Chapter 12

A/N: For the plot, the next few chapters are gonna feature a hell of a lot of football shit, and if you really don't care that much about it, not much happens in this chapter or chapter 13 and 14, but chapter 15 is going to be super important, so if you wanna skip all the football shit, chapter 15 is the one to go to. If you're reading this book as it's getting updated, just stick through it I guess, some stuff will still be happening.

Derek's POV

One day later...

Today we're taking a flight to Illinois for our first matchup of the season, and I'm excited. In just a couple days, I'm gonna be playing my first game of college football. This is something I've dreamed about since I first started playing football, and this is something that's finally gonna happen. I've worked for this.

"Alright everyone, make sure you've got everything you need, make sure you've given all your equipment to our equipment manager so he can make sure everything gets on the plane. We are not coming back here until after the game, and that's already in a while. Once we get there, find someone to room with. If you're a freshman or a sophomore, you are most likely staying in a dorm building, and you probably should just room with your dorm roommate. Juniors and seniors have to actually figure their roommate situation out," Coach Nelson says.

We're on a bus right now on the way to the airport, where a charter plane is waiting for us. We had practice super early in the morning and we all showered and shit, cleaned ourselves up and whatnot, and now we're getting on a plane to Illinois in a few minutes. I've been there a few times, to Chicago, to see family. My grandparents live there. They're also homophobic assholes but I don't know about my father's parents.

"Aight, so we gotta share a room at the hotel, Derek," DeShaun states and I nod.

"Yeah."

"I'm taking the window bed."

"Sure, I don't really care which bed you take, I don't think it matter that much."

"Good. But if you try to take the window bed before me, I will be crashing out and you don't want to see me crash out," DeShaun says.

"Alright bro, I'll make sure not to take the window bed."

"Good. Thank you," DeShaun says, his voice completely changing back to his normal chill voice instead of his angry voice.

We get to the airport, go straight to the tarmac and go through the pop up TSA check thing, all of us going through clean except for Jax, who didn't realize he had to take his phone out of his pocket. For some reason, I have a feeling this is the first time he's gone through TSA because his family is so rich. Kai knew what to do, I don't know why Jax didn't.

"That's my bad guys, I didn't realize I had to take my phone out," Jax states, apologizing to everyone for a really miniscule thing that really doesn't matter that much. I don't care, it didn't drain time we could've used to do something else, we just got on the plane a minute later than we could've.

Me and DeShaun go straight to the back of the plane, which is not the best decision. The turbulence in the back of planes is much worse than it is in the front of the plane, but we can handle it. There's much more leg space on this plane than a normal commercial plane, so if I need to I can just stretch out and get more comfortable. I'm 6'3, and I'm still growing, I need as much leg space as possible. There's also seats that face both ways, and I'm facing away from the direction we're going in.

"So, you think we're gonna win?" DeShaun asks me and I shrug.

"I don't know. I think this game is really gonna show us where we are as a team, what we need to work on, all that shit. I might have a better idea of if we're gonna win or not in the next game, when we already know our skill levels compared to other college players."

"Yeah. This game is kind of a test, not just for us, but Coach Nelson too. He hasn't coached a college team before, so this is also a chance for him to figure out what he needs to improve on."

"I like him so far. I think he's a good coach. I'm glad he promised us plenty of playing time in games, even if we're not starting. We may be starting by the end of the year," I predict.

"I don't need to be starting though. I'm happy as a backup runningback, or slot receiver if I need to. Aaron is gonna be the starter, and I'm not gonna get in the way of that. I know he's more talented than me in terms of actual running, but we can be on the field together at the same time because I can be a wide receiver."

"Yeah. I guess you didn't start in high school, so it kind of makes sense," I remember. He was still one of our best players, kind of a swiss army knife on our second unit. Someone we could bring into the game and he would be able to do anything that Coach Payton wanted him to do. He could catch, he was a solid runner, and he was an above average blocker.

"Yeah. I know my role, and that's not to be the star, but to just work hard, make the hustle plays, all that shit. Block for Aaron, catch passes, run the ball if I have to, all that," DeShaun says.

"You're also on special teams, right?"

