Author's Note: Yeah, I'm totally aware of how unrealistic this is, but I just couldn't resist not writing it. Besides, I'm getting kind of tired of always forcing myself to color inside the lines. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Literally, I just can't help but do so. I'm a contradiction like that.) After reading "Jersey girl" by Phoenix Satori, I was inspired. And really, after I found out about the lack of hockey jersey stories, could you blame me? This is a sequel, of sorts, to my story "Musical Preferences". Hence the title. "Musical Preferences" can be read as a stand-alone. This takes place a little later.

Music suggestions: 'That girl' by Alexz Johnson, 'Be the girl' by Aslyn.

Disclaimer: Don't own LWD.

Musical Preferences, Hockey Jerseys...

The house rang with an empty silence as Casey closed the front door behind her. It had been a couple months since the "Boston ear-pulling incident", and Derek had done nothing more than the occasional annoying, yet mostly harmless, prank. So, considering how this was Derek, she'd learned to keep her guard up when entering a doorway alone, just in case he got any ideas.

Marti went home with Sasha, a new friend, for a slumber party. Edwin and Lizzie were each off at their respective summer camps, each stay-away, and not due home until the end of June. Both her mom and George were still at work, not to be expected home until after five. She could care less where Derek had disappeared off to, so long as he wasn't bothering her. She had approximately two hours worth of "alone time".

Considering how hectic her life had been since graduation, she would take whatever respite she could get.

As Casey entered her bedroom, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Something was off. The feeling of wrongness pinged its warning as her eyes scanned her room meticulously, looking for the tiniest detail. That was when the first speck of hard evidence dropped into place in her mind. Her room was usually kept neat and tidy, but she'd been in a hurry that morning – due to Derek sneaking into her room and unplugging her alarm clock sometime after she'd fallen asleep – and had been forced to leave her pajamas in a small pile beside her bed. Going in for another round of summer camp counseling with Marti had kept her away from home until well into the afternoon.

The tiny pile of clothes was now missing.

Her mom, who was prone to lifting stray clothes and adding them to the wash, had left for work just as Casey was descending the stairs that morning and hadn't been home since. She hadn't been home long enough to move them, even if she was having a case of memory loss.

As she stepped closer to her closet, the second clue fell into place. Her nose wrinkled as a foul odor seeped from her closet, the door securely shut in the frame. Almost gagging, she pinched her nose shut with one hand and placed the other gingerly around the doorknob. Easing it back with a sense of trepidation, eyes scrunched shut and her body coiled tensely and ready to spring away at the first sign of danger, a wall of the most malodorous scent hit her full force, making her eyes water. Slamming the door shut, she jogged out of her room, pulling her bedroom door shut behind her. Resting her hands on her knees, Casey gulped in the fresh, lovely nontoxic air in the hallway.

Derek had most definitely gone around the bend this time. She couldn't believe he'd had the gall to completely destroy her wardrobe. She couldn't be certain, and it was too early to be presumptuous, but she wasn't sure if that ungodly smell would come out, even in the wash. She should have known better than to assume the best of Derek, that maybe he'd finally turned over a new leaf.

As if.

Maybe it was because her nerves were frazzled due to keeping six eight-year olds entertained for over six hours. Or perhaps it was due to her being at the end of her patience with Derek and his childish, clothes ruining, time consuming pranks. All she knew was that she'd had enough.

He wanted to steal her music without asking, and then take her clothes and make them repugnant and unwearable? Well, then, she'd have to steal something of his that was just as important to him.

She strode down the hallway and flung Derek's bedroom door wide open. The search was on.

ooowooooo*oooxooooo*ooonoooooo

Kicking the door closed behind him and dropping his hockey bag to the floor with a careless shrug, Derek blew out a breath in a weak attempt to push his hair off his forehead. Frustrated when the plan backfired and the hair plastered itself back against his damp forehead, he reached up and pushed the freshly washed strands back with one hand, pulling his t-shirt away from his body to fan himself with the other.

Having closed his eyes in bliss when the air-conditioned air hit his skin, they snapped open with the sound of metal slamming against metal.

Rooted to the spot, the cause of the disturbance appeared through the kitchen door moments later, humming a nameless tune to herself as she pushed up the sleeves of his blue and white Thompson High hockey jersey.

Wait. Back up. Hockey jersey?

Who'd have known that one simple hockey jersey on one certain step-sister could reduce him to a nonsensical idiot?

"How did...I mean I hid..where did you...that's my jersey!" Derek exclaimed indignantly. He pointed a finger at his chest emphatically as he said this, unable to complete a full thought as he tried to process 'how', much less 'when', she'd come into possession of and put on his reserve practice jersey.

He'd only been gone four hours, and she couldn't have been home for more than one.

He should've have known better than to douse her clothes with the most foul-smelling perfume concentrate ever produced. Who knew how awful that stuff smelled before it was diluted into the delicious girly fragrances that ended up on the shelf?

Of course, how could he have known that she'd counter by raiding his wardrobe? On the other hand, pulling a random pair of jeans and a t-shirt from his closet was one thing. Hell, he'd even expected it...maybe even sort of hoped, just like last time. But purposefully rooting around in his bedroom to gain possession of his back-up hockey jersey that he'd bring home occasionally to be laundered was not only off-limits, but so far off into "crossing the line" territory, it wasn't even funny. He'd never let any of his other girlfriends wear it, ever. Not even to a hockey match. He guarded it even closer than his leather jacket, and his jacket was practically his life. His signature.

