Chapter 16

Adrian's POV

"So, we should go back to the dorms and we can go and pick up some pizza together, okay?" Derek asks and I nod at him.

"Yeah. Are we gonna eat at the pizza place or somewhere else?"

"Either way is fine with me."

"Okay. We can decide when we get back to the dorms."

"Cool. See you there," Derek says, getting into his car.

I get back in my car and follow Derek back to the dorm building. I'm glad we're alright now. I've never seen that side of Derek before when he was trying to console me. He did a really good job of calming me down. I think after that, we might become even closer than we were before I walked in on him. It might still be awkward though, because I saw him naked.

I park at the dorm building, and Derek is standing outside, scrolling through something on his phone. He looks up to see me and smiles. He didn't really look up to see me because I'm so much shorter than him, but he looked a little bit up from his phone.

"So, do you wanna eat at the restaurant or here or somewhere else?" he asks.

"We can eat here. Can we stop at the gas station on the way back here, I want a drink."

"Yeah, of course. Should we take my car or your car?"

"We can take my car. I'm more used to driving you anyways."

"Yeah, true. Alright, let's go," he says, and we leave.

When he was hugging me in the locker room, I can't believe I didn't even notice what he's wearing. He's in a black wifebeater and shorts. It will not be difficult to start being deathly attracted to this man again. He's ripped. I don't know how he would be allowed to go places in this outfit, you can clearly see his pecs and they are huge.

"So, when we get back, if you're comfortable with it, do you want to tell me about what happened at the camp?" he asks.

"Yeah, sure. I need to vent about it to someone, and you sound like you actually want to know what happened, so I'll tell you about it. Thanks for helping me back there by the way."

"Don't even mention it. I'm sorry for treating you so horribly. I have no excuse for that. You're an amazing person and I should've trusts you right off the bat. Maybe if I trusted you and I told you that I trusted you, you wouldn't have gone to the camp and you wouldn't have to go through this stuff. I feel kind of guilty for this."

"Don't blame yourself for that. I probably still would've gone because it would still be awkward between the two of us. I saw you having sex, that's not really something that builds friendships," I state and he nods.

"Yeah, that's true."

"I still should've gone though, looking back at it I think being a little awkward sounds better than inheriting anxiety and panic attacks every couple of weeks."

"Yeah. But you definitely bulked, there's no doubt about that," he states and I swear to got I'm probably blushing like crazy right now.

"Thanks. By the way, I thought I needed to bulk up, but the other kids there were half my size. They needed way more work than me."

He laughs. "And you said they're at D1 schools?"

"Yeah, a lot of them are going to D1 schools, it's hilarious. Half of them aren't even close to good enough to play D1 anyways," I tell him and he laughs again. His laugh is so infectious.

"What schools did you say they're going to? Colorado and another school, right?"

"Yeah. Florida State is where the other one is going. That's the guy I'm actually worried about. His friend on Colorado said that the Florida State one would get his linemen teammates to beat me up."

"I can beat them up."

"Derek, I already told you not to do that. I'll be alright. Besides, they're linemen, and yeah, you're ripped for a cornerback, but you're still a cornerback," I tell him and he shrugs.

"Yeah, but it's not about the muscle you have. It's about the psychological power you have over them. And confidence. I have the confidence to take them all in a fight at once and win."

I look at him like he's joking and he smiles back at me.

"I'm not kidding, Adrian, I have the mental power to break them all down before I even start throwing hands," he states.

"Alright," I say, smiling at the road ahead of me, still not convinced.

"Adrian, I'm serious. I can beat them all in a fight with just my aura."

"I actually kind of agree with that."

"Thank you. We can agree I have aura that cannot be surpassed," he claims.

"No, I think I surpassed that a little while ago," I say, trying to get a rise out of him.

"When?"

"In the playoffs last year, when I got so many interceptions."

"You got a lot of aura from that, but I still think I have more. Do you see the kind of aura I have from this fit alone?" he points at his clothes and it takes all my mental power not to just stare at him.

