Not Catching Love (Accidental Love #5)

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Derek

We’re hanging out today.

The text doesn’t surprise me. It’s been two days since I’ve seen Xander, and I’d been either expecting him to show up once I finished work or to get a message like this.

Ever since I got back, Xander’s been using our friendship as an excuse to spend as much time as possible together. Between volunteering at the nursing home, grabbing lunch or dinner, and the constant texting, he makes sure he’s never far from my mind.

It’s embarrassing how much I love it.

Me:

How do you know I don’t have plans?

Xander:

If you do, cancel them.

Me:

You’re very demanding, you know that?

Xander:

Yeah, I know. It’s part of my charm.

I can’t argue with him there. One of the things about Xander that’s really growing on me is how he’s unapologetically himself.

Except it’s been a month now, and while I don’t want any space from Xander, I need it. My balls are fucking blue. I’m trying really hard to be good and do the right thing, but it’s not going to take long for my resolve to crack.

Xander’s gorgeous. Contacts or no contacts, cute clothes or sweatpants, lip gloss or bare face, I’m constantly blown away by how stunning he is. But it’s not only his looks that I’m attracted to. Xander is an old soul. I can see it in his wary eyes, how sometimes he turns so introspective I lose him for a moment. He jokes about what he’s been through and has no issue saying some messed-up things about himself that make me die a little inside. I can’t imagine he means them or that saying those things is good for him, but I’m no psychologist, so what would I know?

All I know is that I really enjoy spending time with him.

Me:

Think of something we can do. I’ll pick you up once I’m done here.

The hours can’t slip away fast enough, and by the time six o’clock hits, I’m out the door. Xander’s had a few panic attacks since I got back, but I’ve held fast in not being the one to treat him, even when it meant telling Seven there was no one at the pharmacy for them to see. It ate at me all day until I got a message from Xander, letting me know he was okay, but I hate that it’s something I have to do.

If we’re going to be friends for right now, it’s important to me. I can’t go back to being his carer, not when I look at Xander and everything I want to do to him inundates me.

Turning my professionalism on and ignoring how I feel would be next to impossible now.

Besides, I just really don’t want to.

He’s waiting out in front of his place when I pull up to collect him. He invited me to something called Monopoly Monday last night, and even though I’d wanted to go, I’m chickenshit. I have no idea what the others think. There are blurred ethical lines between me and Xander, but having someone else point them out will cheapen this friendship we’re building.

His hair is freshly dyed, and he’s wearing large, gold-framed sunglasses.

“Where to?”

“The park.”

“The … park?”

“Yup. I figure that I missed out on a childhood, and you want to relive yours, so let’s begin there.”

I choke on my inhale. “Who says I want to relive mine?”

He wriggles his fingers in the grays by my temples. “No clue where I got that idea.”

“Okay, okay.” I bat his hand away. “We both know that was an excuse to touch me.”

“Am I that easy to read?”

“When you want to be.”

I can feel his satisfied smile from here. “I only had one blood clot this week,” he comments, like he’s telling me about what he had for lunch.

“Correction: you had zero blood clots. ”

“One. In my brain. I couldn’t see or anything. It was touch and go for a while there.”

A flash of Xander, mid-panic attack, threatens to overwhelm me. “Sorry I couldn’t help.”

“It’s fine. I get it.”

“There are a lot of things I want to be for you, but I can’t be that as well.”

“I know .” He sets his hand on my thigh, higher than he needs to. “Stop stressing.”

I send a smirk his way. “Hand, Xander.”

“Ooops. When did that get there?”

“Total accident, I bet.”

He squeezes my leg before releasing it, and the feeling goes straight to my cock. I ignore it. I have to ignore it.

“Turn right here,” he says, and I do.

“What did you do today?”

“Smashed some clay.”

“Uh-huh …”

He shrugs. “I should have been working on a painting since I have about ten thousand people waiting to buy one off me, but …”

I almost drive us off the fucking road. “Excuse me, how many?”

“Ten thousand. Well, that’s a guess based on my serious mailing list. My other one is closer to two hundred thousand.”

Holy shit … he’s not exaggerating. My face falls into a frown. “I’ve seen you in class, and I know you’re good, but … why haven’t I seen any of your work? The stuff you sell?”

His expression is pure confusion. “Why would you want to?”

“Because I’m a bit fucking overwhelmed that you have that many people just waiting to buy something from you.”

He shifts and turns his attention to his hands. “Some of them might have lost interest, I don’t know. But the second I send something out, it sells. Then I get a whole flood of angry emails from people who missed out. They range from disappointment and making me feel bad to people saying I’m a scam artist who isn’t actually selling anything. Sounds like a weak scam to me, but what would I know?”

I pull the car up out the front of the park. “People get mad at you about that?”

“People get mad about anything.”

My jaw aches at how tight I clench it, caught by surprise at the anger that bubbles up. “I don’t like that.”

He unclips his seat belt and turns toward me, leaning closer. “What are you gonna do, Daddy Derek? Gonna message them all to leave your poor little Xander alone?”

I groan and swipe a hand down my face. “I’m not that bad.”

“You sure? You’re sounding very overprotective. Gonna spank them all?”

I burst out laughing. “Of course I’m fucking not. But I’m not going to act happy that people are being dicks to you.”

“Ehh. That’s how people are. Not giving a shit about the things they say to me is one lesson I can thank the universe for learning early.”

“I wish you didn’t learn it at all.”

