She didn’t smile at the comment, but her eyes deepened into a look I’d never seen before, like my words affected her on a whole different level that she didn’t even understand. When she recovered from what I said, she spoke. “You should pick. You did great today.”
“But I wouldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “This is all because of you.”
We went to a casual burger place, which was just fine with me.
Dad scrutinized the menu as if he had no idea what to order.
Dex walked in a moment later, falling into the chair at the head of the table, his beer already waiting for him. “Cold beer waiting…nice.” He grabbed it and took a drink before he looked at Dad. “Poor guy, looks like he’s trying to do calculus and solve a Rubik’s Cube at the same time.”
Dad gave a slight grin as he continued to scan the menu. “When are you going back, son?”
“Sick of me already?” Dex grinned before he took another drink.
Dad’s grin slowly faded before he set the menu back on the table. “Never.”
“We had no idea you were coming,” Mom said. “This is such a nice surprise.”
“A surprise?” Dex asked. “A bigger surprise than Derek having a lady? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes narrowed, half serious, half kidding. “Maybe I would if you called once in a while…”
Dex turned to me and cringed. “Shit. Mom guilt.”
“And dad guilt,” Dad said. “I text you all the time. Never get anything back.”
Dex dropped his gaze for a moment and sighed, like he actually did feel bad. “I’ll be better. I’m usually in surgery for like ten hours, and I don’t check my phone until afterward. Then my brain is so fried that I just shower and pass out.”
My mom and dad never stayed mad at us for more than five minutes. It was impossible.
Emerson turned to him. “So, you’re in medicine?”
Dex nodded. “Residency. I’ve done four years of medical school, and I have another three to go.”
Emerson nodded slightly, like she was doing the math in her head to figure out that he would probably be the youngest surgeon in the world by the time he was done.
My brother was far more brilliant than I was, but I got most of the attention because I was the oldest. But once my siblings passed me, people would realize I was nothing special. Dex was not only brilliant, but he inherited social intelligence from our mother, traits I wasn’t fortunate enough to receive. Sometimes he made jokes I didn’t follow, but being around him taught me how to loosen up.
“What kind of surgeon do you want to be?” Emerson asked.
“A heart surgeon.” Dex leaned back in the chair and regarded her, innately charismatic in a way I wasn’t. “But I want to know more about you. My brother didn’t mention you, which is interesting because he’s clearly got it baaaaad.”
“Dex.” I didn’t care if my brother gave me shit, but not too much shit.
“Just saying…” Dex said with a shrug. “You’ve got to be pretty special to put up with this guy. Come on, I know how much work he is. I took him to a comedy show for his birthday one year, and he didn’t laugh once…because he didn’t understand any of it.”
Emerson didn’t seem offended by anything he said, and she even smiled. “I worked as an editor at Derek’s publisher, Astra Books. I was with a different publisher in the city, but once I saw the opening for the position, I took it…because I’ve been a fan of his books for a really long time and I thought it would be the best job ever to be his editor.”
Dex grinned. “Wow, that’s a cute story.”
“It wasn’t that cute,” she said with a laugh. “Because Derek wouldn’t give me the time of day.” She turned to give me a look of accusation, but with playfulness. “He missed all of his deadlines, and I had to harass him to write the book…and he was a peach.”
Dex barked out a loud laugh, like he could picture the scene right in front of his eyes. “Oh, Derek…”
“Fast-forward,” Emerson said. “And I started to help him write the book, just switch the gears in his head. It was really hard for him to go from building rockets to being creative, so I helped him with that successfully. Then your mother hired me to be his personal assistant, and he was a peach about that too.”
I sighed quietly, a slight smile moving onto my lips even though I didn’t look back on that time with fondness. “Thank you for sticking with me, baby.” If she’d left, I would never have been happy. I never would have found a woman who could complete me the way she did.
Her eyes softened as she looked at me. “You were worth it…always.”
My arm moved around her chair, and my fingers touched her shoulder.
Dex’s eyes shifted back and forth as he looked at us before he grabbed his beer and brought it to his lips. “Damn…”
After dinner, we said goodbye on the sidewalk.
“You want to go out?” Dex asked me.
“I’m not really part of that scene anymore.” I glanced at Emerson, who was speaking to my parents about the signing.
Dex glanced at her too. “Yeah, I picked up on that. Nothing too crazy. Just a bar or something.”
I hardly ever saw my brother, so I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to spend time with him. After he went off to college, he was hardly ever in the city, so we only saw each other over the holidays and sometimes the summer. “Sounds good. Where are you staying? You can crash with me.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “I don’t want to intrude on you and Emerson.”
“She doesn’t live with me.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure she sleeps there.”
I wished. “It’s fine. Really.”
“Cool.”
“You didn’t ask to stay with Mom and Dad?”
“I wouldn’t mind but…the food.”
I chuckled because only my siblings understood.