"What, you mean the tank top and the booty shorts?"

"These aren't booty shorts, Adrian. You know that, you're wearing damn near the same shorts as me right now bro."

"Yeah, but I'm wearing an actual shirt so I don't look like I'm trying to draw attention," I state.

He laughs again. His laugh, like I already said, is so beautiful. He knows every way to make me go crazy without purposely doing it. I don't even know if he has any idea how head over heels attracted to him I was in high school.

"Hey, maybe it's just hot outside and I don't want to overheat," he suggests and I shake my head.

"Maybe. Is this the place?" I ask.

"Yeah, this is the place. I already placed an order. You good with sausage, olives, and mushrooms?"

"Yeah, that sounds great. How many did you order?"

"Two."

"What size?"

"Large."

"Ah, so we can have cold leftovers tomorrow. Good thinking," I say.

"I'm food smart," he claims.

I laugh again. "So, we can stop at a store or a gas station on the way back?"

"Yeah, of course. I mean, you're the one driving, so we kind of have no choice if you want to go. I can't really argue against us going to a gas station for like 5 minutes."

"Cool."

"I'll go grab the pizzas."

He gets out of the car and walks to inside the pizza place. The fact that we were able to talk like that so easily is a good sign. We're comfortable around each other now. We've both seen each other in pretty vulnerable states, him butt naked and me having a panic attack. At this point, if he really wants to be my sounding board, I should hang out with him as much as I can. He's someone I want to have as a friend.

He returns to my car, holding two giant pizzas. He sighs hard as he sits down next to me and I look at him weird before breaking out into laughter.

"Is it good that you're laughing?" he asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. You just looked so dumb getting into the car."

He grins at me. "I have two giant pizzas in my hands, how else am I supposed to get in the car?"

"I don't know. Gracefully?"

"Shut up," he says jokingly. "Let's go to the gas station."

"Great."

Me and Derek continue to talk all the way until we get to the gas station. I want pink lemonade so bad. Not only do I want one, but I also feel like I deserve one. I got my first college interception today, I deserve some kind of reward for that.

I park in the parking lot of the gas station and me and Derek both get out.

"You don't have to get out if you don't want to," I tell him.

"It's fine. I might want a drink too."

"Alright."

I go to exactly where I remember the pink lemonades are, and grab one. Derek grabs a Vitamin Water. I don't drink those. Not because I've had them and I know they're bad, but just because I've never had one before.

"You like pink lemonade?" he asks and I nod.

"Yeah. Is there a problem with that?"

"No, it's just. I don't know, stereotypical," he grins at me and I shake my head at him.

"I don't care if it's stereotypical, it tastes good and I am willing to lose my masculinity for something that tastes this good."

"I was just playing. It's not that zesty, people just blow it out of proportions."

"Yeah."

Out of nowhere, while we're waiting in line to pay for our stuff, Derek grabs the pink lemonade out of my hands.

"Hey!" I say, frowning.

"Don't worry, I'm just gonna pay for it, I'm not stealing it," he says.

"Oh. Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

He pays for my drink and we get back in my car with me. Catching feelings for Derek again is gonna take so little time. He's so cute and the way we're talking right now makes him look like boyfriend material. Top tier boyfriend material.

We return to the dorm building and park, getting out of the car.

"Do you want me to grab one of those pizzas?" I ask.

"No, I got them."

"Alright."

"Who's room should we eat in?" he asks.

"I don't know. I think Devin is out right now with Alicia. If he was there, he would be eating our pizza and I don't want that. We can go to my room."

"Alright, cool."

We walk inside, dapping a couple teammates up as we make our way to my room. We both played exceptionally well tonight. Our no fly zone is looking just as good as it was near the end of last season, and that's saying a lot because we're defending college students now, not just random high school students.

"So, me and Devin bought plates so we could eat in here whenever we want. They're just paper plates, but it's still good enough," I tell Derek and he nods.

"Alright. That's good enough. As long as it gets the job done."

