At First Hate by K.A. Linde

Savannah

Present

“No fucking way they’re here.”

I stalled in the doorway of Dub’s as I zeroed in on the group of guys at the center of the bar. Of all the fucking bars in all of Savannah, it had to be the place that Chuck Henderson was holding court.

“Who?” Lila asked. Then, she saw who was sitting there and said, “Oh.”

Josie peeked around me. “Do we know them?”

“Minivan!” Chuck Henderson cried as he caught sight of me standing there.

Michael and Joseph cackled at Chuck’s lame joke. Luckily, Trask and Hooper weren’t in attendance, but his cronies were enough for Chuck’s amusement.

My cheeks flushed crimson, and my back straightened. These douche bags were not going to ruin my birthday.

“Fuck,” Derek said. He strode around me. “I’ll handle it.”

“Wait,” I said quickly as my blood pressure spiked.

The last time I’d seen Chuck around Derek, it had been a disaster. It had ruined everything we’d built. I didn’t want it to all fall apart again because of one douche.

Derek turned back to face me. It was my birthday. I’d invited him out with my friends. An unprecedented thing from our past. Everything had been going great, and yet here was what had ruined us, rearing its ugly head. He’d stop for me. I could see it on his face. That Derek would walk out of this bar and forget it if I told him to.

“What are you going to do?” I asked in a panic.

His face went perfectly still as he realized how upset I still was. His pinkie finger wrapped around mine. “Marley, let me handle it.”

History told me not to trust him in these situations. I should get the hell out of there. I shouldn’t trust Derek to defend me because he’d only ever defended himself. And yet… and yet…

Derek looked different. He’d been different the last couple months. Despite the case between us, somehow, miraculously, he’d grown up.

Finally, I nodded. “Okay.”

Derek smiled, pressed a kiss to my lips right in front of them, and then turned to address the douche bags.

“What is going on?” Josie asked.

“Remember the night that Derek and I broke up in grad school?”

Josie’s head whipped to the guys seated before her, and her eyes widened. “Ohhh.”

Lila shot me a look. “You sure you don’t want to leave? I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with Chuck Henderson.”

I shrugged. Yes, I wanted to leave. But I wanted to see what Derek would do.

“D-Man,” Chuck said with a laugh. “You and Minivan, huh?”

“Don’t call her that,” he snapped.

Chuck’s eyes narrowed, and he tipped his chair back onto two legs. He was clearly drunk. I wondered if he was ever in any other state. “Bit of a downgrade from Kasey, isn’t it? Prom queen to a minivan.”

I winced at the mention of his ex-wife. Derek, however, didn’t. He strode around Chuck, grabbed the back of his chair, and jerked it backward.

Chuck shouted, scrambling to keep from falling. But it was no use. Chuck fell backward on the hardwood floor. His feet dangling comically in the air before he rolled over with a groan. “What the fuck?”

“I said, don’t call her that,” Derek said calmly.

“Jesus Christ, it was just a fucking joke.”

“You weren’t joking, Chuck. You’re just a prick who never left high school behind. Marley has done more in her life than you’ll ever do, and I’m done letting your petty insults continue.”

Chuck clambered to his feet. Michael and Joseph similarly got up with wide eyes, staring at Derek as if they’d never seen him.

“Fuck you, Ballentine,” Chuck said eloquently.

Derek nodded and took a step forward. All three of them jerked backward in alarm. He laughed. “That’s what I thought. Now, get the fuck out of here.”

And to my shock, they tucked tail and all but ran from the bar. Sure, Chuck threw obscenities at Derek, as if it would make a difference. But they were gone.

Josie leaned in close to me. “Remember how I said that you didn’t have to marry him?”

I laughed. “Yeah?”

“I take it back.”

Lila’s head whipped to us. “What? Marry him?”

“You should definitely marry him,” Josie said.

Lila looked between me and Derek and then shrugged. “It’ll be an awkward wedding, but I have to say that I’m with Josie on this one.”

I shook my head. “Y’all are ridiculous.”

Derek held his hand out to the abandoned table. “Drinks, ladies?”

“We’ll get them!” Josie said. She grasped Lila’s hand and dragged her away, leaving me and Derek alone.

I stepped forward, brushing back a loose curl. “Um… thanks. That was unexpected.”

He pulled up Chuck’s overturned chair and offered it to me. I sank into it, and he took the seat next to me.

“Well, that’s how it should have gone the first time.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Derek reached out and threaded our fingers together. He dropped a kiss onto my hand. “That was always my biggest regret.”

“What was?”

He nodded down. “That I let you go over that.”

“Oh,” I said softly. “Well, you didn’t let me go exactly. You did show up at my house a bunch once you sobered up with no memory of what had happened and begged me to come back.”

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I did that. But I’d already ruined it.”