“And, you know…” He shrugged. “Need my privacy.”
“You can bring a girl to my place if you want.”
He grinned. “You’re the best, you know that.” He clapped me on the back before he turned to my parents and Emerson. “We’re gonna go out. Maybe we can get dinner on Sunday before I head out?”
“That sounds great.” Mom hugged him, and Dad followed.
I turned to Emerson. “My brother is going to stay with me for the weekend.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun.”
“I’ll take you home first.” I felt weird letting her just walk home alone. She could handle herself, but I still didn’t like it.
My dad gripped my shoulder. “We’ll drop her off. You two go have fun.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said with a smile. “We don’t mind at all.”
I turned back to Emerson. “I’ll see you on Monday, then.”
She moved into me and gave me a hug. “Have fun tonight. Can’t wait to hear about it then.” When she pulled away, she gave me a quick kiss then walked away with my parents.
I watched her go, walking beside Mom as they headed to where their personal driver was.
Dex gave a quiet whistle. “Damn…you’re whipped.”
I turned back to him, my eyes narrowed. “So?”
He looked confused for a second before that smile stretched his mouth. “You own it. I like that.”
We sat together at the table in the bar, loud voices around us because the city was alive with festivities. Dex scanned the bar to see the talent but turned back to me like I was more interesting. “You two seem pretty serious.”
“We are.” The relationship wasn’t just sexual, and even though we had a great physical connection, the thing that kept me around was the emotional aspect, the way she made me feel. It was just as satisfying to have a conversation with her, to hear her thoughts about anything. I wouldn’t get involved with my assistant, a single mom, if I didn’t think it would go somewhere…someday. The idea of getting married seemed like too much becaus
e I’d already gone down that route once, and it was a fucking mistake. But Emerson was different…I knew that.
“How long has this been going on?” His teasing nature was gone, and now he was serious, no longer making jokes. His fingers were wrapped around the base of his beer, and he was in a long-sleeved shirt with dark jeans. He wasn’t as thick as I was because he probably didn’t have the time to hit the weights like I did, but being on his feet all day clearly kept him in shape.
“About two months.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “That’s it?”
“Well, officially, it’s been two months, but it’s been going on a lot longer than that.”
“What?” he asked blankly.
“I was in a relationship with her for a long time before we were actually in a relationship.”
My brother was brilliant, but he clearly wasn’t following.
“The first time I kissed her was two months ago. But I pretty much stopped sleeping around like three months before that…because she was the only one I wanted to be with. So, we’ve really been together a lot longer…at least, for me.”
He took a drink as he considered what I said. “Why did it take you so long to tell her how you felt?”
I shrugged. “She’s my assistant, and I didn’t really understand how I was feeling at the time. I’ve never been interested in having a relationship, so it took me time to get my feet back in the water, I guess.”
“Because of that girl?” he asked bluntly.
I shrugged in response, not opening up the subject for conversation.
He seemed to pick up on the way I shut him out because he didn’t press me on it. “What is it about her?”
My eyes narrowed at the question.
“I’m not challenging you. I’m just curious. What’s special about her that you can’t find with another woman? I’ve never been in love or felt anything remotely close to that with someone, and I’m starting to get closer to thirty than twenty…”
I tried to think of the best way to explain it. “I was fooling around Fleur for a long time—”
“Fuck…she’s so hot.” He rolled his head back and rubbed the back of his neck.
I gave him a cold look.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “You were saying?”
“She used to drive me up the wall because she was just too much. But I kept going back…over and over. And then when I met Emerson, all that stuff started to feel really empty. It actually made me feel worse. I just…needed more. She gave me everything I needed without even touching me, and I just had to be with her. There was no other option. The idea of going back to Fleur or whoever…repulses me.”
He nodded slightly, like he wanted to understand but just couldn’t.
“You’ll get what I’m saying someday.”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe. But I’m really happy for you, Derek. You seem like you’re in a really good place, and that’s nice to see. And she seems cool. Mom and Dad obviously love her like she’s already part of the family.”
“Thank you, Dex.”
He raised his beer. “Cheers.”
I smiled then tapped my bottle against his. “Cheers, man.”
We both took a drink before we set down our bottles.
“So…you think you’ll ask her to marry you?”
I shrugged. “I’m just enjoying what we have for now.” Being in a monogamous relationship was easy. It was no struggle at all to commit to one woman, to lose all interest in other women because there was no comparison. Fleur was younger and more attractive by societal standards, but Emerson was truly beautiful, from her head to her toes, from her skin to her heart. My heart beat only for her. But the idea of planning to get married again, that sounded like a nightmare. And having kids… She knew how I felt about that. I tried not to think too far ahead because it made me uncomfortable.
“She’s your age?”
I nodded.
“She’s probably going to want to have kids soon. Something to think about.”
I stared down at my beer for a moment before I lifted my gaze again. “She already has a daughter.”
