect stationery. Little notebooks with matching pens and rulers. And cute Post-it notes and stickers and nice pastel paper with flowers on it. I bet you have a ton of tiny containers to store it all in." He looks me up and down, taking the measure of me, making his final allegation. "I bet you have a whole lot of tiny glass jars too. Bet you bought them thinking you'd use them all the time, and I bet they're all still at home, unused, possibly still in their packaging."

I'm deeply, deeply annoyed. Offended, even. Not least because what he's said is terrifyingly accurate.

"I do not have tiny glass jars." I happen to own twenty-four small- to medium-sized glass jars with little cork lids, but that's neither here nor there. And no, I haven't decided what to use them for yet, but that's neither here nor there either. "I do scrapbook though. My gran taught me how when I was a kid, and Bridget and I like working on projects together. It's actually a very, very cool thing to do." I mark up the page a little, even though it feels like I've been the one doing most of the talking. "Where were we…sports. That's it."

"Swimming, running, working out with a trainer," he replies.

"No team sports?"

"No. Not since I was a kid."

"Why not?" Technically, the follow-up questions aren't on the questionnaire, but Derek strikes me as a man with massive latent jock potential, so I think clarification is required. For believability.

"Wyn," he says, keeping his eyes on the road and his grasp on the wheel light. His voice changes. It's lower. Softer. Raw. "It's not…I can't… It's not wise for men like me to be close to other men."

The weight of what he's saying hits me. Even though I can't see his eyes because of his shades, I know what I'd see in them if I could. Pain. Ancient pain that makes my chest ache. "So you hold yourself back?"

"Always."

"So, no close friends?"

"No. Lots of acquaintances. Lots of people who owe me one, but Barbara Anne didn't like it when I was friends with women, and I've never felt like it was a good idea for me to get close to other men…" He drifts off, and we drive in silence. "One friend," he says after so long it takes me a second to catch up. "One friend I was close to."

My heart, despite being all too aware that I'm fake dating, not actually dating, Derek MacAvoy, squeezes uncomfortably and starts to pound.

"What was he like?" I ask, a little breathless.

"His name was Carlo Diaz."

It's far from a surprise. The man keeps a photograph of him beside his bed. Of course they were friends. It's hardly unexpected. The only thing even vaguely surprising about it is that Derek's admission seems to have grabbed me by the back of the neck and plunged me head first into deep water.

I struggle for breath and kick to the surface just in time to hear him say, "I was a sophomore in high school, and he was the new boy. He joined halfway through the year, and we sat next to each other in math class. We became friends right away. Just hit it off, you know. It was easy with him, and it was hardly ever easy for me with anyone. We were just kids. We laughed at dumb things and hung out at each other's houses after school. I didn't notice it happening. It was slow, I guess. One minute, I was helping him with math problems, and the next, I was dousing myself with cologne before he came over and making complicated plans to see more of him. I wanted to spend all my time with him. All my time. Everything else felt like a waste of time."

He indicates and pulls over, parking the car on the side of the street outside the shop we're going to.

"What happened?" I ask.

"Nothing," he answers, and at first, I think that's the end of the story. That he's stopped talking. That he's done. "Nothing happened at all. Carlo was at my place. We were hanging out in the living room. I'd started breaking Doritos into pieces and tossing them at him. He was laughing and doing the same thing." This time, he's quiet for so long that I'm positive he's stopped talking. There's a blanket of something heavy and dense cloaking the car. Very heavy. Very dense. Unbearably heavy and dense. "Remember what I told you about my dad?" he asks almost dreamily. "Remember who he was to me?"

Your friend.

Your hero.

"Yeah," I say softly, "I do."

"Well, like I said, nothing happened. Nothing was even said. It was just a look. My dad came into the room, stood in the doorway, and looked at me. He looked at me, then Carlo, then me again, and he didn't say a word." Derek takes a long, shallow breath and lets it out slowly. "He just looked at me. Three, maybe four seconds. That's all it was, but it was enough… Enough to let me know that everything we had between us, everything good between me and my dad, all of it…" He pushes his sunglasses up and looks directly at me, eyes hidden behind glossy black lenses, fine lines around his mouth hinting at the tension in him. "None of it was unconditional."

"I'm sorry."

They're only two words, and they sound hollow. They sound like too little. Not nearly enough. The urge to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder and take some of his pain from him is almost overwhelming.

"Me too," he says with a sad smile. The smile flickers and brightens. "You could have knocked me down with a feather when Miller came out as bi. He was so young. Just a teen, yet he told us with no apologies, no need for approval. Just a statement of fact." He laughs softly. "I couldn't believe it. How did someone I make possess such bravery? Such certainty. I couldn't stop looking at him. Couldn't take my eyes off him. For days, I just looked at him and thought, I must have done something right after all."

"You sound really proud of him."

"I am."

"Does he know that?" I say it without thinking, without pausing and giving myself time to realize that I'm overstepping.

