CHAPTER SEVEN
I pushed my back off the restaurant wall when I saw Derrek round the corner. We were a long way from my neighborhood, at a hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant that could barely seat the ten people already inside. The woman behind the counter assured me that the first available table would be mine, but that was fifteen minutes ago, and people were eating slowly to avoid going back out into the cold.
Derrek offered a warm smile as he approached, picking up his pace to jog toward me. Texts to each other were few and far between after I’d called him, and I didn’t want to say anything that might make Derrek change his mind about us giving whatever we felt for each other a chance. Despite the tension that lingered around us, the warmth of Derrek’s smile was enough to make me forget the cold wind on my cheeks.
He leaned in to kiss me, hesitating for a moment before our lips met, and I quickly threw my arms around him, squeezing tight. I could feel his body lock up, his breathing stop, until he let out a long breath and returned the hug before letting go.
So, he was nervous.
A sudden tug made me stumble backwards as I turned toward the restaurant and found Derrek firmly gripping my hand. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, small stutters of noise escaping his lips, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled me closer, and I stepped forward without a fight.
“Aiden…” he said, his hand tightly gripping mine. He lifted his other hand to cup my face, warming my cheek.
“I know,” I said.
“You know what?” he replied, raising a dark eyebrow.
“That this is weird. It’s…heavy, maybe in a bad way, and—”
“Yeah,” he said, letting his arm fall back to his side as he squeezed my hand again and turned us toward the restaurant. “I want—”
“Listen,” I said, cutting him off. “We’re into each other, Derrek. Let’s just talk tonight and figure things out.”
I already knew what I wanted. Nothing was going to change my mind.
I just wanted him to want it, too.
Derrek’s eyes seemed to darken for the briefest second, and I wondered if he was worried about the same thing. I squeezed his hand and smiled as brightly as I could, pulling him forward.
“Come on, this place was your idea anyway, and someone is finally getting up to leave. I didn’t commute an hour and a half to miss out on, what did you call it?” I paused for a moment, letting a sly grin take over my face. “The best sushi in literally all of time?”
“I’m pretty sure I said the best sushi in the city,” he said with a laugh.
I narrowed my eyes as we stepped through the doors into the warm, cozy space of the restaurant, walking carefully around the couple leaving to take their already-cleaned table. Derrek graciously let me take the bench seat against the wall.
Derrek peeled his coat off slowly as he sat down, revealing a tight-fitting long-sleeved shirt that showed off his arms and clung to his abs. The two buttons on his shirt were undone and showed off just enough of his chest to make me hold my breath. I felt overdressed in my slim button-up and cardigan, and I shed my own jacket in the empty space beside me.
“I’ve been coming to this place for years whenever I’m in town. I’m addicted to their spicy salmon,” he said.
“How spicy is spicy? Like, on a scale from one to ten,” I mused.
“Hmm,” Derrek said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “Eight.”
I wrinkled my nose.
“You meant six, right? Because I can handle six. Maybe seven, since I already like salmon so much,” I said as brightly as I could. I didn’t really like spicy food, but Derrek seemed eager to share what he liked with me, and that was a good sign.
“I’ll have some of yours if you have some of mine?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Deal,” Derrek quickly replied. A young woman set two steaming cups of tea and two glasses of water on our table before disappearing back behind the counter.
“You don’t even know what I want yet,” I said flatly.
“Let me guess,” he said, crossing his arms on the table. “A shrimp tempura roll? Salmon avocado? California roll?” he teased. I could feel my face getting hot and hoped Derrek would chalk it up to the heat of the small restaurant.
I was going to order one or two of those rolls. So what? They were some of my favorites.
When I didn’t look up from my menu, Derrek reached across the table to poke at it.
“Hey, I was just teasing, those rolls aren’t bad.” he said quietly. “Get whatever you want, Aiden.” I took a deep breath in before putting my menu aside, reaching my own hand over to grasp Derrek’s finger and push his arm back.
“As a matter of fact,” I said, letting go of his finger, “I’m in the mood to try something new.” Derrek smirked at me as he raised his cup of tea for a sip. I mirrored him with my glass of water, our eyes locked across the table.
It wasn’t really a lie. Falling back on my regular order felt safe, predictable.
Boring.
“These ones,” I said, pulling my menu over and pointing at the rolls. “Black dragon and spicy tuna.”
