Undertow

Chapter 1-3

Drink in hand, Derek navigated through the crowd to the shadowy far corner. As he approached, he studied the stranger waiting for him, who threw back shot after shot of the horrid blue-black drink the bartender had called an Undertow. The black cowboy hat was pulled low over the stranger’s eyes, but stringy blond hair curled around the brim of the hat, gray-green in this bad light, as if the man had spent too much time in chlorinated water. His skin was sallow, unhealthy looking; what Derek could make of his face looked thin and pinched—a pointed chin, a heavy lower jaw, a wide mouth that split into an easy grin when Derek stopped in front of his table.

The stranger looked up at him, giving Derek a glimpse beneath the hat and, to his surprise, he recognized those red-rimmed eyes. He remembered where he’d heard the caller’s voice before—it had been years since he heard it last, when he had been much younger and Tad not yet in his life. The air seemed to rush out of him as he dropped into the seat opposite the man who had been his first friend, his first love, all those years ago. Lingering affection and a hint of nostalgia filled his voice. “Kellen.”

Across from him, Kellen tipped back his hat, allowing Derek to get a good look at the man who had grown from the boy Derek once knew. The same lines that rimmed Derek’s eyes spidered around Kellen’s; his skin was taut, tight over sharp cheekbones, and pale as if he’d stayed underwater for too long. But his smile warmed his features, and his sea-green eyes sparkled with mirth when he murmured, “Da, Dere. Ichta san chia.”

Without thinking, Derek’s mind translated the ancient language into English. It has been too long. With a sip of his drink, he grimaced, then replied, “I’m known as Derek now. By Mananan, you’re the last person I expected to find waiting for me here. So you’re the one who was calling me? Why didn’t you just say so?”

A faint smile toyed around the edges of Kellen’s lips. “Would you have showed up if I had?”

The smallest hesitation contradicted Derek’s reply. “Of course,” he said, sipping again at the drink in his hand to avoid meeting Kellen’s steady gaze. “We’re old friends, Kell.”

Reaching for him across the table, Kellen’s long, thin forefinger stroked the back of Derek’s hand. The touch was ticklish but Derek didn’t pull away. He watched, mesmerized, as Kellen traced runic patterns onto his skin, and remembered those fingers elsewhere, smoothing along his chest, curving between his legs. In a distant voice, Kellen whispered, “We were more than friends, once. If you remember.”

Derek jerked his hand from under Kellen’s, then ran it through his close-cropped hair to play off the gesture. “We were just kids then.”

“There is nothing childish about the way I feel for you,” Kellen replied.

Is, feel. As if time had not yet dulled the edge of Kellen’s affection for him. This was why Derek would have never agreed to meet the man. He had never returned Kellen’s feelings, not to the extent his friend had hoped for, and for that, Derek was sorry. But his heart belonged to Tad; the moment he’d met the man, the rest of his old life—his old friends—had fallen away.

When Kellen stretched out for him again, Derek moved his hand into his lap, beneath the table, out of reach. “No, I…” He sighed, so damn tired. “Kellen, I can’t. I’m—”

With someone, he almost said, but he stopped himself before the words were free.

There was a sadness in Kellen’s voice when he asked, “How long has it been?”

“Four months,” Derek choked. He ran a shaky hand down his face as if he could wipe away the pain that tore him up inside. “Not a day goes by I don’t miss him. You just don’t know—”

“Don’t be so sure.”

Derek glanced up and, for a brief moment, saw his own pain mirrored in Kellen’s eyes. Then his old friend cleared his throat, sat back, and the light in his eyes turned cold, calculating. Down to business. Taking a deep breath to pull himself together, Derek asked, “So what’s this about finding what I lost? I don’t…”

With a rush of clarity, it hit him. I’ve found… “My God,” he whispered, eyes widening. “Tad. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you called. You know where he is.”

Kellen stared at him, the ghost of a smile on his face. Derek struggled to rein in his thoughts—he wanted to vault across the table, throttle the man opposite him, demand answers…but that slight grin said it all. Almost dreading the reply he might get, Derek asked, “Is he…?”

“Alive, yes,” Kellen conceded. “The question is, what are you willing to do to get him back?”