"Yeah, a plate is a plate."

"For real."

I grab a couple plates, handing one to Derek before sitting down on the couch next to him. The couch in me and Devin's room is super comfortable, I can't lie. It's super cushiony. I don't love looking at the wall across from the couch, but it's alright. It's a dorm room, we're lucky that we're athletes and get a better dorm room to start.

"So, do you want to tell me everything that happened? If you're comfortable with sharing it," Derek asks me and I nod.

"Yeah. I do want to tell you about it. So, basically, I got there, the first week, and I didn't realize how well known I am. People know who I am. It's kind of crazy. And it's mostly because I'm a gay football player. Anyways, they recognized me pretty quickly. They started off by calling me a fairy, which hurts, but isn't that bad. I can deal with that," I state.

"Someone called you a fairy in the semifinals last year, right?"

"Yeah. That was more annoying and not really as hurtful as the other slurs, which they started calling me by the second week. That's when I started getting anxiety attacks and panic attacks. That's when they realized they could give me anxiety and panic attacks. They started getting way more aggressive with their slur calling."

"Wait, where were these degenerates from?" he asks.

"The South."

"Oh. I'm not surprised about that."

I laugh a little. "Yeah, same. I'm not surprised either. Anyways, by the third week, they tried to fight me, I stood on business, and then they got some linemen and linebackers to beat me up."

Derek looks at me in the eyes with concern and then puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close to him. His touch is nice, but it's kind of burning. I don't know what it is, but I don't want him to stop consoling me.

"You don't deserve any of that, okay?" Derek looks down, meeting my eyes. "You don't deserve to be hit by people. I still feel terrible for being such a dick to you. You didn't deserve what I did to you either."

"That wasn't that bad, Derek," I smile back at him. "You didn't say anything that made me think you hated me, other than a little bit of kind of aggressive criticism for my performance in week 1, but other than that, you just glared at me a few times. So what? I can get over that in 5 seconds. You never called me a slur, you never said you hated me for knowing your secret, none of the shit they did to me at the camp. Compared to them, you did basically nothing. Stop feeling bad about that, because I forgive you."

"Thanks. Even if I did call you a homophobic slur, I would just be a hypocrite," he laughs. "But still, I feel bad."

"Just don't feel bad about it. I'm just glad we're good now."

"Yeah."

"Alright, I'll keep telling you everything that happened. Yeah, so these huge fuckers were hitting me, kicking me, not super hard, but enough to give me bruises on my body. Sometimes I would have a black eye, an-" I start, but he cuts me off.

"You had a black eye?" he asks. "And you think they didn't hit you hard?"

"Well, yeah, I can take a few hits. I'm strong, Derek," I state.

"Yeah. If you dealt with all that shit, you're stronger than me."

"Thanks. I don't know if I really dealt with it, I just got through it barely."

"My point stands. I would've tried to fight them," Derek tells me.

"I did kind of fight them on the last day of the camp. They told me to meet them outside, there were 4 of them, all of them way smaller than me, and I barely did anything and they were on the ground and denying that they were gay."

Derek laughs. "What did you say that made them have to deny being gay?"

"They were acting gay. I wouldn't have said anything about it if they weren't defending each other in really gay ways. They were saying shit like 'anything for you' so I had no choice but to use their own shaming technique on them. It was hilarious."

"That's funny. So, you're doing at least a little bit better than you were while you were at the camp, right?" he asks and I nod.

"Yeah. Definitely. I have been better, obviously the end of the season last year was the best stretch of my life in terms of my mental health, but I'm doing much better than I was a couple months ago. Mostly because I'm around friends and I'm not around them."

"I'm glad you're doing well. So, DeShaun and Aaron keep talking about you and Julian. Is that something?" he asks, grinning.

"No, it's not anything right now. We're just friends right now. Except he told me he likes me. In that way."

"Oh. Do you-do you like him back?" Derek asks.

"Right now, not really. I'm gonna spend time with him tomorrow and see if something about him really makes me want to be with him, but right now I have little to no feelings for him."