"Yeah. I like special teams because you can really get ready to tackle a guy hard. You've got space to speed up and slam into their body, and it will still be clean most of the time. I was never penalized for unnecessary roughness on special teams. Jax was one time, which is crazy, because he's pretty skinny. That's what happens when you have time to speed up into a person," DeShaun rambles.

"Yeah. I might enjoy special teams." I ponder it over for a moment. I really think it would be fun to just take out my anger on a random player on the opposing team, even though they probably did nothing wrong. I'll think about it, but it could really be fun.

"I love it, I assume you would."

"Yeah. I'll think about it."

"Derek, another thing, are you doing alright?" DeShaun asks and my soul kind of drops. People don't really ask me that very often, and now I have to actually think about if I'm doing well. Am I doing well? I don't know, I don't think I'm doing great. Football can easily change that mood, but in two days it hasn't yet.

"Why?"

"Because you're barely spending time with the team now, I doubt you're avoiding us, but you're just not really spending time with us."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry about that, and I'll make an effort to spend more time with you guys," I say. I don't know if I'll actually keep that promise, but I'll maybe try to spend more time with them.

"Thanks, but the question still stands. Are you doing alright? You know you can talk to me, Aaron, any of us, we will help you and we'll spend time with you if you want someone to just talk to. There's nothing wrong with needing that."

"Thanks. I'm doing alright right now. Sorry for not spending time with you guys though," I tell him.

"It's fine, don't worry about it, but the whole team is kind of concerned about not just you, but Adrian as well. The two of you seem to just lock yourselves in your rooms and not really come out. I think Adrian is depressed, if you look at his demeanor, it's pretty clear he's depressed or something is bothering him, but I can't really read you. You changed up, man."

"Did I?" I question.

"Yeah. You used to be the super fun goofball of this friend group, now you're just stonefaced and I can't tell what's going through your head."

"I don't think I changed that much."

"You did though. I miss when you, me, and Aaron would just hang out randomly, and right now is the best time to do shit like that. We're free from the restraints of parents, we should be doing whatever we want, but you're just staying in your room or somewhere else all day," he states.

"Well, we can't really hang out, the three of us, because Aaron can't leave his boyfriend alone for 5 seconds or he'll cry."

DeShaun grimaces and grits his teeth at me and mouths the words 'behind you.' Behind me, Aaron is grinning at me while standing on his knees so he can see me and DeShaun talking. I kind of awkwardly smile at him and he continues to grin at me while starting to shake his head in amusement.

"Uh, sorry Aaron, I didn't realize you were sitting right there," I tell him.

"Don't worry. You're not wrong. Cam wouldn't survive 2 seconds without me right next to him though."

"That's not true, don't listen to him," Cam claims, but we all know he wouldn't  survive that. He might, but it would be a close call.

"Anyways, at some point, do you wanna just go and play basketball at the park? I'm sure we can still get Aaron to come if Cam comes as well," DeShaun says.

"Alright. That actually sounds like a fun idea," I say, smiling at him. He's not wrong, I do need to spend more time with my friends because I could legitimately get sad.

"Great. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna close this window so I can sleep."

"I don't mind."

DeShaun closes the window and falls asleep pretty much on the spot. I stay awake though, because I have some shit to think about. A lot of shit concerning why I'm not spending time with anyone and why I would rather just sit in my room alone.

I haven't really thought about why I want to be isolated. I just assumed it was because I was kind of left broken when Cam and Aaron revealed that they had been dating for weeks when I had assumed that Cam was straight. But I don't really care that much about that anymore. I've gotten over Cam and now I'm just happy for the two of them. I'm not in love with Cameron anymore, I'm not jealous of Aaron anymore, I'm just overjoyed by how well they're doing together. Maybe it's because I'm not in the same house as them all the time anymore.

I'm eventually able to fall asleep, but not for long because we finally land in Illinois.

I wake up to DeShaun shaking me by the shoulder trying to wake me up. I wake up and hope that not a single person is looking at my hair. I can't imagine it looks very good, it always looks terrible after I wake up.

"Good. You're awake, let's go," he says, throwing his bag over his shoulder. I grab my bag and follow him to the tarmac outside, where a bus is waiting for us so we can go to the hotel I assume.

