The Hero and the Hidden Royal - Renae Kaye Page 0,16
on the situation,” Derek quipped.
Sam laughed then turned. He looked Derek up and down. His clothes were returning. “Yeah. Fully clothed. Pity.”
Derek was drinking in the sight of Sam. He’d been telling himself that he’d exaggerated Sam’s attractiveness and overestimated his height and breadth, but now that Sam was here again, he could see that he hadn’t. His Sam was big—tall and muscled, but without that bulkiness that a weightlifter would get. He reminded Derek of a lion—they had the same tawny, scruffy hair and were both powerful predators, but somehow you wanted to cuddle them and rub their belly.
However, his Sam was looking a little worse for wear at the moment.
“That bruising has really come out,” Derek said, slowly moving to Sam’s side. “Did you go and see about stitches?”
“Yeah. All good. The doc said that you’d done a pretty good job of holding the split together. He didn’t see the need for stitches because it had already started healing.” As he spoke, Sam deftly pulled out plastic containers and laid them on the table. “I hope Chinese is okay with you? I’ve got about six different dishes I thought we could share.”
“I love Chinese food.”
“Excellent.” Sam looked up again and this time his smile widened as their eyes met. “There you are. Hello. You’re as cute as I remembered. I hope you don’t think I’m rude, but I’m absolutely starving. Can we eat?”
Derek fought the blush. Sam thought he was cute? “Sure.” Eating immediately meant moving on to other things sooner. “I have wine. Would you like some?”
“Sounds good,” Sam said agreeably. “It might loosen your tongue a touch. And get ready, I have thought of two hundred questions I want to ask you.”
Derek fetched the bottle and handed it over to Sam while he grabbed a corkscrew. “First a question from me,” Derek said. “You didn’t tell me how you are. Your face looks terribly painful. Did you report your moped stolen?”
With nimble fingers Sam had the wine open. Derek handed the wine glasses over and Sam began to pour. Almost skipping because he was so happy, Derek pulled more cutlery out of the drawer in the kitchen and listened to Sam answer. “It’s a motorbike, not a moped. I thought I’d made that clear last night. And yes, I reported it stolen. I don’t think the police exactly believed me. I turn up to the station with a face that looks like I lost the latest boxing match and then say it wasn’t a mugging? In the end I pretended that I got in a bit of a bar fight and that’s when it was stolen.”
“Have you been in pain all day?”
They sat, and as if they were old friends who had done it a thousand times, they each reached for a container of Chinese food and began serving themselves.
“Actually, not that much. I haven’t really thought about it… apart from every single delivery I made and I had to recite my bar fight story again.” He laughed. “Mr. Lee who cooked this delicious food tried to give it to me for free. After all the free things I scored today, I told him no. I managed to pick up free doughnuts, three free coffee refills, a Coke, two bags of Chinese herbal medicine that’s supposed to make me feel better, and a free T-shirt.”
“Delivery?” Derek asked. “I think you said you were a delivery driver? What do you deliver then?”
“Yeah. Courier items, letters, small packages, that sort of stuff mostly. Some restaurants and cafes have urgent need of bigger items like flour that I sometimes bring, but mostly it’s smaller stuff—new uniforms for the staff, advertising material for their windows from the printer, papers from the bookkeeper, orders from Amazon.”
Derek heard the happiness in Sam’s voice. “You enjoy the job, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Sam said around the mouthful of rice he was chewing. He stopped to swallow and looked Derek dead in the eye. “I’m outside, I’m being physical, and I get to talk to a whole bunch of people. What’s not to love?”
It was almost an alien concept to Derek. Outside and interacting with people? He reached for some more noodles. “How long have you been doing it?”
“Five years,” Sam immediately replied, “although this round I’ve only been at for five months. I recently moved to Dulibre. I was in Madrid before this, but fancied a change of scene. I’m sharing a place with this guy who doesn’t seem to have a job, but somehow