Nate studied his buddy. How much did she let Derek get away with? He frowned at his beer.
“How would you feel, man? If it was you.”
Nate’s mind wandered back in time and his stomach rolled over. The past was all tangled up in betrayal and lies and heartache. Trying to put himself in Derek’s shoes was a bad idea.
“I don’t know.” He hitched one shoulder and stared at a drop of water on the table. “Doesn’t matter how I’d feel.”
“But if you couldn’t have a baby—would you adopt?” Derek’s eyebrows rose, then lowered again into a frown.
“Sure. Maybe.”
“Bullshit.”
“Lots of people do it. Even people whocanhave kids adopt. How about a baby from China? I know people who’ve done that.”
“Uh…don’t think so.”
“Why not? It’s a good thing to do.”
“Well, yeah, but…I don’t know. I guess I’m not very good at explaining this.”
“Never mind.” Nate didn’t care. “It’s your decision. Well, yours and Krissa’s.”
“It’smydecision. I’m the one shooting blanks.”
“It’snotjustyourdecision! You two are a couple! What if it was Krissa? What if she couldn’t get pregnant and she wanted to adopt? Then what would you do?” Nate shook his head.
Derek turned his head and gazed across the bar. He tipped his beer glass up and drained it into his mouth, rapped it downon the table. “I’d consider it.”
Nate’s jaw dropped. “What the…? How could that possibly make a difference?”
Derek turned a cool gaze back to Nate. “Youdon’tget it. I can’t get my wife pregnant. I don’t want the whole world to know that. If we adopt, everyone will know. I’ll be…” he stopped, as if he couldn’t even say the words.
“That’s not right. People don’t think like that.”
“I do.”
And by the firm set of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes, Nate knew that Derek had made his decision and his logic made perfect sense to him, if to no one else.
This tension between them had never been there before. They’d been friends since high school, when they’d met on the school triathlon team. They’d shared a similar athletic talent, similar goals, had competed for the attention the school’s star athlete would get…until the race where Derek had stepped into a hole while running, tripped and sprained his ankle only minutes from the finish. The two of them were far in the lead and Nate could have left him and easily won. But he’d stayed to help his team mate and they’d crossed the finish line together, Nate holding Derek up as he limped along.
Now, things felt different, and Nate couldn’t quite put his finger on it. People change in two years, and he supposed it served him right if his relationship with his friend suffered because he’d disappeared. Derek’s problems made him a different man, no doubt, and—Nate had to be honest—he himself was a different man than the one who had left two years ago.
“You want to talk about being a failure. How about a photographer who can’t see? You wanna see humiliation? What the hell am I going to do, Derek? If I can never take these goddamn glasses off. How about my career?”
Derek’s shoulders dropped. “Fuck. I’m sorry, man. With all this shit going on, I totally forgot.”
Nate gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah. That’s why I’m sittinghere in a dark bar wearing sunglasses. People probably think I’m a cocaine addict.”
He saw the look on Derek’s face.
“I’mnot.” He, too, finished his beer.
“I know that. Geez. So, tell me what happened.”
Nate told his pathetic story, about his Costa Rican adventure gone all to hell, ending with a hospital stay and damaged eyes. He hated to sound pathetic, but what the hell. Derek had told him his sad story. Might as well have a big pity party right there at the Shark Club on State Street.
Chapter 6
