As he went downstairs, he saw that Craig was back, probably arrived late enough at night that he had just crashed on the couch rather than wake people up by walking past their rooms. Craig had done that sort of thing before. For someone so big and strong and tough, the man really was a bit of a marshmallow inside, Derrick realized.
The funny thing was, this was his own brother, and Derrick hadn’t even known that about him until recently. He really had been stuck with his head up his own ass until he had been forced to come back home. He was starting to wonder how he was ever going to leave now that he was here. Tendrils had settled around his heart, anchoring him home, and it wasn’t just Logan, either. It was the horses, the land, this house, his brothers. Everything that he had been so eager to get away from.
With a slight smile, Derrick moved past the living room and headed into the kitchen. His plans didn’t really have to change, he figured. He would just have to be quiet when he made his confession to Logan.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait too long. Jessica had woken him up early, but he had spent some time talking to her and then thinking about what to do, and he didn’t figure that he had more than an hour or so to wait.
It was half of that. Barely a half an hour had passed before Derrick heard the slow approach of sleepy footsteps. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, preparing him for this confrontation, so that he actually smelled Logan’s scent before he saw him. Logan’s scent. He would recognize it anyway. It wasn’t his aftershave or cologne, but something completely unique to Logan, musky like leather and clean and fresh. Each breath that Derrick took around Logan was intoxicating.
“Derrick?”
When had the last time been that Logan had said his name? God, Derrick was such an idiot; he knew that. What was he doing? And yet, he was still going to do it. His stomach was clenching and churning like someone had picked it up and was briskly shaking it, but he was going to do it.
“Logan.” Derrick opened his eyes and looked up at the other man, so tall, so handsome, even with his face creased with sleep. There was no particular welcome in his brilliant blue eyes, and Derrick had to steel himself to do this at all.
“I need to—” Derrick started and then cut himself off. He had no idea what to say. He had had all of this time to think about it, and he hadn’t managed to go beyond the fact they needed to talk to figure out the right words to say.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, and he knew with a sudden, dawning clarity that there were no right words. That was why he couldn’t find them.
There was one way that he could think of to make it quite clear, without messing it up with words, what he wanted to say. So he gripped Logan by his strong shoulders and gently, slowly, pressed his lips against his. Right there in the kitchen, with the sun still most of the way down and the light all strange and shimmery and gray around them, Derrick kissed the man he loved.
It would be easier to tell him that once he’d shown him. Or so he figured. And for just a giddy split second, Derrick almost felt like he had had his message received. More than that, it seemed like Logan might return some of his feelings. Maybe Jessica had been right after all. Maybe Logan could fall in love with him.
And then it all came crashing down around him.
The question was, was it better, or worse, that he had gotten that brief moment of hope when he’d kissed Logan? He’d gotten to feel it, but then he had to feel the crushing weight of rejection as Logan pushed him away, both hands on Derrick’s shoulders.
“What the hell are you doing?” Logan growled, and there was this look of hatred in his eyes that felt like a literal slap in the face. “You don’t get to just touch me.”
Derrick took a deep breath, then somehow, from reserves that had been hidden even from himself, he managed to call him some strength. Enough to keep his legs from buckling, anyway, and put steel in his spine to the point that he could move at all.
“I just wanted you to know that …” Derrick tried, but he could tell that Logan wasn’t listening, so he snapped his mouth shut again. He had his answer. Really, hadn’t he already known it even before he said anything at all? Hadn’t he been expecting this exact sort of reaction, if not much worse?
So he stopped talking and turned, almost blinded by tears that he wouldn’t shed, that he wouldn’t even admit were there. But Logan’s voice stopped him right in his tracks.
“I’m leaving. I think you should know that.” Derrick didn’t dare to turn to look into the other man’s eyes. He didn’t want to know what he would find there. “I’ll find another place. We won’t have to keep running into each other like this. I think that will be easier.”
It really was hopeless. Derrick might be pathetic, but he could see that much. Logan was so sick of him, so completely uninterested in being with him, that he was literally leaving his home. Malcolm was going to be furious.
His throat was too choked for him to say what he would like to. That Logan didn’t have to go, that Derrick would be the one to leave. That this place was Derrick’s home, yes, but even more than that, it was Logan’s.
But he couldn’t make himself speak. He didn’t trust his voice not to break, and honestly, he didn’t want to give Logan the satisfaction. He had been rejected, that was all there was to it, and he could walk away without making a huge scene, he could leave without screaming and throwing himself at Logan’s feet and begging him not to do this, but if he opened his mouth, even he didn’t honestly know what might come out.
So he made one foot rise up off of the ground, he took a step, his leg shaking but holding him up. Just barely, it was a close thing, but he managed. He took one step, and it was hard, but the one that came after it was a little easier.
He walked away. Just as he had said that he would, and he never even looked back, and when he pushed past someone, his eyes were too blurry to see who it was. He didn’t even care. Maybe they had overheard him, maybe they hadn’t, but it just didn’t seem to be all that relevant at the moment. After all, what was one more humiliation on top of everything that he had just been through?
Derrick had wanted to know. Well, now he did. In no uncertain terms, he had been told exactly what the deal was with him and Logan. The only problem was, he had hoped that it would help him move on. Now that he was here, though, having been firmly rebuffed, he had to wonder if it had been worth it.
Knowing, as it turned out, sort of sucked. And the part now where he had to move on, it seemed like it was going to be harder than he would have hoped. Talking to Logan had been far from the fix he had hoped that it would be.
He found himself in front of Jessica’s room, and now, it was his turn to rap on her door until she poked her tousled head out.
“I have to get out of here,” Derrick said, and from the sympathy which suddenly dawned in her eyes as much as from her nod of acceptance, he knew that she had picked up on what had happened.
“I’m so sorry. Let’s call a cab. We can go to my parents’ place for the holidays,” Jessica offered, and Derrick nodded and blindly turned away to pack up his things.
Having had his heart so thoroughly broken here, he had to wonder, as he looked around his bedroom, if he would ever see this place again, if he was ever going to be able to come back.
Maybe that had been his first, and most crucial, mistake. Not falling in love with Logan, but coming back to a place where he didn’t belong, where he had never belonged. He had been right to escape this place.
“Are you sad to go?” Jessica asked him as they slid into the cab. No one tried to stop them. Most of the house wasn’t even awake yet.
“I’m not going to say that I won’t miss the ranch,” Derrick admitted, as he looked back toward the house. Even now, something in him was hoping that there would be some sort of last-minute reprieve. That Logan would come out and ask him not to leave. If Logan did, Derrick didn’t think that he would be able to go, but of course, nothing like that happened.
“But it’s time to move on,” he continued and turned his gaze away from the house as the taxi sped him away from it. Back toward his life, his real life. He had taken a bizarre vacation from it, but now he was going back to it.
