Page 1 of Out of Nowhere

Chapter One: Dex

“Gary, turn down the air conditioner to 68 degrees,” Dex said, setting a file on his desk and opening another.

Suddenly, the lights went out, plunging Dex into complete darkness. The chorus of expletives coming from various parts of the mansion that housed Falcon Security let him know it wasn’t just Dex’s office that had lost power.

“Gary, turn on the lights!” Dex ordered the virtual voice assistant.

No lights, but Dex heard the air click on. “Clearly, there are still some bugs in this thing,” he muttered.

His cell phone rang on his desk just as Jase yelled up the stairs, “Dammit, Dex, turn the damn lights back on!”

“Working on it, boss!” he called, then said loudly, clearly enunciating every word, “Gary, turn on the lights!” The toilet in a nearby bathroom flushed. “Fuck. Gary, turn off the air!” The lights came back on, and Dex breathed a sigh of relief.

Dex looked at the name on the screen of his still ringing phone.Bea Sommerton. Sighing, he muttered, “What does she want now?” He’d talked to his mother just the day before.

“Hi, Mom.”

“So, you decided to answer. Did you see that I texted you Penelope’s number?”

“Yes. Weird name.”

“How rude. It’s no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.”

No, it’s not. I’m gay.He’d been out to his friends and coworkers for a while now and was comfortable with it. But telling his family was a hurdle he kept putting off.

“Call her and ask her out. She’s in Nettleton, not too far from you. Just a little over an hour.”

“I’ll think about it,” Dex said. He definitely wouldn’t.

“Do more than think about it, Dex. You can’t bury yourself in work. You need a social life. You’re thirty now and need to think of your future.” She cleared her throat. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about. I have an update on Anna.”

Dex leaned back in his office chair. “Since yesterday?”

Dex and his mother had a strained relationship, but after they found out his half-sister, Anna, had developed a stalker-like obsession with an ex-boyfriend who just happened to be one of Dex’s bosses, they’d become a little closer. At least, they had something to talk about other than Dex’s need to find a wife. Anna was now living with her father—Dex’s step-father—in Colorado Springs, and was undergoing therapy. Although her father, Tom, was a little controlling, Dex privately thought Anna was better off living with him than with their mother, who wasn’t very perceptive to the emotional cues of her children. Dex made sure that he called his sister at least once a week these days to see how she was doing.

Bea sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. I talked to Tom this morning. He had a meeting with Anna and her therapist yesterday. Anna’s OLD has gotten worse.”

“Worse?” OLD stood for Obsessive Love Disorder, something Dex had never heard of until Anna was diagnosed with it. Surely, if Anna had contacted West recently, West would have told Dex about it. “West has a restraining order—“

“Not West,” Bea interrupted. “Dr. Richards said that for a while Anna had shown signs of another fixation, but no matter how much he questioned her, she wouldn’t give him any useful information. Finally, he got Anna to agree to a joint session with her father, and that’s when she announced that she didn’t need therapy anymore. That she was fine now and moving on with her life. In fact, she’d been seeing someone for the past few months. And…” Bea’s voice faltered before she pressed on, “She’s pregnant.”

“What?” Dex said so loudly that Sean and Saint, two of the guys on the security team, stuck their heads in the office to make sure everything was all right. Dex waved them off.

“Mom, are you serious? She hasn’t said anything about it to me. We talk every week—I’ve made sure of it. I’ve been doing my best to be there for her.” Because he hadn’t been before, and he still felt terrible about that. He couldn’t shake the thought that if he’d been a better, more attentive brother, putting aside the fact that they had different fathers and different lives, Anna might never have progressed so far with an illness that no one had realized she had.

“Tom took her to a gynecologist who confirmed that she’s four months pregnant.”

“Fourmonths!“ Closing his eyes, Dex digested the information. Anna was going to have a child.Fuck.Although this was a terrible time for Anna to have a baby, he couldn’t help butfeel a thrill of excitement. Dex loved babies, and he was going to be an uncle.

“Who’s the father?” Dex asked. Could it possibly be someone who would step up and take care of the child? Would he fight to take the baby from Anna?

“Evidently the man she’s now fixated on, a nineteen-year-old meth addict. Tom went to confront him last night, and his apartment was empty. He must have packed up and left the minute Anna called him with the news.”

“A meth addict?” Dex sighed. “How is she taking the fact that she’s pregnant?”

His mother sighed. “She’s ignoring it at the moment, too preoccupied by the news that the object of her current obsession has left her. Tom had to take her to the guy’s apartment so she could see for herself that he’s gone. Now she’s hysterical.”

Dex fell silent for a moment as he attempted to sift through all the information. But, try as he might, he couldn’t process it all. Finally, he murmured, “I thought she was doing so well. She was going to school—“

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