“We both did.” My eyes trailed to my friends at the bar. “I should have told Lila long before I did.”

Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. For the first time in a long time, there were no more regrets between us. We were here again. I still wasn’t entirely sure what this was. The case was between us. It was hard to completely separate business from personal when it came to my life on the line. But I’d vowed to do it for the night.

Lila and Josie brought a tray of shots back with them at the same time that Maddox entered Dub’s. He shook out an umbrella in frustration and then found Josie and froze momentarily. She looked up at him and then quickly away.

“Goddamn rain couldn’t wait a few minutes for me to get here,” he complained.

“That’s Savannah for you,” I said.

“Hey, man.” Derek held his hand out for Maddox.

My brother looked down at it and then sighed, shaking.

“This is a bad idea,” he told me.

Derek and I both laughed.

He wasn’t wrong. I’d been shown time and time again that Derek could hurt me. I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it again. And yet here I was, falling head over heels for him. I hated him for our past, but somehow, I still felt exactly the same for him as I always had.

After that, we all settled in for my birthday. Lila discussing the current Falcons schedule and her role as a physical therapist in their training room. The final season of Academy was running this fall. Josie chatted about future plans. An indie film, some superhero movie she was in talks about doing, and a makeup line. But I couldn’t have been the only one who heard that she was afraid where her career would go without her hit show. Maddox didn’t say much about his animating, but he never did. That was who he was.

Derek pointedly didn’t mention work. And my research was on a temporary hiatus while I was on sabbatical. I should have been with Gran, but I wasn’t. She was missing from the conversation too.

We ended at Lulu’s again, just like we had for Ash’s birthday. Derek and I looked at each other, as if remembering but refusing to bring it up. Ash would not be a welcome conversation topic. I was still worried about him, but I’d been glad when I found out he was heading to LA to see his buddy Tanner during my birthday. The chance of us running into him was always likely with Lila in tow.

I finished off my chocolate chip cheesecake and leaned backward in my seat, full and just a little drunk. Unlike Josie and Lila, who were as smashed as I’d been the night of Ash’s birthday.

“You are good people, Derek,” Josie said, slapping his hand twice.

“Thanks, Josie,” he said with a laugh.

“I thought I’d hate you,” Lila said with a shrug.

“Don’t take it personally, but I’ve hated you for a long time.”

She snorted. “I bet you have.”

“And yet we’re all here together for moi,” I said with a laugh, dramatically placing a hand on my chest.

“It’s my birthday too,” Maddox grumbled.

“Oh yeah, and for my little baby brother.”

Maddox cast his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s only thirty-seven minutes.”

“Long enough,” I teased.

We all joked around over our dwindling chocolate martinis before heading out. Maddox took Josie and Lila in his Jeep, and I headed out with Derek. Lila winked at me as we left. Josie whistled at us. I ducked my chin in embarrassment.

“Some friends,” he said with a laugh.

“They’re the best.”

“I can see that.”

He held my hand again as we walked to his car through the Halloween crowds that had already descended on Savannah.

“Thanks again for what you did with Chuck.”

Derek laughed. “He kind of had it coming.”

“I can’t believe what he said.”

“What part? Everything out of his mouth is as outrageous and predictable as always.”

I bit my lip. “Um… that you’d downgraded.”

He huffed. “Ah. That.” He was silent for a moment before saying, “I did downgrade.” I tried to yank my hand away in outrage, but he was smiling and held me tight. “I downgraded from you to her.”

I opened my mouth as if to protest, but the words died on my lips. “What?”

“You’re always the upgrade, Mars,” he said and then fitted his mouth to mine, soft and tender.

“Oh, Derek,” I breathed. “You’re so much trouble.”

He chuckled, and we stopped in front of his BMW. “Sounds right. I also… got you a birthday present.”

“What? No. You can’t give me anything.”

He opened the door and pulled out a long, skinny box with a black ribbon on it. “But I did.”

“You literally cannot spend money on me,” I said in a panic. “It would look bad for…” The case. I didn’t say it, but it was implied. It could look bad, like he was buying me off or something else ridiculous.

“I thought of that. So, I didn’t spend any money.”

I narrowed my eyes at him in confusion. “You didn’t spend money on a present? Who are you, and what have you done with the real Derek Ballentine?”

He laughed and passed me the box. “Just open it, Mars.”

I took it with a sigh, tugging off the ribbon and lifting the box open. My heart melted at what sat inside. I withdrew the black, white, and red Hermès scarf that he had given me as a Christmas present all those years ago. When we’d broken up, I’d stuffed everything that reminded me of him in a box and left it at his place.

“You kept it all these years?” I asked, my heart constricting.

“Always.” He took the scarf and wound it around my neck. “To Mars and back.”

Then, he kissed me.

And I knew I was in deep, deep trouble.