I rushed into the kitchen and found him standing at the counter. Papers full of his scribbling and indecipherable charts and diagrams took up most of the brushed metal space in front of him. A few plates to one side held remnants of dishes he’d tried during the day. He reached to the side and grabbed something off one of them without looking and popped it into his mouth.
“Derek,” I said, moving toward him quickly.
He looked up and his face went hard. “Where did you go?”
“I had to go home. Where’s Ally? Is she still here?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “She’s not. She left too.” His expression stiffened even more. “This is your fault, isn’t it? She told me she had to go help her parents, but I don’t believe her. You did something to her. What did you do?”
“I need to talk to her,” I said by way of an answer. “I don’t have her phone number or her address. I need to find her.”
“What did you do to scare her away?” Derek demanded. “I’ve called her twice, and she didn’t answer. I know the two of you have been at each other’s throats. What the hell did you do this time?”
I could have ignored him. I could have just gone to the administration office and accessed her personal file to find her phone number. But standing there in the kitchen, looking at my brother, I realized I didn’t want to go through this alone, anyway. I could understand why she told Holly. Preparing myself for what I assumed would be a fairly disastrous reaction, I drew in a deep breath.
“Ally and I slept together,” I admitted.
Derek stared back at me, his chin dropping slightly so that he was glaring through the tops of his eyes at me.
“Excuse me?” he finally asked. “You did what?”
“It wasn’t like it was planned. Like you said, she and I have been at each other’s throats. Since the day I met her, she’s driven me nuts. And you know I haven’t been with anybody since Monica.”
“I know,” Derek said. “So, what happened? How did you go from being a colossal asshole to her to sleeping with her?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. I didn’t think about it. It’s not like I tried to seduce her, or we went on a date or anything. I was attracted to her. She’s gorgeous, and you can’t deny that. But her attitude pissed me off. She got on my nerves. She pushed all my buttons.”
“I don’t need to hear about any buttons or any pushing,” Derek said, holding up his hands and leaning his head back away from me like he was trying to avoid any other details I might offer. “I just want to know what you did that made her leave today. Because if you made it so that she doesn’t come back, I might just have to kill you.”
He meant it in jest, but there was just enough seriousness in his voice to tell me he was genuinely angry about how this was unfolding.
“It wasn’t today,” I said. “The first time was just over a month ago.”
“The first time?” he snapped. “How many times did you lose your fucking mind exactly?”
“Twice,” I said. “Just twice.”
“She works for us, Noah,” Derek said.
“Well, technically she works for you,” I pointed out.
That probably wasn’t necessary. It would have just been fine to let that ride.
“She’s a friend of mine,” he said.
“I know.”
“And she’s ten years younger than you,” he said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that. Somewhere in my mind, I knew Ally was younger than me. It never occurred to me how much, and it never really mattered. It wasn’t like I was actually going to act on my attraction to her. Now that I definitely did act on that attraction, I wondered if the age difference mattered or not.
It apparently did to Derek, who was glaring at me with his hand wrapped too tightly around a pen for my liking. See? He did not need the added detail of it happening at the vineyard to think this was a bad idea.
“Derek, you don’t need to convince me that this probably wasn’t the most well-thought-out decision of my life. I’m already there. I know this wasn’t my finest hour. But going over that and breaking it down for me isn’t going to change what happened,” I said.
“Or that you managed to do something so awful that she made up an excuse to leave. Considering everybody was bitching about not being able to find you all this afternoon, I’m guessing she left right around the same time you did. So, what did you say to her? Were you the one on the phone?”
“It wasn’t me on the phone,” I said. “I’m guessing it was her friend Holly you’ve told me about. She was talking out in the courtyard when I walked by and heard her say my name. I thought she was trying to get my attention, so I went in and heard the rest of her conversation. She’s pregnant Derek. And it’s mine.”