We get to the hotel and it's pretty nice. It's a standard Hilton, you know, nothing too fancy but it gets the job done. We now just have a few days to get ready for our first game, and basically all the freshmen are stressing because so many of us are getting a hell of a lot of playing time, and this is about to be our first game. I'm happy we're getting a lot of playing time, but at the same time, it seems pretty early to be putting us under this much pressure.

I think we'll do alright though, that's all I can hope for.

3 days later...

I'm so fucking stressed about this game. Illinois isn't a great football team by any means, but it's still a D1 team and half the players that are getting a lot of minutes on this team are just coming out of high school.

We all played pretty well in practice over the week, and we're not in LA, which is a decent sign. If we can keep up our consistency on the road than things will be way more easy for us.

Right now we're warming up for the game, practicing our coverage on wide receivers, all of that shit. Cam seems really stressed about starting, but Aaron is calming him down well. I don't know how Aaron isn't stressing about starting because if there's anything on their defense that should be scary for us, it's their run defense.

"Alright everyone! Come to the locker room, I have some stuff to tell you!" Coach Nelson yells at all of us. Not in an angry way or anything, it's just really loud so he has to speak over people.

He walks to our locker room, which is predictably much worse than I assume Illinois' locker room is. It's kind of just to throw us all off by making us less comfortable. I don't really care because the locker rooms in high school weren't as great.

"Well, today is the first game of the season. This is how we're gonna really begin to assess where we are as a team. Where all of you are as players, as well as where I am as a coach. I'm glad I get to share this experience with all of you, and I hope that you guys are enjoying my coaching so far. I want you guys to go out there and play as hard as you can. However, this is the first game of the season, so I don't want you guys playing so hard that you get hurt. If we lose that's fine, I'm fine with that, we do need to know how we can improve for the rest of the season," Coach Nelson tells all of us. "Now, I want you all to go out there and do your best. Play your asses off, but please don't get hurt."

We run onto the field, putting all of our helmets on, getting ourselves hyped for the game. The coin toss happens, and for the first time in a long time, I'm not a team captain that gets to be out there for the coin toss. It's a couple of juniors and seniors on the team that are doing that.

We win the coin toss, and just how I wanted him to decide it, Coach Nelson puts the defense on the field first, just like Coach Payton did in high school, but the difference is that I'm not gonna be in the starting unit of players going out there.

"Good luck," I say to Devin, who is in the first unit of our defense.

"Thanks. I'll tell you how it is, or you'll see."

"You'll be fine, don't worry. There's a reason you're starting," I state and he shrugs.

"Because the other linebackers suck?"

"You know what I meant, just go out there."

He laughs at me and runs onto the field, getting into position. Coach Nelson has damn near the same defensive playbook as Coach Payton had, which is gonna make it easy to adjust because I don't want to have a hard time adjusting.

On the first play of the game, Coach Nelson gets Devin to play as an edge rusher, which means basically that he's gonna go around the offensive line and try to sack the quarterback. That's not his natural position, he is usually standing his ground in the middle of the field, keeping his eyes on shorts passes, runs, and is he wants, he can rush the quarterback up the middle.

Devin gets past the offensive line but is unable to get to their quarterback before he gets the ball out of there, picking up 5 yards. Devin made that shit look easy out there, so of course it makes sense that he's starting.

On the second play, Devin goes back to just standing in the middle of the field, but he's blocked while trying to defend against a run play. The blocker was thrown off by Devin, but Devin was too late to get to the runner. It's 3rd down for them now, with just 1 yard away from a first down.

"Peterson! Sanders! You're in!" Coach Nelson yells to me and Adrian, and we run onto the field together, setting up on the same side of the field.

Their quarterback snaps the ball, looking in our direction of the field, trying to find an open man. I'm covering my guy and Adrian is watching deep routes pretty much perfectly back there, until a guy that's running in my direction gets past me and Adrian doesn't notice. It was supposed to be some other defensive back's man, but he got away somehow.

"Adrian! He's getting open!" I yell to Adrian, who is following a different deep route.

The quarterback gets the ball to the open receiver, on our side of the field. I grit my teeth but keep playing. I can't really put that on Adrian, because he was still doing his job, it was really the other d-back's fault that there was a guy open at all.