Dex was visibly stunned, judging by his stillness. He didn’t blink, his eyes didn’t shift, and he took a few seconds before his body stopped being so rigid. “Oh…I didn’t know that. How old is she?” He lifted his beer to take a drink.
“Twelve.”
He nearly choked on the drink and turned his face into the crook of his elbow to cough a bit.
I’d been expecting that reaction, so it didn’t surprise me. I drank my beer as I waited for him to return to calm.
Dex finally got himself together and stared at me. “She has a twelve-year-old daughter?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And…that doesn’t bother you?”
“No.”
He did the math in his head. “That would mean she was—”
“It doesn’t matter, Dex. Come on, don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not. I just couldn’t imagine being a parent right now, and I’m a lot older than she was at the time.”
“Shit happens,” I said with a shrug.
“I’m just surprised that doesn’t bother you. You went from young models exclusively to a thirty-year-old single mom…”
“She’s twenty-nine. And I’m almost thirty-one, so she’s my age.”
He raised both hands. “Derek, stop being defensive. I’m not judging her. You just dropped a ton of information on me in a single day, that’s all. Last time we spoke, you were partying every weekend with women like Fleur, and now you’re in a very serious relationship with a woman who has a kid… It’s just a drastic change. I already like her, and not because she was cool, but because you love her—and that’s all that matters to me.”
I relaxed now that I had my brother’s approval, and that was when I realized how much his opinion meant to me, even though he was younger than me. It somehow meant more to me than the opinion of my parents.
He lowered his hands and grabbed his beer again. “Are we good?”
I nodded.
“Geez, take a chill pill.”
“You prescribe chill pills to your patients?” I countered.
“I wish I could sometimes.” He drank from his beer. “So, what’s she like?”
“The daughter?”
He nodded. “You guys get along?”
“I haven’t met her.”
Dex did a better job of hiding his reaction this time.
“Her name is Lizzie, and I’m going to start tutoring her. I wasn’t sure when I would feel comfortable meeting her, but Mom suggested helping her with math and science since she struggles with it. And since that’s something I’m good at, I agreed it was a good idea. Lizzie doesn’t know I’m seeing her mom.”
He nodded in agreement. “That’s smart. She’ll have no expectations at all. If she likes you, she’ll like you for you instead of liking you for her mom.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure it’ll work out. There’s nothing to dislike about you, Derek, despite all the shit I talk.” He gave me a comforting smile before he took a drink.
“Thanks, man.” I slowly released the air from my lungs, letting the impending dread disappear. “I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it up and she’s going to hate me and I’ll lose Emerson.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“We both know I’m a bit…rough.”
“Even if you are, she’ll see past that to everything underneath.”
I stared down at the table as I pictured that first interaction and what the hell I would say to a preteen. “Enough about me. What about you?”
“I’m running around doing all the shit I’ve done my entire adult life. I don’t have an Emerson.” His beer was getting low, so he swirled the bottle and watched the contents whip around. “Most of my mentors tell me not to get married. You’ll just get divorced, and she’ll take half your earnings forever.”
�
�That’s some bleak advice.”
“That’s real life, right? One of my mentors is a cardiologist here in the city, banking ten million dollars a year. After he got divorced, with alimony and child support, he’s keeping less than half of his paycheck…his own paycheck.”
“Not all marriages end in divorce, Dex.”
“Half do. Dad told me a bit about his first marriage…”
“And look at his second marriage. Valerie wasn’t the right person. Mom is. So, find the right person, and you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“But when you’re rich, it’s hard to know if a woman really wants you for you or your wallet.”
“I have Emerson, and she doesn’t want me for my money.”
“Then you’re a lucky bastard, Derek.” He pointed at me. “Hold on to her.”
“I just don’t want you to make decisions for yourself based on other people’s experiences. That’s all.”
He lifted his empty bottle and got the waitress’s attention. She brought over two more bottles and set them in front of us before she walked away. “Noted.” Based on his attitude, he already had his mind made up. But he was young, and maybe in time, he would feel differently.
I decided to mention something I never talked about—ever. “You know, after the whole thing with Tabitha, not only did I not want to get married, but I didn’t want to have a relationship either. I did that for ten years, one meaningless experience after another meaningless experience. I became bulletproof. Never got hurt again. But you know what? I never felt anything either.” I twisted off the cap and took a drink. “And then Emerson happened, and I started to feel again. I started to feel happy, alive.”
Dex didn’t give me an incredulous look or make fun of me. “That’s beautiful, man.”
“So, Tabitha was the wrong person. That’s all.”
He nodded. “Definitely.”
I didn’t want to continue a conversation so heavy, so I switched gears. “How’s residency?”
“Good.” He twisted off his cap. “I feel like I never sleep, I’m the doctor’s bitch, and I had to get those gel insoles in my shoes like an old man.”
The Boy Who Has No Belief (Soulless Book 7) Page 7