"Of course he knows that. He's my son."

By the time I get to the beach, the sky is an abstract of deep oranges and soft pink. The sand is cool beneath my bare feet, and I walk quickly to deliver the freshly air-fried nuggets to Jamie. Much as it pains me to admit it, it's a good thing Derek came along. While I wasn't looking, he added party plates and napkins to my basket, things I now realize come in very handy when feeding small children on beaches.

"Oh, thank you! You're a lifesaver," says Jamie's mom, Jenna. "The hotel brought fries and crudités for him, but no luck. I think he buried most of them in the sand over there."

Jenna is dark like Ryan, but her aura is light. Still, the light smudges under her eyes give me the feeling that flying with kids under the age of ten is not something she'd recommend to anyone.

Jamie smashes his nuggets and then begins running rings around the adults. He's an adorable child with huge brown eyes and slightly crooked fringe that makes me suspect he's handy with scissors. I think overtired might be the best way to describe him right now. He's stopping and starting things, asking Jenna to pick him up and put him down. Ryan and Miller take turns chasing him around, but they're the grooms. The VIPs. They have a lot of guests vying for their attention.

I check my phone for the hundredth time and send a message that's in no way polite to the photographer, and then Derek waves me over. He's sitting on the beach, an old fashioned wedged into the sand beside him.

"What can I get you?" he asks, calling a server over with a subtle flick of his finger.

"Mojito, please." I need a change. Pi?a coladas have been doing nothing for me.

Derek places my order and watches as Jamie runs up to Emily and almost bowls her clean over, spilling sand from his bucket all over her as he tries to show her a shell he found.

"D'you have a pen on you?" he asks.

Do I have I pen? Of course I have a pen. I collect the damn things.

I hand him a pink glitter gel pen with a thin smile.

"Jamie!" he barks. Jamie looks up with a mix of surprise and fright, and I wonder if someone should tell Derek that stabbing kids with pens is frowned upon, no matter how overtired they are.

Derek motions to Jamie and he comes sidling over cautiously. Derek holds out the pen.

"D'you know what this is, Jamie?"

"Yeah, it's a pen."

"No," Derek says twisting his face as if it's a ludicrous suggestion. "It's a magic maker."

"You don't say magic maker," corrects Jamie. "You say magic marker."

"Are you sure? I thought it was a magic maker. Do you mean to tell me I've been saying it wrong all these years?" Jamie starts to giggle. Derek smiles and digs his feet into the sand, poking only his toes out and wiggling them. "And do you know what these are?"

"Toes!" says Jamie, confident he's right.

"No! They aren't toes! They're little pigs without any faces." He hands Jamie the pen. "Why don't you draw a face on each little pig, and I'll try to guess if it's a happy or sad face."

Jamie sits down, bends one of Derek's toes back at a worrying angle, and gets to work. By the look of things, his fine motor coordination is exactly where it should be at four, so he's occupied for a long while. Jenna and her husband, Geoff, throw grateful glances in our direction at regular intervals.

I take small sips of my mojito and toy with the idea of flinging myself into the ocean.

He's good with kids?

Oh Jesus. I can"t catch a break.

Barbara Anne and Sage, both a vision in outfits that scream we coordinated this look ahead of time, stop by and make uncomfortable small talk. Derek puts an arm around me and pulls me toward him, letting his hand drop and settle so low on my hip that he's basically touching my ass. I use all my focus to sit dead still, but after a few minutes, that starts feeling weird and unnatural, so I squirm a little to rectify things. His hand drops even lower. He's not basically touching my ass now. He's touching it for real. Lightly, more or less just resting his hand on the upper quadrant of my cheek.

"Sad," says Derek, startling me so much I laugh loudly, though I couldn't possibly say what's funny.

"No," squeaks Jamie. "Happy!"

"Ugh, wrong again!" Derek howls as though the defeat has annihilated him.

"All done," says Jamie, looking pleased with his efforts.

"All done? Absolutely not. What about Wyn's little pigs? Don't they deserve faces?"

I dig my feet into the sand and wriggle my toes like Derek did. Jamie moves over and sets to work.

"Now, be gentle with Wyn's toes, Jamie," warns Derek. "He's ticklish."

"How do you know I'm—" I cut myself off, burning bright red when I realize how he knows. He smiles and doesn't answer, and for a really crazy moment, I find myself thinking that maybe it's a secret smile. A real smile. A smile from him to me. A smile between us only.

I shake it off quickly and have three large gulps of my drink.

It's a fake smile. That's what it is.

"So," I say, "what kind of art do you like?" Oh Jesus. I know, I know. I heard it. It was bad. It was so bad it was only a hair better than "Do you come here often?""I mean, who's your favorite artist?" Hmm, not sure why I think that's any better.

Fortunately, Derek seems happy enough to humor me. "Dead or alive?"

"Alive."

