said, shaking his head. “No. I don’t think I want to pay that price though.”
“Any price is worth it to spend a day with me, right? Come on, Derek.” He pulled out his phone and threw it across the table. “Ring your friend. Spend a day with me. Please?”
Derek winced.
“Please, baby? For me?”
Not sure if he was going to regret it or not, Derek pulled out his own phone and pressed a few buttons. He put the phone to his ear. “Mom? Is it possible to borrow your car today?”
~~~~~~~~
AN HOUR LATER SAM FINALLY drove off. Derek deemed it safer that Sam drove.
“I’m so, so, so sorry,” Derek said again. “I shouldn’t have subjected you to that. I shouldn’t have given in to your pleading, even if you did call me baby.”
“I like calling you baby.” Sam’s grin was firmly in place as he glanced in the rearview mirror. “And they’re still waving.”
After finding out that Derek wanted to borrow the car so he and his new “boyfriend” could go driving, Derek’s mother had promptly agreed and said she’d bring the car around. It was a fifteen minute drive from his parents’ house to his, and it was only eighteen minutes later his parents rang his doorbell.
Both of them.
Yes, Derek’s mother had dragged his father along, too, to check out Derek’s boyfriend. His father’s face had reflected his apologetic thoughts, backed up by statements such as, “I couldn’t stop her” and “I didn’t even get time to brush my teeth.” His mother declared that in lending Derek and Sam the car, it was a pleasure to do something for her son and it gave her a great opportunity to visit some shops nearby before they caught a taxi back home.
“Great,” Frederick muttered. “Shopping. Probably clothes. You owe me, son.”
And then Peggy Carson dragged Sam over to the couch, sat him down, and proceeded to interrogate him. She ignored her invisible son’s protests and asked Sam question after question. Derek died a thousand deaths as Sam sat in the exact position of their mutual coming last night and told Peggy all about his decision to leave Madrid and come to Dulibre.
It was only after multiple promptings about how late the day was getting that Peggy allowed the two of them to depart, giving fierce hugs and beaming her joy.
“You cannot know the depths of my agony,” Derek whimpered to Sam as they made their way through the township of Dulibre, heading for the highway that would take them to the coast.
“Having you to myself for the next six to eight hours is worth it,” Sam replied sunnily. Derek wished he had Sam’s positive outlook on life.
“Only eight hours?” he protested. “That means you’re not staying over tonight. Eight hours doesn’t even get us to seven o’clock.”
For a moment, Derek didn’t think Sam was going to answer, and then he reluctantly said, “I have something else I want to do tonight.”
“Something else?” Derek queried sharply. His thoughts immediately nosedived. “Something better than me? Or someone?”
“No!” Sam’s protest was so loud it bounced around the car. “No. Not like that. It’s just….” He trailed off and gave Derek a guilty glance. “I have a feeling that gang is going to try to hit the jewelry store again. I was going to go and make sure they didn’t.”
Derek’s emotions crashed through him at lightning speed—surprise at the unexpected answer, despair to think he would prefer to do something like that rather than spend time with Derek, fear for Sam’s safety, pride that Sam was doing something to protect those he thought of as his friends, remembrance about the fight, anxiety about Sam getting hurt, dread thinking about that gun the robber had.
Sam glanced Derek’s way and groaned. “Dammit. Stop it. Please, baby. Stop worrying so much. I’m not going to be hurt.” Derek looked down at his lap and realized he was actually oscillating in and out of sight. That was new. He didn’t think he’d ever done that before.
“You can’t go around investigating robberies and trying to stop them,” Derek said to Sam. “Take it to the police. Get them to investigate.”
“They don’t do anything without proof.”
“Then… then….” Derek searched around for another solution. “Look, I know some supos. I’m not supposed to tell you, but there’s lots of them at the place I work. Perhaps I can get one of them to come and do something.”
Sam shrugged. “Once again—proof. I’m not planning on getting in another fight or anything. I’m just gathering