Chapter 2

Derek's POV

What's up everyone?

I'm Derek if you didn't know, I play cornerback and will most likely start for UCLA this season. I'm excited as hell to be honest, I'm going D1 and to a power 5 conference school at that. This is big for me, I'm kind of achieving my dreams now.

I'm stressed about some things though.

One of those things is Adrian Sanders.

He is a good friend of mine, but he walked in on me fucking a random blonde guy. By the way, that kid that I fucked thanked me for the sex and left. I didn't say a word to him, and I haven't seen him since. That's one way to lose my virginity.

In a sense, I'm relieved to not have seen him again. That whole thing was a massive mistake on my part. I never should've led him on and brought him to the locker rooms. He said I was super attractive. He was cute I guess, but my emotions were completely taking control of me. I was so broken by the fact that Cameron does, in fact, like dudes.

I was crushing over him for years and thought for sure that he was straight and that I didn't have a chance with him, but the minute we win the state championship, he kisses Aaron.

His boyfriend.

My best friend is my crush's boyfriend. I'm happy for them, but I can't tell myself that I'm not jealous. I wish I was in Aaron's shoes. Cam is so fucking amazing. He's the most attractive person I've ever seen. I guess it shouldn't be that weird that the two of them ended up together. Aaron is also one of the most attractive people I've ever seen, so it works for two cuties to be together.

I was just so frustrated, and when I saw that blonde guy, all I could see was Cameron, and shit went down from there. Adrian walked in while I was fucking this guy, all the way, like no coming back from this type shit.

I should've assumed that someone would catch us, the blonde guy was screaming at the top of his lungs while I was fucking him. I know I'm big, but I didn't realize I was that big. Either that or he was exaggerating.

It doesn't matter. Adrian knows I'm gay. Apparently he already knew that because I told him that I'm gay when I was drunk at one of Jax's parties, but I didn't remember that. He brought it up and I denied it. These allegations are not going to be escaped though. He knows 100% now that I like dudes, there's nothing that will change his mind.

I don't know what I'll do now. I might have to just scare him or something, you know, turn on my intimidating side and turn my nice goofy side off. It won't be that tough, I do that in games, now I just have to do it all the time. That also means being cold to people.

I don't enjoy being mean to people. People are chill. I like people. I like Adrian too, but the prospect of him possibly outing me is a little bit scary. My mom would go fucking crazy on me. I know I'm in college, but my mom could and would still find a way to ruin my life. She'd talk to the coach, tell him to kick me off the team, and make me go back there to put me in some Christian school.

I love God and everything, but God don't know you. My mom looks like a number one fan, and God don't think about her one minute of the day. I doubt he cares that much about gay people either, we haven't done anything that completely screws with his operations, whatever they may be.

Anyways, I'm currently sitting on a couch with DeShaun, Jax, and Kai while Devin is probably upstairs facetiming Alicia and Cam and Aaron are out doing whatever. The two of them, according to the stories that everyone else insisted they tell, were already in a sexual relationship before they started dating. They said they'd been in a relationship like that since August of last year. That's a really long time.

They said they fucked the first time after our first game when Aaron had a terrible game. I was sure that they were gonna fight each other, but they had sex. I never would've seen that coming. After that, they had been doing shit on the regular.

The worst thing about the whole Aaron and Cam dating thing is that they are truly a really cute couple. They are so in love, and it's so obvious how in love they are. I've honestly never seen a happier couple. Lord knows that's not what happens in my house. My mother just bitches around about my dad all day long.

I think my dad might have a nice home life with his wife, but I don't visit them very often. My mom doesn't want me around him because he doesn't go to church often.

"What should we watch?" DeShaun asks.

"I don't know. Maybe we should watch all three Rush Hour movies in a row!" Kai suggests. I love those movies. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are hilarious together.

"Aight," Jax says, getting comfortable on the couch next to his best friend.

Kai and Jax have always confused me. They're both extremely attractive, anyone with eyes can see that. I don't really know what's up with them though. They've been best friends for years, but they're super affectionate sometimes. They share a brain basically. I might be reading too deep into this, but I feel like there's more to their relationship than they're showing.

DeShaun turns on Rush Hour, and all of us laugh for a while, just enjoying the moment. Again, they're great movies.

Somehow, I fall asleep on the couch and wake up in the middle of the third movie.

"Did I miss the whole second movie?" I ask.

"Yeah, you did," Kai answers. "So did Jax." He points to his best friend, who's eyes are closed and his head is leaning against Kai's shoulder. "He missed most of the first movie."

I force a weak smile at him and turn back to the movie. Apparently Adrian went to a football camp for the last couple months to improve his game. I don't think he needs that improvement, but good for him for going out and getting shit done.