"Oh, okay."

Out of nowhere, Devin unlocks the door and Alicia follows behind him. He's carrying a fucking TV. The two of them couldn't handle that there's no TV in here that they can just watch all day while sitting on their ass.

"What the hell?" I ask. "Where'd you get that TV?"

"My room at home. My parents let me take it because we're sick of watching shit on a computer. The screen is way too small," Devin answers.

I look at Derek and he's holding back laughter. I smile at him as well before turning back to Devin and Alicia, who are setting the TV up on the empty wall.

"Is this allowed?" I ask.

"I don't know. No one stopped us when we were carrying the TV into the building, so I think it's fine," Devin replies.

"Aight."

"I think I'm gonna go back to my room, Adrian. Do you want me to take the pizza to my room? I have a fridge in there, we can have this as leftovers some other time," Derek says.

"Yeah, for sure. Maybe tomorrow for dinner or something," I suggest.

"Yeah, definitely. I'll see you tomorrow, Adrian."

"I'll walk with you back to your room," I tell him and he nods.

"Cool."

We leave me and Devin's room, leaving Alicia and Devin alone to deal with setting up the TV. I don't know how to set it up. I barely know where the outlets are in the room other than next to the beds. I haven't used outlets anywhere else in the room.

"So, I'll be hanging out with Julian basically all morning, but we can hang out in the afternoon if you want to," I say.

"Yeah, I would love to. You're cool. You're fun to talk to," he says, smiling down at me.

"Thanks. So are you. You're fun when you're not glaring at me," I laugh.

"Thanks. Here's my room," he states, pointing at a door.

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow," I say.

Derek doesn't say anything, instead pulling me in for another hug. I wrap my arms around him too, hugging him back.

"I'm still so sorry, Adrian," he says quietly.

"It's okay, Derek, don't worry. We're friends now, okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow," he smiles at me again. "Shit, I might actually have to go to the store to get some protein bars, I eat those so fast. I'll see you later, Adrian."

"Okay, bye," I dap him up before he walks towards the exit of the building.

I haven't caught crazy amounts of feelings for Derek yet, but I can feel it coming. In the last 2 hours, he's been so fucking sweet to me and I can't comprehend the multiple character changes I've seen in him in the last year.

He was a complete goofball last year. He was kind of really similar to Kai and Jax in that respect, because they were all goofing off all the time. After I walked in on him, I didn't see him for a long time, but when I did first see him, he seemed tense and really grumpy all the time. Now, in the last 2 hours, he's become so fucking sweet. He actively wants to spend time with me now, that's crazy.

I'll be hanging out with him a lot tomorrow after lunch with Julian, and we can do whatever we want. I really appreciate how sweet he was being tonight. Like I said, I've never seen that side of him in my life, and I really like that side of him.

I walk back into me and Devin's room, where he and Alicia are still trying to figure out how to set up the TV. If they're able to set it up, that would be awesome. Now we don't have to use computers to watch things, even if it still does work fine.

"Ali, have you found an outlet anywhere?" Devin asks Alicia.

"No. I can't find one anywhere."

"Fuck. We need extension cords I think," Devin states.

"We can go get them, that's fine."

"Yeah. Adrian, you wanna come with us?"

"Oh, I don't really want to be a third wheel," I tell them.

"Don't worry, we spend all our free time with each other, you wouldn't be intruding on anything. Just come with us," Alicia says, smiling at me.

"Alright, I'll go."

"Great. Do you know where the closest store that sells shit like that is?" Alicia asks me and Devin.

"There's a Target not too far from here, that's probably the best place to get an extension cord," Devin tells her.

"Alright, let's go. If there's anything else we might need, this is a good opportunity to get that stuff," Alicia states.

The three of us get into Devin's car and go to Target. Alicia and Devin along with Cam and Aaron are the most healthy couples I've ever seen in my life. They spend a lot of time with each other and never seem to get sick of that. They love each other so much, they're basically married already. That's what I want at some point in my life.