Derrek nodded and I smiled into his warm eyes.
A few more steps toward being a more exciting Aiden, I thought.
“You already promised to share,” I said, raising a hand to call the waitress over so we could order.
“Not a problem,” Derrek said once the waitress had come and gone. “I actually like those rolls. Have you had eel before? It can get kind of fishy,” he said, taking another sip of his tea.
“Would the best sushi in the city have that fishy taste?” I retorted.
I sat back against the wall for a moment, feeling pride at trying something new. Whether he knew it or not, Derrek brought out the part of me willing to take chances. Sure, new food might not seem like much, but it was a start.
“You wouldn’t bring me somewhere I didn’t like, anyway,” I said with a shrug. Derrek froze for a moment, his eyes trained on his tea cup.
“No,” he said simply. “I wouldn’t. Not again.”
I could practically hear my heart hit the floor.
“Hold on,” I said. “You said someone told you why I left.”
“They did,” he replied. “Steven said you freaked out and ran.”
The waitress returned to refill our drinks. I stared dumbly at Derrek for nearly a full minute, torn between the fear of having to tell him what happened and the warmth of his concern over what he thought was just a freak out. For all he knew, I was afraid of heights and had to get out of the viewing box.
“It’s…not really that simple, Derrek,” I said. “I didn’t freak out and run away. I—”
I took a deep breath. My eyes stung with the threat of oncoming tears, but if we were going to work toward a relationship, I wasn’t going to lie.
“It was a panic attack. A bad one.”
Across the table, I watched Derrek’s face change from a quiet scowl to wide-eyed and alert. He sat up straighter in his seat, his lips flapping silently as he tried to work out words.
“It was my first one in a long time,” I jumped in. “Don’t worry.”
“What do you mean, don’t worry?” he said. “What happened?”
The waitress returned with our rolls, setting them quickly on the table and leaving again when she caught the heavy look in my eyes.
“I was overwhelmed, I guess. Maybe we can talk about it later? At your place?” I looked up from my food to find Derrek’s expression changing again, this time from shock to a smile.
“Planning on tonight going that well, huh?” he teased, a quiet growl escaping his lips.
“It’s just something I’d rather talk about in private,” I replied, picking up my chopsticks to lift a roll to my mouth. “But yeah, I kind of do plan on tonight going that well.”
I winked and popped a spicy tuna roll into my mouth, chewing quickly.
The look on Derrek’s face told me all I needed to know about how well I was hiding my reaction to the heat of it. He sat in silence, watching me chew for nearly a minute before he finally laughed a cheerful, booming laugh. He plucked one of my spicy tuna rolls off my plate with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth, fighting a smile while chewing.
“You should have just ordered what you like, Aiden. You don’t have anything to prove,” he said after swallowing. He wasted no time before taking one of my black dragon rolls, ignoring his own plate entirely as I grimaced and chugged my entire glass of water.
I waved the waitress over and ordered one of my usual rolls. As soon as she left, I grappled Derrek’s chopsticks with my own, stopping his advance on my plate.
“At least let me try the other one,” I said.
He withdrew his chopsticks and raised both hands in mock surrender. I eyed my plate warily, then lifted a black dragon roll to my lips and hoped it tasted as good as it smelled. Derrek already had a hand floating near his glass of water, ready to offer it if things went bad. My eyes sprung open again as I chewed excitedly.
“This is so good!” I exclaimed sloppily through my full mouth.
Take that, old Aiden, I thought. I slid the spicy tuna over to Derrek in defeat and hid my grin behind a hand as his eyes lit up at the prospect of more food. The waitress returned quickly with a salmon avocado roll and water refills before disappearing again. Derrek wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and I laughed as I pushed the plate toward the middle of the table.
“Fine, but I want at least half,” I said.
Things were going better than I thought. All the tension that racked my body at the start of the evening melted quickly into nothing as the night went on, and we had barely started eating. In the few times we’d met, I’d never seen Derrek so relaxed. It felt like we were starting over with a proper first date, putting the heat of our rushed lunch date behind us.
Well, I thought, I hope we don’t put all that heat behind us…
I could feel my pants tighten under the table at the thought.
“So,” I chanced, dabbing at the corners of my mouth with a napkin. “You travel a lot for work, I guess?”