"Hmm, that's a tough one. There are so many I like, but if I had to choose one, I'd have to go with Andy Montgomery. He's a New York-based artis—"

"You like Andy Montgomery?" It comes this close to turning into a squeal, but I manage to rein it in at the last second. I clear my throat for good measure. "He's like my favorite artist ever. Dead or alive, Andy Montgomery's my favorite."

"No kidding, you know his work? I love it. I caught his latest exhibition last time I was in New York to see Miller and Ryan. It was unreal."

"You saw All Roads Lead Here? Seriously! Oh God, I'm so jealous. I love his portraits. I don't know what it is about them that's so moving. It's like he captures a, a…" I search for the word but can't find it.

"A feeling. I read somewhere once that he paints feelings, not faces, and I thought that was a perfect description of his work."

I'm very sad that Derek is displaying sensitivity and emotional intelligence on top of everything else, but what can I do? I hardly ever have a chance to talk about art with my friends, and I love this kind of thing. "What's your favorite piece by him?" Don't say Heart, don't say Heart, don't say Heart.

"Heart." Ugh. Fuck my life. "It's one of his early pieces. He painted it when he was in college. It's a self-portrait. It has a simple, clean background, a full figure, and a blurred-out face. He has a hole in his chest, and…"

"He's holding his bleeding heart in his hand."

"You know it?"

"It's my favorite too," I say softly.

"God, I've spent years trying to buy it. Did you know it's supposed to come with a story?"

"A story? No, I didn't know that. What's it about?"

"I don't know. That's what kills me. Apparently, it gets sold with the painting. No one knows what it's about or what the significance of it is, except for the owner. It drives me insane. I'm serious, Wyn." I stifle a giggle at the torment on his face. "The not knowing. It keeps me awake. I've made so many goddamn offers on that painting over the years, but the owner won't part with it."

"You should commission a piece. I've heard he takes commissions sometimes." Strictly speaking, I've heard that once in a blue moon, if a face is completely singular and wholly unforgettable, Andy might consider taking a commission to paint it.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I could totally see you in a suit, all imposing and faceless and shit."

Oh no, did I just say faceless?

That's not good.

I gulp the rest of my drink.

A dark brow raises. "Imposing, huh?"

"Mm-hmm, and faceless," I chirp.

Much as it pains me to admit, that little Mm-hmm, and faceless is kind of a big deal. My head is cocked toward Derek when I say it, and I'm looking straight into his eyes. I'm blinking fast and my mouth is gaping in a huge, overeager grin.

While it wouldn't be immediately clear to passersby, and I can only hope to God Derek isn't able to piece it together, this tragic little display is me flirting. Not fake flirting. Flirting for real.

Come to think of it, shit like this is probably the reason I'm single.

I know it's ill-advised, if not downright stupid. It's just that the crash of the ocean is drowning out the voice in my head telling me what a bad idea it is to behave like this. To think like this. A salty breeze ruffles my hair, blowing over and through me. Derek is sitting so close to me that one side of my body is glued to his. I feel warm where we're touching and cold where we aren't.

Jenna stops by and wrangles Jamie, who starts wailing at the mere suggestion, off for an early night. By the look of her, I think she might be partial to an early night too. Ryan and Miller are a few feet away, surrounded by a group of their friends. Every now and again, Miller grabs Ryan and puts him in a headlock, kissing the side of his face and laughing uproariously as he slaps him away.

Derek smiles and shakes his head each time it happens.

Both of us are still sitting exactly as Jamie left us. Feet half-buried, toes—or little pigs—peeking out of the sand. Derek's knees are parted, and my hand is on his thigh. It started on his knee, and I'm not entirely sure when or how it migrated to his thigh, but that's where it is now. His shorts feel smooth against my palm, fine cotton twill wrapped around hot muscle and skin. The sun has gone down. The light has changed. Tiki torches have been lit and are flickering peacefully. I'm watching the scene in front of us. Families. Friends. Barbara Anne, feet in the water, dress bunched up in one hand almost a little too high to be decent, blonde hair whipping across her face as she laughs and poses for the eight- or nine-hundredth photograph Sage asks to take of her.

I see all of that when my eyes are open, but when I close them, when I blink, I see Derek's mouth. I see his lips around my cock, curled up at the sides. I see his hands on my body, trailing slowly downward. I see it and feel it all. The anticipation. The pleasure. All of it. But most of all, I see the way his dick looked as he stroked it. Slick, swollen head. Big hand curled around it, moving with purpose and speed. I see him arch back and his meatus open and shooting. I hear the sound he made when he came. I hear it over and over.

My hand tenses on his thigh, though I will it not to. I look down at his bulge, though I will myself not to do that either. It's a bad idea to look.

A big handful. A long, thick shaft. Full balls.

Oh God. I want it.

I want all of it. I want his beautiful cock in my hand and my mouth. I want it so badly I can taste it.