Once we get to Target, we get out and start walking around the store, looking for extension cords. I really don't know where the fuck they would be, and neither do Alicia and Devin, so we're just looking but not super hard.

"Adrian? What are you doing here?" someone behind me asks.

I turn around and it's Derek, smiling at me, his basket full of protein bars, exactly what he told me he would go to the store for.

"These two convinced me to come with them just to get an extension cord so we can plug in the new TV," I tell him, pointing at Devin and Alicia.

"Oh, well, I saw electronics and shit like that back over here," he says.

I follow him towards where he saw the electronics and sure enough, the extension cords are right where he said they would be. Maybe we should get a whole power strip, then we could plug in a gaming console. We would have an amazing setup.

"Is this what you wanted?" Derek asks and I nod.

"Yeah. Wait, where the hell are Devin and Alicia?" I ask.

"Probably in their own world."

"So, they're just being their normal selves?"

Derek laughs. I pick out the best power strip. It has 12 outlets and 4 USB ports, it's literally perfect. We don't even need to plug shit into the normal outlets anymore, we can just use this from now on.

"Well, well, well, look who it is," I hear.

I look up and it's Bob, cracking his knuckles and looking at me like he wants to fucking kill me. We beat his team by 35, I can't believe he isn't still getting lectured by his coach. That's an unbelievably embarrassing outcome.

He has multiple teammates with him, but I really don't care that much. I kind of just want to go back to the dorms and rest.

"Who the hell is that?" Derek asks me.

"One of the idiots from the football camp. Just ignore him," I tell Derek.

"I can't just ignore him, he's being an asshole to you."

"Please, don't do anything, Derek, I don't want you to get in trouble."

"I can't just let him bother you."

Before I have the chance to say something else to Derek, he spins around and faces Bob, who immediately backs up. Derek is intimidating. He's 6'4, and like I've said before, he has the body of a Greek God.

"Back the fuck up asshole," he says, his voice deep.

Bob immediately complies, backing up while holding his hands in the air.

"I'm sorry, man. I don't want any issues," Bob claims.

"Get out. Now."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Bob says, turning around and speedwalking his way away from us.

"Thanks," I say to Derek.

"No problem. Like I said, I just beat that guy with 10% of my mental powers. 100% of my mental powers can send someone as weak as him to an insane clinic."

"You should've done that. That's where he belongs," I state and Derek nods.

"Yeah. Anyways, we should find Devin and Alicia and let them know we found the cord, and we're basically done here."

"Yeah. I have no fucking clue where they could be."

"You can come back with me, that would be fine," Derek tells me.

"Alright. Let me just call Devin and let him know I have the cord."

"Cool."

I grab my phone, scrolling through my contacts until I reach basically the bottom of the list, calling Devin. It rings a couple times before Devin picks up.

"What's up, Adrian?" Devin asks.

"I have the extension cord. Actually we got a whole power strip, so we can go."

"Oh, ok. Just wait a little for me and Alicia, we're getting some new clothes."

"Derek is here too, he said he can drive me back, is it okay if you go back by yourselves?" I ask.

"Yeah, that's fine ju-babe, that's way too small for me to wear-sorry. Just leave the power strip on the table, me and Alicia can deal with it tomorrow."

"Alright. See you later," I say, hanging up on Devin.

"So, we can just go now?" Derek asks and I nod.

"Yeah. Let's go."

Me and Derek go back to his car, and he drives the two of us back to the dorms. I dap him up again before going into my room, where I end up falling asleep extremely quickly.

My mood still isn't great, but I feel like spending more and more time with Derek is gonna be one of the only things that can improve it.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Basically, Derek and Adrian are back where they are in terms of their friendship as they were near the end of the last book. There will be a few more major events that happen before anything actually goes down (between them) but I will enjoy writing it. I already love writing dialogue between the two of them and I feel like it's way more natural than Aaron and Cam in the beginning of the last book. Thanks for reading!!!