On the next play, damn near the same route is run, but Adrian anticipates it and cuts off the route right where the quarterback threw it last time, and the quarterback has no choice but to just run the ball for 2 yards.

We're able to stop them after not giving up another yard on this specific drive, and I think we played pretty well. Other than the one mistake, we played like a solid defensive unit. That doesn't mean much when the team we're playing is Illinois, one of the worst offensive teams in the country last year, but it's still good.

I run off the field but Devin and Adrian remain on the field for special teams.

"Great job out there guys, I'm pretty happy with how you guys played on that drive. Keep that up and we'll win this game," Coach Nelson says to the defense.

Our offense gets on the field, with Cam and Aaron starting out on the field together. It makes sense that they're starting, they're the best offensive players I've ever been on the same team as, and last year UCLA's offense was awful. We basically need Cam and Aaron on the team to make the offense a little bit decent.

Cam and Aaron play alright on the first drive, but they're stopped at Illinois' 25 yard line, so we have to kick a field goal instead of getting the full 7 points which would've been better. Either way, we lead the game 3-0 right now.

The defense goes back out on the field, but Coach Nelson doesn't let me or Adrian in the game, opting to put Jax in instead of us. Jax is good, obviously, if he wasn't he wouldn't be able to get into UCLA, but me and Adrian are both much better than him.

Our defense gives up a few yard on both the first two plays of their drive, and Coach Nelson decides to finally put us into the game. On first down, the run goes for 5 yards, me and Adrian were not involved in the play at all. On second down, the quarterback throws in the direction of me and Adrian, and Adrian blows it in coverage and gives up 18 yards.

"My bad," he apologizes in the huddle before the next play.

He glances at me and I glare at him. He looks away from me and we get back in position. I need to chill, I know that, I just need to fucking chill. If Adrian blows it again, I will be pissed though. I'll be really fucking pissed.

The offense runs the ball on this play, picking up just 2 yards this time. On the next play, Devin bats down a pass that would've been a big pick up of yards. Again, his ability to do basically anything on the field on defense is impressive. He can cover receivers if he really needs to, he can tackle well, he can rush the quarterback, all of that shit.

On the next play, Adrian blows it again, this time covering the wrong guy and letting the other cornerback's guy get past him, resulting in a touchdown. I clench my jaw and glare at him, and he too looks pissed, glaring at me too.

He stays on the field for special teams shit, but when he sits back down next to me, I'm already pretty pissed. It's late into the first quarter, and he's blown multiple plays now.

"Get your fucking head in the game, Adrian," I hiss at him.

"I will, jeez."

He turns around to watch our offense play, but I know he can tell I'm glaring at the back of his head. He's shifting uncomfortably in his seat on the bench, fidgeting with his thumbs and tapping the heel of his foot on the ground uncontrollably. I turn my attention back to the game, watching as Cam and Aaron do their best to get this game back in our favor.

Kai goes into the game and the energy levels of our offense instantly go up a lot. Kai catches a few short passes but turns them into big gains, and before we know it, their inside Illinois' 10 yard line, preparing to get a touchdown on this drive. Aaron gets a handoff and punches it in for 6 points, with the extra point up and good. We now lead 10-7, with the defense about to go back onto the field. Hopefully Adrian can get his act together.

Me and Adrian get to be in on this drive, because Coach Nelson already thinks we're better then the other defensive backs somehow. I don't think we're that good, but that's just me. We are good, but I don't know what he's seen so far to put us into the game right now.

This time, we contain them to a field goal, tying the game up at 10-10. Me and Adrian didn't do anything egregious on this drive, it was all the defensive line giving up big runs and Devin having to mop up the mistakes.

The first half continues like this, with our defense playing just alright, mostly because half of us are freshmen, and our offense struggling but getting things done. We lead Illinois 23-20 at halftime. UCLA never scored 23 points in one half last season. The most they got in one half was 17, and Cam and Aaron and the rest of the offense just scored 23, despite them looking like they were struggling a bit. Obviously, since they're just freshmen, I bet people are happy with how they're playing, and I think they're doing alright. They haven't made any awful plays, but no really big plays yet.