There was only one Derek Venturi. He may have more than one jersey, but to the public eye, there could be only one. No girl got to walk around pretending to be his other half by wearing his name on her back.

It was weird, because oddly enough, he thought it suited Casey well. And the idea of his name across her shoulder blades, marking her as his, was uncharacteristically appealing.

"It is? Really?" Casey asked in a mock-confused tone, looking over her shoulder searchingly for a moment before shrugging her shoulders casually and continuing on past him up the stairs as he stood dumbfounded at the railing. "I didn't particularly care, considering how you doused all of my clothes with eau de skunk!" Casey said, starting out calmly only to escalate into a near screech.

"Casey, Casey, Casey." Derek drawled as he leaned against the banister, a semblance of normality returning at her screech. "Be reasonable. Like I have the time to go out and raid skunk scent. I bought it online for only $5."

Casey then screeched in a tone that almost made Derek's ears bleed. His shoulders bunched up for a moment before he relaxed and chose to look down. Probably wasn't the best idea, considering he'd neglected to recall the lack of pants on Casey's part. An eyebrow threatened to twitch upward as he appraised the view. He was a guy, after all, and Casey had all the appropriately proportioned girl parts.

"Der-ek! My clothes are ruined! And not just some. Oh no, you had to be more vindictive than that. You had to take them all! All! I didn't even have all of my clothes in my room which means you went to the trouble of going through the drier, the laundry hamper, as well as my dresser and closet. That's a little excessive, don't you think?" Casey said, her forehead furrowing slightly and her head cocking to one side curiously.

Derek said nothing, only stared at her as if she'd grown a second head, his eyes fixed somewhere between her breasts and her legs. Honestly, she knew wearing his hockey jersey would upset him, but it was only a practice jersey. She was sure it didn't even really matter anymore, considering how they'd just graduated. Besides, it wasn't as if she planned on keeping it. It couldn't be that big a deal, could it?

And he really hadn't hidden it all that well, anyway. It wasn't her fault he'd hidden it with the tactics of an eight-year-old.

Okay, so maybe she was being a little vindictive strolling around in it with nothing on underneath it but her best, silky, underwear set that she'd gotten as a birthday present from her cousin Vicky almost two years previous. Yeah right. It was more like a Victoria's Secret name-brand, "forgive me for making out with your boyfriend" gift. She still wasn't entirely certain why her cousin chose for them to match Thompson High's school colors, and it had never occurred to her to ask. She just chose to keep them hidden safely under the dust ruffle between her bed mattresses.

Also, they were currently her only underwear set.

When he refused to say anything else, she rolled her eyes and started up the stairs to her room.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts of Casey's legs peeking out from his hockey jersey and how indecently hot it looked on her, he followed her. 'Remember repulsive, it's supposed to look repulsive.' Derek thought to himself.

As if denial had ever worked for him before.

"You can't wear that!" Derek exclaimed after being unable to come up with a wittier comeback and instead saying the first thing that came to his mind. Taking a breath, he continued in a more rational tone, "You have no idea what that implies, do you?"

"Yet, here I am, going against the laws of nature and nothing is striking me dead." Casey said in a disbelieving tone. "Who'd have thought?"

She really had no idea what her wearing his hockey jersey meant. It was one thing when he let Smarti wear it as a night shirt. When he was in a charitable enough mood, there wasn't any harm in letting his baby sister wear one of his more important possessions. In fact, now that he'd graduated TH, he might just let her keep it when he left for university. However it was quite another for his infuriating, keener...utterly drop-dead gorgeous step-sister to don the garment. She didn't even realize that his hockey jersey was like a Letterman's jacket to football players. If she were to go out in public wearing it, she might as well pull on his leather jacket over the jersey. Because it would be less obvious to the general public of Thompson High students – both former as well as current – if she pulled out a megaphone in the middle of the packed hallway at TH and admitted that they were exclusively screwing each other. What was worse was that they weren't even dating, much less having sex, and he couldn't work up the nerve to admit to her that he wanted to do the aforementioned activity to her with every fiber of his being. And perhaps even a smidge of the other.

Like father, like son anyone? It was wrong on more than one level, regardless of what Sam told him. He shouldn't even think about Casey and how she'd look pressed up against the wall, his hands wandering underneath to discover just what she had on beneath the blue and white mascot emblazoned on the front of the jersey...

"Take it off." Derek called after her in a tone that even he hardly recognized. Thankfully, Casey didn't notice – or rather ignored – the deep and husky tone that implied that he was, in fact, halfway serious about the statement.

She instead snorted and turned to face him just before she reached the top step. Looking thoughtful for a few moments, she then took two steps down so that they were at face level, and said in a challenging voice, "You're gonna have to make me."

The corner of his mouth quirked up and his eyes darkened before he spoke. She really never did learn to not provoke him.

"You have five seconds before this particular Venturi follows through with that provocation." Derek said in a low, predatory tone. This particular dance they were participating in was about to end. He didn't know or particularly care if she somehow figured out that his feelings for her had changed and she was purposefully toying with the fact. She was going to rue the day she'd pushed Derek Venturi over the edge.

oooowoooo*oooooxooooo*ooooocoomo

I know! Another two-parter! I can't seem to help myself, lol. I know it's a bit old-school, considering how long its been since Life With Derek ended, but I love Dasey to pieces, and occasionally one of their stories will jump up and bite me, begging to be written. Part two soon to come...and it's colorful!