I have a feeling that he only chose to go there because he wanted to avoid me. I'm glad he did though, not because I don't like being around him, but because it would just be the most awkward thing ever to be around him after what he saw. He saw me butt naked in the locker room fully inside another man. That's not something that is going to improve friendships.

Once the movie is done, I go upstairs to my room. At least now me, Adrian, DeShaun, and Devin don't have to share a room. Aaron and Cam share a room, which is right next to mine, and Kai and Jax share their own room as well.

I will be having Vietnam War PTSD from having a room next to Aaron and Cam's room. I never have had the desire to hear my best friend's moans. Not a single time have I ever wanted to hear that. He's hot and all, and the sounds are fucking erotic as hell, but he's my best friend. He's practically my brother. And it doesn't help to know that I would probably be making those sounds with Cam too. He's tall, he probably has a python in his pants.

Again, Cam and Aaron are undoubtedly a perfect couple. I could try to convince myself that I would be better for Cam than Aaron is for him, but I know that isn't true. Aaron showers Cam with love all the time, Cam showers Aaron with love all the time, it's all cute and shit, whatever.

I have a feeling-no-I know that I will be rude to people. That's not me though, like I said, I like people. People like me when I'm being nice, but just to try to create an image of myself being a straight guy that's also an asshole. I can't deny anything to Adrian, there's literally nothing I can do anymore to try to convince him that I'm not gay, and now the best I can do is be a dick and intimidate him into not outing me.

It's a dumb plan because I really do like Adrian and I don't want to have to be rude to such an amazing person, but I feel like this is all I can do.

"Derek," someone calls from outside the door.

"Yeah?" I groan in the direction of the door.

"We're going to the mall, you down to come with us?" he asks. I think it's Kai, but I can't really tell. If it turns out that Kai is gay, I would totally pursue him. He's hot as hell, I can't even lie. He's tall, lean, lightskin, everything perfect.

"Aight, I'll go with you guys," I drag myself out of bed and leave the room. "Why are we going today?"

"I don't know. It's kind of been a boring day, I thought it would be nice to just go out and do something, you know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah. I don't really got money though, could you buy me something?" I ask him.

He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and flips through about 2 thousand dollars worth of hundred dollar bills and hands me one. I look at it with my eyes wide. No one has ever straight up given me a hundred dollars on the spot. I don't know if I even want to spend this, I might just save this honestly.

"That should be enough, right? Depending on what you buy," Kai says and I nod.

"Yeah, this is plenty. Thanks."

"No problem. I have like, no max on my credit card as far as I know."

"Wow. Do you have a job?" I ask him and he nods.

"I work at Macy's."

"How much do you make?"

"Not much, but my parents give me a lot of money. I haven't said anything about being more independent, and they haven't said anything about it either, so hopefully they'll just keep letting me do whatever. They're spoiling me, but I at least kind of know how to act in public," he claims. I don't know if that's true. At least he doesn't act like a typical stuck up bitch. He wasn't raised like that I guess.

"That's nice," I reply. My mom would never give me extra money unless I got a girlfriend that she approves of. I'm not gonna try to date a girl again, that was fucking atrocious and my mom hated her anyways, so I couldn't get any extra money.

"Yeah. So just 100 dollars is not that much, and you're my friend, so it's no problem."

"Thanks bro. I appreciate it." I really do, and I'm liking having close friends that are rich and don't mind giving hand outs to people.

We get in the same sprinter van that we used in the fall of last year, which is kind of cool. I have no clue how we got the exact same van, because DeShaun's earbuds are still in one of the cupholders in the second row.

I have no idea where Cam and Aaron are at right now. They've been off doing their own shit half the time during this trip. When we actually do things that everyone should be a part of, they do get involved, but they're always doing their thing. They're kind of couple goals for me, honestly. Especially Aaron. I wish I could be in his position for 5 minutes.

I think Devin is probably still staying in his room as well, facetiming Alicia. They're a great couple as well, and I'm not jealous of what they have because they're a straight couple and I have literally no desire to be in one of those. I just like men. Big, hot men.

So, without the three of them, and with Adrian texting us earlier about coming over tomorrow, it's just me, DeShaun, Kai, and Jax. I like to think of the four of us as the most funny part of the friend group, but everyone is funny.

We get to the mall and immediately realize that we have no idea why we came here. We have literally no intentions here, we didn't have anything planned out for being here, but we just came anyways. This is how chaotic this friend group is. I feel like if Devin came with us, we would've had some ideas for what we were going to do, but here we are. Adrian would probably have some kind of plan as well.

"So, uh, what should we do?" DeShaun asks, looking around the mall.