"Guys, I'm pretty happy with how you played in the first half. I didn't think we would be scoring this much all game, but we scored it in a half. We will need to improve our defensive line, that's for sure. We're going back tomorrow morning, and we'll have practice, and I want everyone on the defensive line going straight to the weight room," Coach Nelson orders. The defensive line nods at him. I think they're just too small. They're fast, but they get blocked so easily and then Devin has to make up for their lack of strength.

Our offense gets back on the field first following halftime and they score another field goal, extending our lead to 26-20, which is an alright lead, but it is by no means comfortable. It's up to the defense at this point to really try to hold this down.

Me and Adrian don't start the second half, but after two bad plays by the cornerback-safety pair that's starting, we are put back into the game. On the first play that we're in the game, they run the ball yet again, resulting in a 4 yard gain. A lot of these run plays would be completely eliminated if our defensive line was bigger.

On the next play, the quarterback targets a receiver in me and Adrian's side of the field, but it's way out of the way and a terrible pass, resulting in an incompletion. Devin rushed the quarterback, forcing him to throw earlier, so it was a bad pass.

On the next play, Devin shuts down another run, forcing them to punt the ball off to our offense. It was a bad drive for our defense until me and Adrian went onto the field basically. I'm happy with how we just played, even though there was only one play that we had responsibility of and it was never gonna work anyways.

Cam and Aaron are unable to get something done on offense on the next drive due to the amount of guys going straight for Cam instead of defending the air. Me, Jax, and Adrian are put back onto the field as the third quarter comes to a close.

On their first play, I rush the quarterback, leaving Adrian alone on his side of the field, but it doesn't matter because it's a run play, which results in literally nothing. Extra rushers usually deny a decent chance at ground yards.

The game kind of continues like this, with us giving up another touchdown on a run play, giving them the lead as well as them converting a two point conversion. The offense gets the lead back with another touchdown, making it a 34-28 game with just under 2 minutes remaining. Why are season openers always the most stressful games? Me and Adrian had to save the team's ass in the opener last season, we might have to do the same in this game.

Just like Coach Nelson said he would, he puts me and Adrian into the game to close out the game. Their quarterback has figured out that targeting our side of the field only works sometimes, so he targets the other side of the field, where Jax should be, but he's on the bench right now.

They're able to drive down the field, getting to the 15 yard line with 20 seconds left. This is a difficult choice for them. They could pass or run, but they have to get a touchdown to win this game, or at least tie it depending on the extra point.

The quarterback snaps the ball, looking around on the other side of the field, but Jax is back in so he has that side of the field locked down. He turns his attention to me and Adrian's side, and I notice two receivers going on crossing routes, Adrian following one onto the other side of the field while the other gets past him.

"Adrian!" I yell to him, pointing at the guy that's getting past him.

"SHIT!" he yells back, seeing him get open.

The quarterback notices this and throws the ball to the open man, resulting in a touchdown with under 10 seconds remaining.

"Fuck!" I yell, taking my helmet off and throwing it at the ground.

"Sorry, Derek," Adrian says softly.

"Sorry!? Is sorry gonna get those 6 points back?" I ask, extremely frustrated.

"Jesus, it was a mistake," Adrian replies, taking his helmet off as well.

I glare at him and he backs away, matching my glare as well as we walk off the field. I look away and he does as well, ignoring me as we sit down on the bench.

I'm not really mad that he knows I'm gay anymore, I'm just pissed about how he played. I know people make mistakes, but he made multiple big mistakes and he should be more warmed up than any of us because he went to the football camp over the summer.

I just hope he can pick it up for the rest of the year.

A/N: Here's where I'm gonna try to get the whole enemies to lovers shit started. I love these characters so it's actually kind of hard to get them to hate each other. They were so nice to each other in the first book, and suddenly they dislike each other, they're mad at each other, it's kind of gonna be tough to write something like that. I'll get through it though, and I have a whole plot set up for the next 12 chapters. Thanks for reading!!!

Okay, let me add to this. Teammates will get heated at each other like this all the time, even teammates that don't hate each other. It's the heat of a game, you just cost them the game, it happens sometimes. Teammates get pissed at each other all the time, this is a part of life, it just happens to be these two.