Page 12 of Devil’s Kiss (Sunset Cove #2)
Three Months Later
“ W HERE DO YOU think you’re goin’?”
At the sound of his father’s voice, Derek stopped in the kitchen and clutched the strap of his gym bag.
He was dressed for his weekly night shift over at the local twenty-four-hour gym.
He’d been doing that on the weekdays the past couple of months and had somehow managed to talk Finn into applying for, and getting , a “dancer” position down at club Boyz on the weekends.
A shitty home life could make a person very motivated, and no one was more determined than him to make as much cash as humanly possible so he could move the fuck out.
Of course, that now meant he had zero social life, but then again, he hadn’t really had one to begin with, so that didn’t matter much.
Finn was practically missing these days since he’d started sleeping with his professor—who knew he had that in him?
—and every other hour Derek had available to him, he’d spent it writing papers and studying for his final exams. He had to maintain a certain grade to keep his scholarship.
The last few weeks had turned into endless hours of switching between one job and another, until this week, when he’d had to scale back so he could be at school for the start of his spring semester.
He couldn’t find it in him to complain, however, because it had kept him out of the house and, for the most part, away from his father—until now.
His sneakers made the cracked linoleum protest underfoot, and as he faced the man who’d addressed him, Derek braced himself for whatever might follow.
His father was standing by the ancient television set holding the shit antenna he was trying to get to work in one hand, and a cigarette in the other.
“I’m going to work.”
“You work?”
Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him. “Yeah. I have a job.” Or don’t.
He took a step in the direction of the front door, hoping that would be the end of that—but he should’ve known better.
His father never let anything go. It was one of the reasons the Pearson household was a minefield.
One misstep and a bomb exploded right under your feet before you had a chance to fucking blink.
“Where do you work?”
Like I’m ever going to tell you, you piece of shit.
Derek swallowed back his initial thought and closed his eyes. Just let me go, he prayed, and took another step toward the front door.
“I asked where you’ve been workin’, Derek. Or you lyin’ to me? You doing something you shouldn’t be?”
If he were smart, he would walk out the door and keep his mouth shut. However, Derek was coming to realize that maybe he wasn’t as smart as Mrs. Finley was always telling him he was.
Pivoting around, he dumped his bag on the floor and walked over to where his father was taking a drag of his cigarette.
“And what do you possibly think I’m doing that I shouldn’t be? Drinking? Drugs? What a fucking joke. You asking me that.”
His father scoffed. “Don’t get smart with me, boy.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You might not understand me,” Derek said as he looked his father straight in the eye and wondered why, somewhere in the back of his head, he was hoping his dad would try and take a swing. Maybe because then he would have an excuse to hit him back.
Instead, his father bent to connect the antenna in and then held it out in front of him, trying to get a signal.
Derek looked him over, shaking his head as he took in the grubby white wife beater— how appropriate —the black cotton shorts with a hole in the left thigh, and the years-old flip-flops.
The man was as run-down as the house he lived in.
“If you’re workin’, you ought to be contributin’.”
Derek’s words failed him at that, and then he started to laugh—the sound unhinged and a little bit deranged. “You can’t be serious.”
His father’s blue eyes, identical to his own, found his, and the arctic freeze in them explained the iciness that ran through his own veins.
“Course I’m serious. You live here, dontcha? It’s my roof that provides shelter for you. If you’re working, I expect rent. Monthly. You can bring it to me tonight. Two hundred’ll do.”
Derek could feel his disbelief morphing into a full-on boiling rage as his father’s words hovered between them, and when he brought the cigarette to his lips, Derek took a menacing step toward the man.
There was no way he was going to give this fucker a single penny of his. Not when he was saving every last cent so he could get the hell away from him.
“I’m not giving you a goddamn thing.”
Finally a static-filled image appeared on the tube and his father froze in place, craning his head to see his handiwork. “No skin off my back. It’s simple. If you don’t have the cash, don’t bother coming home.”
As if his father had just hit him, Derek reeled back. “What?”
“You heard me. If you don’t bring the cash, boy, you ain’t welcome.”