“I do, actually,” Derrek replied. “A few weeks at a time. The tracks are in all the same places I’ve been going back and forth from since I started driving professionally. The whole thing is less glamorous than it sounds. Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” I asked, swirling soy sauce with a chopstick as I spoke. “It’s obviously for the tell-all book I’m writing about you. Juicy secrets, gross details, that kind of thing,” I said slyly. Derrek laughed softly before leaning over the table toward me.
“Worried I might be gone too long?” he said teasingly.
The heat rising in my face gave him all the answer he needed. Derrek stood up and came around the table, moving my jacket to sit beside me. He threw an arm around my shoulders and leaned back against the padded wall behind us, tickling my ear with a finger until I laughed and turned my head toward him.
“Don’t be,” he said before he kissed me.
“Was this a stupid idea?” I said, squeezing his hand.
“No,” he replied. “We’re not really strangers and we don’t know a lot about each other, but do we need to? Can’t we just learn those things as we go?”
His dark eyes were defiantly bright in the dim light of the restaurant. I felt a pressure as he squeezed my hand in return, his other arm wrapping tighter around my shoulders. I leaned my head over to rest on his, both of us too tall for it to be comfortable, neither of us really caring.
“It made me happy to hear you use the word boyfriend at qualifying,” I said, closing my eyes. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting it or anything, but it was…nice. I don’t need to know a ton about you to be your boyfriend, Derrek. I already want to be with you. I just hope it’s not too soon.”
The restaurant was clearing out slowly as we talked until finally it was just the two of us left at our corner table.
“I need you to know something about me, though,” I said with a shaky breath.
“What is it?” he asked, shadows of doubt cast across his face.
The waitress slid our bill across the table and left again quickly. Derrek shifted uncomfortably next to me, practically shaking the table with a nervous leg. I kissed him, squeezing his hand again to calm him down.
“Driving,” I said.
I pulled my phone from my jacket and thumbed it until I found the same picture I had opened during qualifying, turning my phone so he could see it, tongue heavy in my mouth.
“That’s me when I was seven,” I told him as he shifted again beside me. “That’s around the last time I was in a car.”
“Are you serious?” Derrek said. He turned to face me properly, taking the phone from my hands as he glanced back and forth between me and the picture on it. “Did—” Derrek paused, obviously lost for words. He handed my phone back, his jaw clenched. “Does this have something to do with your freak out?” he finally asked.
“Panic attacks, plural,” I replied. “On and off since I was that old,” I said, tapping my phone’s screen for emphasis. “It’s been a while since the last one. I guess the track was harder to handle than I thought when I got there.”
I waved the waitress over. Derrek flashed his credit card before I could even put a hand into my pocket, and I mouthed a silent thank you for his covering the meal. On our way out the door, Derrek threw his arm around my shoulder again and we walked toward his car.
“Can…can I ask what happened?” he said quietly, obviously uncomfortable. It was a question I’d heard a million times before and would probably hear every time I talked about it. I stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets.
“Car accident,” I said flatly. “My mother and I, um, we were on our way to get my favorite pizza for my birthday. My dad was working late.”
I swallowed hard, blinking through the cold air. I could feel tears welling and hoped I could blame it on the wind in my face if I started to cry. There was no going back.
“Mom didn’t see the other driver,” I said softly.
Derrek swung around in front of me and swept me into a great bear hug, pulling me as close to him as he could manage. I slouched, letting my head rest on his shoulder, and took heavy breaths as I hugged him back, squeezing each other so tight I thought we might burst across the sidewalk. We held each other in silence, my breath coming out in hot, heavy clouds against his neck as I failed to keep the oncoming flood of tears in check.
Derrek cupped a gentle hand around the back of my head, his body tense against mine as he no doubt struggled to think of something to say. Finally, he stepped back and tilted my face up to meet his, wiping a rough thumb to catch a tear sliding down my wind-burned cheek.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have invited you to qualifying if I had known. Why did you agree to go?”
I made an ugly sniffling sound and laughed an awkward laugh that sounded more like a labored gasp.
“I thought I could do it! I wanted to do it. I was so far from the track, it should have been fine. I, uh, I guess I was worried about you getting hurt and it reminded me of…well, getting hurt.”
Derrek let out a long sigh, tilting his head back to let the beginnings of a light rain tickle his face. He opened his eyes again to look at me, taking both my hands in his. It was late, and anyone still out walking paid us no attention.
“I’m not going to stop driving. It’s my job,” Derrek said sternly.
