Page 46 of All In Good Time

Somehow.

And if that was true, he needed to leave. He couldn’t risk seeing her.

He stumbled from the room and into the hallway, down the stairs, with his eyes focused on the door that would get him far away from here.

A hand pressed down on his shoulder and pushed him back, making him nearly trip over his already unsteady feet. He glared and turned to the perpetrator.

Marty Fucking Parr.

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down there, big guy. You can’t leave.” Parr looked like he also had just woken up. His hair was messed up, and on the couch behind him, riddled with ruffled blankets, was evidence of his slumber. He might have used that to his advantage, but really, Derek was the one at a disadvantage—with the ringing onset of a migraine and the incoherency of his hangover.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Helping you, that’s what. Now, why don’t you come sit down. You don’t look too great.”

“No shit.” Derek wasn’t amused, and he shifted his shoulder to lose Marty’s hand. He should have expected that the guy wouldn’t give up so easily. “I’m so not in the mood for your shit right now.” His voice raised, and his teeth ground together to hold on to his self-control.

Marty pushed back again and blocked the exit with his body. What Derek had over him in muscle, Parr earned it back in height. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Derek scoffed and rolled his eyes before getting up in Marty’s face. “Get out of my way, Parr. There is very little keeping me from busting your face in right now.”

“No.” Marty didn’t look scared or even threatened, and that pissed Derek off. More so when his attention flicked off of him and toward the stairs over his shoulder. “He’s trying to leave.”

The moment Derek realized there was someone else in the room, he knew he had missed his chance to escape.

He wished he hadn’t looked.

Rebecca stood at the top of the stairs, watching them from above in her pajamas. Her skin was pale and sunken, like she had lost weight since the last time he saw her. Her hair was ratted from sleep.

A gasp stuck in the back of Derek’s throat that would have given away the effect seeing her had on him if he’d let it go, so he swallowed it, even though it hurt.

He wanted to run away far, far away from here. Even standing near Becca made the resolve he’d built for himself crumble in seconds. He was still a spineless fool that wanted to wipe the exhaustion from her eyes and bring the color back to her face.

But he couldn’t do that.She’dhurt him. He couldn’t forget that, so he would just have to find another way to avoid the sick longing inside of him.

He clenched his jaw and bit his cheek, hoping the pain would distract from the ache in his chest as he turned back to Marty, who held his hands out to block Derek from moving past.

“I’m not staying here.”

Even though he said it to Marty’s face, it was directed at Becca. The words were sharper, more impatient.

“You can’t leave.” Marty was the one who answered anyway.

“Watch me,” he hissed and lashed out against Marty’s chest, sending him back into the front door with a wince. He bared his teeth and let the scared animal snap out as he grabbed onto Parr’s collar, raising his fist over his head.

“Your dad came here.” Becca’s voice wrapped an invisible cord around his hand and pulled it still. “He’s looking for you, and he isn’t happy.”

He’d been scared that hearing her voice would push him over the edge, but it did the opposite. It reminded him why he couldn’t face her and why he ran away in the first place.

His dad was looking for him, and he wasn’t happy. She was the reason for that. He ran away because shebetrayedhim and threw him into the line of fire. And she brought him right back to where he didn’t want to be.

Once again, she thought she was helping, when all it did was ruin him.

Outside of his subconscious, her light footsteps alerted her approach. “Just stay here. No one will know. We’ll figure everything out.”

How could he have deserved this? It didn’t help him. Itneverhelped him. No amount of desertion or beatings or betrayal would ever help him. It only made the bitterness grow.

He did look at her then, and the outrage hid the pain as he stepped up until he was close enough to feel her breath shudder over his face. That lavender smell overtook him. “This is your fault,” he said between clenched teeth. “I was gone. I finally got away. I was safe from this mess, and youbrought me back. Why? Why would you do that?” His voice cracked and the desperate need for real answers shined through.

---