“Alan doesn’t do shit and he’s here?—”
“Alan’s worthless,” his father snapped.
“Like father, like son,” Derek said, hating that that was the damn truth. He’d been working his entire life to be the exact opposite to the loathsome human currently staring at him, but he recognized threads of the man’s genes in him, like his temper and need to release his pent-up anger.
“Apple never falls that far from the tree, Derek. You should know that. You’re a chip right off the old block yourself?—”
“Shut up,” Derek barked, shuddering at that thought. “I’m nothing like you.”
“Aren’t you? You’re such a cocky shit, holier than thou in every way.
But look at you; you’re not so pure. And I ain’t just talking about who you fuck,” he jeered, leaning in so close that Derek could smell not only the tobacco, but the alcohol lacing his father’s breath.
“You’re dying to take a swing at me right now, aren’t you, son?
” He cackled and moved back. “You’re not so different to me. ”
Horrified that his father was right, Derek snapped. But instead of going for the hit, he snatched the antenna out of the old man’s hands and ripped it from the wall. When the television came with it, toppling to the floor, his father roared at him and then crouched down over it.
What a goddamn joke, Derek thought. It was telling how concerned the asshole was for something so inanimate when he hadn’t once shown an inkling of compassion for those who lived with him.
“I will never be you,” Derek said, and his father glared up at him.
“Two hundred. And an extra hundred to replace what you just fucked up. Don’t come back tonight unless you have it.”
Derek’s mouth parted, and he was about to argue that his father owed him fucking millions if they were repaying damages for things they’d broken, but he was done. He was done talking to the man struggling to get on his feet. He was done with it all.
When his father was standing tall once more, Derek took the step he needed to bring them nose to nose and said in a voice he didn’t even recognize as his own, “Guess you better hope your worthless son finds a job soon, because your little queer is about to leave this hellhole and never come back.”
When his father’s eyes narrowed, Derek took a fistful of the wife beater, and felt a great sense of satisfaction at the flare of concern he finally saw in those eyes. His father was scared of him, and Derek had no idea what it said about him that he liked that.
“Have a nice life, you miserable fucker. I’d rather live on the street than ever give you a goddamn cent.”
Shoving him away, Derek gave the house a final once-over and didn’t let the fact that he had nowhere to go bother him right now. All he knew was that he was getting out of there and he wasn’t going to look back.
BY THE TIME Derek got to the gym, he was late for his shift.
He wasn’t thinking about the fact that he’d just left his home for good.
Really. Instead, he focused on what he could control, and that was getting inside, clocking in, and earning money for the shift he was about to work.
He would deal with all the other shit later.
He pulled open the door and stepped inside, and as he did he almost tripped over a man who was crouched in the middle of the entryway fishing through his workout bag.
“Fuck,” Derek said, and barely had time to react and catch his footing before he fell face first on the floor. Of all the stupid places to stop— “What the hell, man, think you could move to the side?”
As he steadied himself and the man turned around to peer up at him, Derek found himself staring into the face of none other than Professor Devaney.
Holy shit. This was the last thing he’d expected today. He hadn’t seen Devaney since his final exam several weeks ago, and he wasn’t sure he was mentally prepared to deal with him after the shit afternoon he’d already had with his father.
Over the remainder of his first semester, he and his professor had come to a mutual agreement of avoidance. He’d purposefully ignored his interest in the man, pushed it aside as nothing more than a stupid infatuation, and Devaney, it appeared, had done the same.
It turned out that was the best thing he could’ve done in the long run, too, because soon after that night at Bianca’s, Finn’s “professor” had shown up at Boyz and they’d started their “thing”—and never too far away from Hayes was the ubiquitous Jordan Devaney.
Not that Derek had ever made his presence known.
Whenever he’d seen them at his weekend job where he danced around in next to nothing, he did his best to fucking hide.
Shit was weird enough between them. Adding the fact that Devaney frequented the hottest gay club in the city, which he happened to dance at, would just make everything even more awkward.
“Oh, shit. Derek, I’m sorry,” Devaney said as he stood and took a step toward Derek, placing a hand on his arm.