"There's a movie theater over there," Jax points out.

"We watched so many movies during this trip, and now you want to go and watch a movie in public?" Kai complains. I kind of agree with him on this one. Streaming services are much better places to watch movies than actual theaters.

"He's right," I back him up.

"I know, I was just throwing ideas out there," Jax says.

"Maybe don't," Kai says.

"Shut up."

We walk around the mall, finding a clothing store. As a gay man, I am, by default, given a pretty high level of swag. I know tough fits, such as the button up shirt with the last two buttons open and some kind of chain on, with the sleeves rolled up most of the way up my forearm. I take pride in my swag levels, and I believe that if I make it to the NFL, I will be the drippiest player in the entire league.

"Does this look good on me?" Jax asks, holding a women's shirt over him.

"Yeah. You should buy that for yourself," I answer.

"Damn you a bitch for real. This is a women's shirt!" he says.

"Sorry."

"It's fine. There's a men's version over here."

"Cool. But the color does look good on you though."

I find some nice shirts but don't really want to waste the $100 that Kai gave me, so I just settle with one $60 sweatshirt with a pretty cool UCLA design on the front. I know damn well I'll look good in it. I'm tall and ripped, I can look good in a lot of things.

"Aight, let's go," says DeShaun, walking to the checkout with a pair of tight jeans. I don't know what told him that he would look good in tight jeans, because he has crazy ass quads, it's just gonna make them sore. If there's any fit that I can't look good in, it would be skinny jeans. I would look like my sexuality. My dick print would be really obvious and there would be no way to hide it either.

"Aight," I pay for my shit and leave the store.

"Where should we go now?" Jax asks.

"I don't know bro, let's just keep walking around," Kai answers.

"Aight."

We continue to aimlessly walk around the mall. I've done this countless times. Just look like a complete fucking zombie in the mall, turning my phone on when I see an attractive guy my age walk past me. My go to is Spotify, that's the app I go to when I don't want to accidently look into someone's eyes.

"Should we get food?" DeShaun asks.

"Sure," Kai answers. "I'm kind of craving Sbarro."

"Are you serious?" Jax asks. "That's horrible!"

"Lower your tone around me, peasant. You have no aura to be talking to me like that," Kai answers. I can't even tell if he's joking or not.

"I have more bad bitches than you," Jax claims. I don't know about that, Kai is probably just not looking for anything right now, I can't assume that Kai doesn't have the same kind of game as Jax. Kai probably has more game than Jax when he tries.

"Oh yeah? Who are you talking about? Who's this bad bitch that I've never heard about?" Kai asks.

"Uh, her name is, uh, Margaret."

"Does this 'Margaret' have a last name?"

"Yeah. It's uh, Gregory," Jax says, obviously lying.

"You're lying, Jax. I know I pull more than you," Kai says.

"Shut up. We're not getting Sbarro. Why would you want Sbarro when there's literally a Panda Express here? There's a Chick-Fil-A here! And you want bad mall pizza?"

"Yeah. I kind of feel like it today. I've been craving it for a while, now just seems like the best time," Kai states.

"Stop arguing. You aren't attached at the hip, just get whatever you want," DeShaun orders.

"Fine," both of them say.

I get Chick-Fil-A, Jax gets Panda Express, DeShaun gets Panda Express as well, and Kai gets Sbarro just like he said he would. I don't really have strong opinions on Sbarro. I've never had it before, so I don't really know what to think of it. I have to assume that it's not that good. It's just pizza that's been sitting out for a while, I can't imagine it's any good. Chick-Fil-A is really good, and it's pretty quick. I like McDonald's alright, but not that much. Panda Express is really good, but I didn't feel like it today.

"Aight, should we leave?" DeShaun asks. I just realized I've been damn near silent this entire trip to the mall. This is good training for how I'm gonna act for the rest of the year so people don't start getting suspicious. I need to make sure that if Adrian says anything to anyone then I'm gonna be too straight seeming to be gay.

"Yeah," I answer, muttering my first word in like 5 hours.

"Cool."

We head to the sprinter van and get in, and immediately Kai and Jax start blasting music. I love music just as much as the next guy, but blasting music so hard that the car is shaking from the bass is a little over the top.

"WAKE UP!!!! IT'S THE FIRST OF THE MONTH!!!!" Kai and Jax scream at the top of their lungs at the same time as Playboi Carti says it. I love Playboi Carti just as much as the next guy, but the glazing he gets is crazy.

"TURN THAT DOWN I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING!!!" DeShaun tries to yell over the ear shattering music.

"WHAT!?" Jax replies.

"TURN THAT DOWN!!!"

"HUH?"

