Yeah. Why?
He’s just been blowing me off lately. Is something going on at work?
I mean, he’s always got a million things to do, so work never sleeps. But nothing in particular.
I was certain he wasn’t mad at me because I hadn’t done anything to provoke his wrath. And even if I did, he would just come at me straight on and tell me off, so that didn’t make sense. Then maybe it’s just in my head.
He’s staying at the office late tonight if you want to stop by. I’m home with the kiddos.
I’d finished work for the day and already asked him to grab a bite, but he hadn’t responded. I don’t want to bother him.
He’s just doing some tests for this new prototype they developed, and he hasn’t had a chance to go through everything himself. Little Deacon got an ear infection, so Derek had to take him to the doctor and stay home with him for a couple days.
I loved that about Derek. That he didn’t push his parenting duties on to his wife, that he left work without looking back and chose to be a father instead of solely an engineer. I knew he got that from our dad. I’ll stop by and bring him dinner, then.
Good idea. He’ll love that.
I knew where his warehouse was because I’d been there a couple times. I helped myself to one of the golf carts outside, drove over there, and then walked through the door. “Hungry?” I held up the bag of burgers and fries.
Derek was standing over his workbench when I walked inside, wearing protective goggles, and he turned around to face me when I stepped inside. His eyebrows furrowed before he pulled off the glasses. “What are you doing here?”
There was definitely something off with him. “Uh, nice to see you too?” I approached his workbench, saw a bunch of wires and gadgets that I couldn’t really make sense of, and then turned back to him. “Thought I’d stop and bring dinner.”
“How’d you get here?”
My eyebrows furrowed as much as his did. “I have a driver now. You know, because I’m a big hotshot heart surgeon now.” I set the bag on the table. “I thought I would stop by and bring some food. Haven’t seen you much lately.” I pulled up a stool and helped myself to a seat before I took out the brown bag of fries.
He continued to stand there, visibly annoyed, his arms crossed over his chest, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Seriously, what the hell is your problem?”
“I don’t just randomly drop by your office.”
“You think I’d care if you did?” My appetite was gone now, so I pushed the fries away. “You’ve been blowing me off for weeks, so I asked Emerson if everything was okay and she assured me everything is fine, told me to come down here. But this hostile reception tells me everything is not okay. You mad at me?”
His stare lingered for a minute more before he turned away, dragging his fingertips over his beard while he released an annoyed sigh. He took a few steps then circled to the other side of the table, deliberately putting distance between us. “I’ve been blowing you off for weeks because I don’t want to see you.”
“Because…?” My brother had never been angry with me, as far as I knew. “What the hell did I do to piss you off so much?”
“You didn’t piss me off. I never said I was angry with you.” He turned his gaze back on to me, his eyes murky and cloudy like he was the definition of pissed off. “I just don’t want to see you.”
“So, you aren’t mad at me…but you want nothing to do with me? Okay…that totally makes sense.”
His hands moved to the edge of the table, and he braced himself, his chin tilted toward the table, his eyes focused on an invisible spot while his mind worked furiously. “Look.” He pushed off the surface and righted himself again. “I’ve been avoiding you because I’ve been avoiding telling you something. If I’m in the room with you, I’m obligated to tell you. So by not being in the room with you, I’ve managed to put it off as long as possible.”
Emerson hadn’t mentioned this at all, so she probably didn’t know about it. “Dude, you’re freaking me out. Are you okay? You’re not…” I couldn’t even bring myself to ask the question. “You’re not sick, right?” With three doctors in the family and one cancer survivor, that was where our assumptions always went.
“No.” He looked me in the eye and shook his head. “Nothing like that. Don’t even worry about that.”
“Okay…” Then whatever else he had to tell me would be fine. As long as no one in my family was sick, then I could deal with it. “Just tell me, Derek. As long as everything is okay, it’s not a big deal.” I dealt with life and death every single day, so everything else was much simpler to manage.