by sitting around and having dinner with cute guys, you know,” Sam had said with a wink. He had kickboxing twice a week, a class on Jujitsu, a cardio workout class, and weight training. “If I lose my body, I might have cute guys not be interested in me anymore.”
Derek had immediately slid onto Sam’s lap, wound his arms around Sam’s neck, and kissed him fiercely. “Never.” He didn’t know if Sam believed him, so followed up with plenty of other kisses, which he was learning drove Sam mad.
Like the first night Sam had come over to dinner, being together was surprisingly natural. There was no awkwardness but rather the atmosphere of old friends. They would talk over dinner on a range of topics, clean up the kitchen and their mess together, and then naturally, as if someone had put a match to tinder, they would suddenly go up in flames, mad for the taste and feel of the other.
It was after, in the semi-darkness of Derek’s bedroom, that Sam opened himself completely to Derek. Those became the moments Derek treasured, because he was learning the real Sam, but they were also the moments that caused him the greatest fear, because Sam told him about some of the things he did, not knowing that Derek would shimmer out of sight several times during the telling of his stories.
“I nearly managed to corner one guy today,” he told Derek one Friday night. “I went to Mr. Lee’s, and this strange guy was coming out of the back door. I’m sure it was one of the guys from the jewelry store robbery. So I got out and went after him. He recognized me, too, and he ran. There was a blind alley, and he went up it. I knew there was no way out, but when I got there, he was gone. I have no idea where. I tried all the doors leading off that alley and they were all locked tight.”
“Oh, Sam,” Derek cried, aghast and afraid. “What if he had a gun? If he recognized you, then he was probably afraid you’d go to the police. He could’ve been the one with the gun.”
“Nah,” Sam said, unconcerned. “He wouldn’t have wanted to shoot someone in daylight. Guys like him are afraid.”
“I’m afraid,” Derek stressed and clung to Sam’s shoulder. “I’m afraid for you.”
“Don’t be. I’ll be fine,” Sam dismissed.
But Derek couldn’t stop thinking about it. The weekend passed with Sam and Derek borrowing the car again, this time heading north into France to explore all day Saturday, and then lying around Derek’s apartment all day Sunday, eating pastries and recovering.
And still Sam asked questions of his customers and was stonewalled. Derek threw himself into work, the only relief he got, because it was only when he was concentrating on his work that he could forget about Sam’s obsession with this gang.
And he tried his best to stop Sam doing anything more about it.
“Shall I ask my parents if we can borrow the car again?” he enquired. He hoped that if they were away from Dulibre, then Sam would be away from poking his nose into business that didn’t concern him. “Do you have anything you want to do this weekend? I was thinking we could go somewhere and stay overnight.”
“Stay overnight? Where?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t know. Somewhere romantic? Somewhere out of the way where I can come and go invisibly if I need to?”
They were washing the dishes in Derek’s apartment on Friday night and discussing plans for the weekend—their fourth together. There was no debating whether they would spend the weekend together or not. They would and enjoy every minute. Derek had tentatively asked Sam the previous weekend about whether he needed space, and Sam had pulled Derek onto his lap, kissed him senseless, then said, “Does that answer your question?”
Derek had fully acknowledged that he’d fallen head over heels for Sam. It had been only three weeks, but his heart didn’t care. He loved Sam. He tried to wordlessly show Sam his love, unwilling to voice it out loud in case he scared Sam away. He didn’t know how Sam would take a passionate declaration of love.
Sam’s heart was as big as North and South Abarra combined and Derek knew Sam cared for all the people in his life with an intensity that surprised Derek. Derek knew Sam cared for him, too, but was it more than just lust and affection? He hoped it was, but more than