DeShaun proceeds to unbuckle himself and crawl over to the center console and turn the music down. Thank God he did because my ears were about to bleed. Not because the song is bad, but because it's just playing way too loud.

"Why'd you do that?" Kai asks DeShaun.

"It was way too fucking loud. Is that how you normally listen to music?"

"Yeah. Of course. So you can hear every single element of the song, it's just better that way, you know what I mean?"

"No. I don't. Just don't play your music that loud, you're gonna get hearing loss," DeShaun states.

"No we won't."

"You honestly might," I tell him.

"Stop ganging up on us," Jax orders.

"It's a 2v2, we aren't ganging up on you. At the most, we're just making an alliance," DeShaun says.

"Whatever. Just shut up."

We get back to the house and Devin is sitting on the couch alone, watching sports on the TV. It's the offseason for every fun sport, so the only thing he can watch is reruns of old NFL games or old NBA games. It's alright, but there's no way I would watch that instead of newer games. Mostly because you can find the outcome of an old game, but a live game is a mystery.

"What's up," I greet Devin and sit down next to him.

"Nothing much."

"Aight."

One thing about Devin is that he doesn't really drag conversations on for too long. He just says what he needs to say in a conversation and that's it. He doesn't add any unnecessary details, he just says the basic gist of something.

"Guys! When Adrian gets here, we should go surfing!!" Jax suggests, yelling from the kitchen. I don't know if I should be excited for that.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. We all want to see Kai scream about a dolphin," DeShaun says.

"I know the difference between a dolphin and a shark, I'm not a 5 year old," Kai responds.

"Do you? Here, let's test that. I'll pull up some pictures and you have to tell me if it's a dolphin or a shark. I'm almost sure you won't know the difference," DeShaun states.

"Let me see," I get up and walk over to DeShaun.

DeShaun pulls up the first picture and shows it to Kai. I can tell right off the bat that it's a dolphin, but I don't know how smart or dumb Kai is. The fin is more round or something, I think that's a giveaway for it being a dolphin.

"That's a dolphin," Kai says.

"Wow!!! Good job!!!" DeShaun says condescendingly.

DeShaun pulls up the next picture, and it's a dolphin again. This one is tougher, but it's still relatively obviously a dolphin.

"That's a dolphin."

"Yeah."

"See, I can tell the difference dumbass," Kai says.

"You're right, you're right, just a couple more," DeShaun says, pulling up the third picture, this one of a shark.

"That's a dolphin."

"STUPID IDIOT!!" DeShaun laughs in Kai's face. "THAT'S A FUCKING SHARK!!! YOU'RE GONNA CRY WHEN YOU SEE ANYTHING IN THE WATER!!!"

"I went 2 for 3, it's not that bad," Kai counters.

"You're right, you're right. 67% of the time you'll know it's a dolphin and not a shark. I guess that's a decent score."

"Shut up. I'm taking a shower."

"Finally," Jax jokes and Kai sends an elite glare at Jax and Jax backs up immediately.

I begin to make my way to my room to just be alone for a little bit. I'm not depressed, I'm just kind of trying to make everyone think I'm a straight tough guy. I don't think it's gonna work well though, not gonna lie. I'm bad at hiding my emotions, happy or sad.

"Derek, hold up," DeShaun says, grabbing my shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Are you okay? You basically said nothing while we were at the mall."

"Yeah, I'm fine. How about you?" I ask, trying to flip the conversation towards him.

"I'm doing well. Can you tell me if you're not doing well, because it's not just the mall, I feel like this entire trip you've been on mute. You're usually laughing and shit, but now you're kind of just silent. You know you can talk to me, I'm gonna go into psychology," he states. I didn't realize that he was that smart, but here he is giving me free therapy.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," I say. To be honest, I'm not really doing that badly. From the stories that everyone forced Cam and Aaron to tell, the two of them were totally depressed when they were away from each other. Apparently Cam was puking multiple times a week. I am not doing nearly as badly as the two of them were doing.

"Really? You can talk to me, I won't judge you, okay?" he says.

I smile at him. "I'm fine, don't worry about me."

"Alright," DeShaun lets me go, still looking at me like I'm lying.

I am not depressed, just to make that clear. I'm not sad, I'm a little bit upset about the whole Cam and Aaron thing, but I'm kind of getting over him.

Basically, I'm doing just okay.

A/N: Second chapter, and because of the quadruple update, you still have 2 more chapters to read before the next update!!! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy this so far. I am going to try and make this move as slow as possible because I want the end of the whole slow burn thing to be super rewarding. Having Cam and Aaron have sex right off the bat in TWB was not as rewarding as the first kiss between two people in a slow burn book. Thank you for reading!!!