Page 84 of Devil's Kiss
Jordan’s eyes narrowed and Derek brushed a kiss across his lips and added, “As well as self-absorbed and spoiled rotten.”
Jordan poked his tongue out. “Whatever. Say what you will. I still want to see you naked. So how about we get wherever we’re going so you can spoil me.”
Derek held his hand out, and after Jordan had slipped his inside, he tugged him along behind. “All right. Come on, bossy.”
They made their way down the beach, and right about the halfway mark, Derek stopped and looked up to the sandy dune he’d been coming to since he was a boy.
There, in amongst the overgrown weeds, sat a beat-up shack. It was so much a part of the landscape that the pieces of broken wood, from what was once a small stoop, were buried under the sand, and half the roof looked as though it had been blown off in the last storm they’d had.
It might not be perfect, or even close to it, but to him it had always looked like heaven.
JORDAN FROWNEDAT the remains of what had obviously been a delightful little beach hut, but as it stood right now, it reminded him more of pieces of wood on a demolition pile.
“This is it,” Derek announced, and walked toward the dunes.
“This iswhat, exactly?”
Derek didn’t answer straight away. He just powered on ahead up the sand to where, Jordan assumed, a front door might have been. Once upon a time. A long,longtime ago.
“Thisis mine.”
Jordan stepped over a piece of rotted wood and followed Derek across broken floorboards to stop in the center of the small space. “What do you mean it’s…yours?”
Derek looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “I own it.”
Before Jordan could ask more, Derek walked through what appeared to have been another doorway at some point in time.
“But…” Jordan said as he followed. He ducked through and spotted Derek putting his bag down in the corner of the second space that was a little more put together. “But it’s broken.”
Derek was in the middle of unzipping his bag and paused to look over, and the expression in his eyes was heartbreaking. “That’s what makes it so perfect.”
Jordan walked closer to the man watching him with such focus, and moved to his side as Derek then looked around the space.
“I used to come down here when I was little…”
As Derek’s words trailed off, Jordan placed his own bag down and tested the wood panel of one of the walls. Once he was satisfied it was steady, he leaned back against it and waited.
“The first time, I was twelve. About a week after my mother left.”
Derek looked over at him, no doubt to see his reaction, and Jordan offered up a tentative smile. A sign that he was there, ready to listen, when Derek was ready to continue.
“Looking back now, I can’t really blame her. God knows I did the same thing the second I could. But back then, I didn’t understand how she could leave us with him, you know?”
Jordan had borne witness to the handiwork of Derek’s father, and the thought that any adult would willingly leave two young children with such a monster made him shudder.
“Anyway,” Derek continued. “The night she left, he went on a real bender. He left Alan and me by ourselves, and I remember lying in bed that night wishing he would get home because I was scared. I was scared he’d left us like she had. Ironic, right? Turns out I should’ve been wishing the exact opposite. He came home that night drunk.”
Derek stopped talking and looked away, clearly uncomfortable with the topic he was discussing but needing to share it all the same.
“I came out of my room when I heard him come in. I wanted to make sure he was okay, because it was late. I found him in the kitchen, looking inside the fridge, probably searching for a beer to round out the night, who knows. But when he heard me he turned around, and I’ll never forget the look that came into his eyes, Jordan. It was a look that never left—it was pure evil.”
“Derek. You don’t have to explain?—”
“No,” he said. “I want to. Ineedto.”
“Okay. Then tell me.”
Derek scratched his head then continued. “He slammed the fridge shut, and I remember the sound of the bottles rattling inside. It made me jump, and he laughed. Called me a scared little girl. A pussy,” Derek scoffed. “Who calls their twelve-year-old son that?”