I nodded. He dropped one of my hands and moved to stand beside me again, lacing his fingers with mine as we resumed our slow walk to his parked car.
“You don’t have to come to races until you feel like you’re ready.”
I turned my head to look at him as we walked. His jaw was clenched, his brows were knit, and his grip on my hand was almost uncomfortably tight. I could feel his body shake beside mine, the power of it vibrating down his arm and into my core. Finally, he stopped and fished his keys from a pocket, turning to face me again.
“How did you get anywhere?” he asked.
“Public transit. It’s never been a problem. Old therapists always figured it’s because the accident only involved cars. Dad never pushed me to get over it. I think he hated having to take transit with me everywhere, though,” I explained. Derrek plucked a key from his pocket and gripped it in a tight fist.
“Sounds like a great father, staying with you like that,” he said, and I scoffed.
“He did it because he couldn’t afford anyone to keep an eye on me and he didn’t want to seem negligent. He’s always blamed me for distracting mom at the wheel. I haven’t spoken to my father since I was eighteen and he asked me to leave,” I huffed.
Derrek’s fist trembled in the low light of the street lamp, and I closed my hand around his to steady him. His jaw was clenched, and I lifted my other hand to rest softly against his cheek.
“Sorry, I know this is a lot,” I mumbled. Derrek shook his head.
“I don’t care if you’re not at the races. I’m either driving or talking to press or dealing with my team at the track, anyway; I’d never get to see you there.” He shuffled his feet where he stood, letting go of my hand to cross his arms firmly over his chest. “I can see you when I’m not racing, and we can text a lot, and video chat. Diana would protest, but I can skip seasons and make time. I think I can afford it. It would be nice to see my family. You could come with me!”
We stood there as the rain came down heavier, Derrek rambling for another minute or two about dating and making plans and his schedule before I raised a hand to stop him. He uncrossed his arms and rushed toward me suddenly, grabbing me by the shoulders and rooting me to the spot.
“Be my boyfriend. For real,” he blurted.
I blinked.
“I want to, b—”
“Don’t say but! Don’t. The car thing doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”
I took my hands out of my pockets and slipped them around his waist.
“Derrek, it’s literally the biggest part of your life and I can’t share it with you,” I said. His eyes went nearly blank for a moment before a bright smile spread across his face and the wind was knocked out of me. He was impossibly handsome, even as a rambling mess.
“So? There’s more to me than cars, and we can share all that stuff. Besides, I won’t be driving forever,” he said, letting go of my shoulders to spin me around and hug me from behind. I wasn’t short enough for that to be comfortable, but a moment later I felt his chin rest on my shoulder and I chuckled into the cold.
“I—Derrek, are you sure? I’m…what if I have another panic attack?”
“You’re not broken, Aiden. If they’re still happening years from now, I’ll be there.”
I could feel my face getting hotter despite the cold and the rain and the wind.
“We’re still together years from now, huh?”
“Yeah,” Derrek said firmly. “We are.”
I shook his arms from around my waist and turned to kiss him, our lips meeting with welcome heat. For several minutes, we were a storm of hands searching bodies and tongues meeting tongues, forgetting the night around us, losing ourselves in the swell of kissing and touching and wanting more. When we finally broke away from each other, I leaned in to kiss his neck and whispered.
“Yes.”
Derrek pumped a fist in the air, practically dancing backwards toward his car, until he stopped and frowned, all the joy gone from his face. Instead, his brows were knit with something between annoyance and confusion.
“I was going to ask you to come home with me,” he said candidly. “I, uh, drove here.”
“Like I said, public transit is fine,” I said simply. “You live in the building we ate lunch at on the roof, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“It’s a little much to ask, but if you don’t mind waiting, I can meet you in the lobby when I get there…” I said quietly.
We had just agreed to be real boyfriends and I already felt like I was being inconvenient. It was crazy, and probably not true, but I couldn’t help it. My unwillingness to be in a car had been a problem for almost every other boy I’d tried to be with.
Derrek opened the driver’s side door and beamed at me.
“No problem. It’ll give me a chance to make the place look a little more presentable,” he said. “See you soon!”
As soon as his door slammed shut, I turned and bolted toward the bus stop, grinning to myself the whole way there.
If I only took one chance on anything for the rest of my life, I was glad I had taken a chance on Derrek Luna.