“There are lots of things I wish for. Lots and lots and …” His gaze drops to my mouth. “Lots …”

“Stop that.”

His devilish grin comes out. “Make me.”

Instead of setting myself up to fail, I release my seat belt and climb out of the car.

Xander follows, and when he’s close enough, he nudges me in the direction of the swings. “They’re both free, come on.”

Other than a mom with two young kids, the playground is empty. Xander and I take the swings side by side, and I push off the ground. It’s been … well, forever since I did this. I’m su re I loved it as a kid, but it was so goddamn long ago that I don’t remember now.

The slow creak of the chains eases us back and forth, him forward, me backward, until we switch.

“What’s your favorite word?” he asks.

Him randomly asking my favorite anything threw me off at first, but I’m ready for him this time. “Formicarium.”

“Formi- what ?”

I laugh because I knew he’d react like that. “It’s a man-made ants’ nest.”

“Right …”

“I have one.”

“Wait, what? ” He drags his platform sneaker in the mulch to stop and turns to stare at me. “Ants? You keep ants? Is this your way of breaking it to me that you have a really dirty house? Because that’s not a formi-whatsit—I’m pretty sure that’s just a hovel. And unhygienic. Our first time cannot be there, so if it’s going to happen at my place, you’ll have to deal with my roommates listening in.”

“No first time. No any time.”

“Sure.”

I don’t call him on the obvious brush-off because if I do, I might start thinking about sex. “It’s an actual thing. They’re my pets. All very contained in my formicarium, and my place is not at all a hovel.”

“Noted. Your place, it is.”

“I got a queen ant before I left for Ghana, and my friend looked after them while I was gone. They’re thriving.”

Xander wrinkles his cute nose. “You’re … actually excited about them. You like ants.”

“I like bugs.”

“Oh my god.” Xander holds on to the chains and hangs himself right back. “I’m going to marry a freaky little bug man. Why, cruel world, why ? ”

I drag myself to a stop as well. “You’d be fucking lucky to marry me.”

“Derry, are you proposing? In a park ? The same place I was ruthlessly stolen from my parents? I never knew you were so romantic.”

It’s an effort not to roll my eyes. At one point, I might have worried about offending him, but Xander wasn’t lying when he said he gives zero fucks about what anyone says to him. Though, it’s more than that. He’s completely desensitized to what happened in his life, but if Seven, Molly, or one of his roommates upset him, he’d feel it more than the average person would.

Across the park, the mom and her kids leave.

“Come on, that slide has your name on it.”

Xander goes down a few times before peer pressuring me into trying it too. Unfortunately, I’m a lot bigger than he is, and my hips are so lodged in there it takes a painfully long time to reach the bottom, which makes him laugh like an idiot. I spin him on the thing that goes around too quickly until I’m worried it’s going to end up in a head injury, and then he drags me back to the swings.

We watch the sun go down before he stops again, and I slow as well.

Xander turns to look at me, and I have another one of those moments where I’m stunned stupid for a whole second, just by the sight of him.

“Come here.” He loops his arms around both of his swing’s chains and holds them out to me.

I take his hands. “What are we doing?”

“Twist our swings together, then when we let go, we’ll go flying.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Okay, Grandpa.”

Fuck it. I’d wanted to be more fun and remember that age is only a number, and here’s Xander helping me find that side of myself again. “Let’s go.”

We twist our swings together around and around and around until the tension on the old chains gets so tight I’m sure they’re going to snap. My feet barely reach the ground, and Xander’s definitely don’t. Our knees are crushed between each other’s. Xander’s so close he could lean in and bump our noses together.

“I’m ninety percent sure one of us is going to hurt ourselves,” I say.

He lifts a slight shoulder. “I’m not scared. I don’t think I’ve stopped hurting a day in my life.”

“That’s … Xander …”

His eyes are purple again. I haven’t seen the gray since the day I got home, and he watches me for a long moment. “It’s always so weird seeing people react to the things I say.”

“Why?”

“Because it means nothing to me. I don’t feel it. I don’t connect with it. But you do. That’s … so weird .”

“It’s called empathy.”

“I don’t know if I have that,” he whispers. “I know I’m supposed to.”

There he goes, underestimating himself again. “How would you feel if Molly was sad?”

“Angry. I’d want to fix it.”

“Because you care about him.”

Xander nods. “Sometimes more than Seven.”

That’s surprising. “I thought Seven was everything to you.”

“He is. But Seven can look after himself. Molly’s … precious. Too breakable.”

“Molly seems like a very capable man, not that I know him well.”

Xander thinks for a long moment. “They’re mine, you know. Both of them. ”

“I know.”

“And if anything happens between … I know I joke, but, like, us or … whoever. If I ever find someone who doesn’t get sick of me one day, they’ll be his as well.”

It’s like a knife to my fucking chest every time he says things like that. Sick of him? No one can get sick of Xander. I’ve seen the way his friends love him. The way the residents love him. How much Seven and Molly care. And I know how I feel about him as well.

My fingers find his cheek, and fuck me , it’s so soft. His eyes drift closed, and my heart is beating out of my chest.

“Xander, I?—”

Xander’s eyes snap open. “Now!” He lets go and flings away from me. The chains untangle in an aggressive twist that shoots me one way and yanks me the other. I nearly lose it backward off the seat, and when I’m sure it’s stopped trying to murder me, I suck down a breath and look over at him.

Xander’s whole face is flushed bright.

“Never again.”

He cracks up laughing as I’m still trying to orient myself.

I’m never going to survive him.