Oh my gosh, I am sooooo sorry this is so late in coming. I don't really have a legitimate excuse, besides some bad writer's block and some computer complications. This chapter definitely isn't my favorite, but I don't think its completely horrible. Do feel free to tell me otherwise though.

Still don't own it. Obviously.


Suddenly Derek's cell phone blared the refrain of 3OH!3's "Don't Trust Me." The noise startled him, and he nearly fell off the couch with surprise. Casey smothered a laugh as Derek hopped over to the counter to answer the phone. Absentmindedly picking at a frayed hole in the leg of her jeans, Casey patiently waited for Derek to finish his phone call. A few minutes later, he joined her back on the worn little couch.

"Who was it?" she asked, half out of curiosity and half out of an attempt to stall.

"Just someone from work," Derek dismissed. "So, where were we?"

Casey sighed. There really was no getting out of this. "It was a week later when we finally met up…

Casey sat nervously in the tiny coffee house, clutching her latte between her hands like it was her life source. She tried to focus on the warming sensation she felt on her hands, rather than the tumultuous fluttering in her stomach. "This is ridiculous," she thought to herself. "It's just Paul." But no matter how many times she told herself that, she couldn't stop from anxiously looking up each time the little bell on the door dinged.

It was now almost five minutes past their agreed meeting time, and Casey felt a growing ball of dread in her abdomen. Had he decided not to come? Had something happened to him? She could feel herself on the verge of an epic Casey Freak Out, and took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

While she was doing this, she didn't hear the latest ding of the bell, and so was started when someone suddenly slid into the chair across the tiny table from her.

Paul smiled shyly, "sorry I'm late," he said. "Punctuality is actually not one of my strong points, and it took a little longer to get here than I had figured."

Suddenly unable to speak (she smiled wryly to herself at the thought of how Derek would react to such an event), Casey just smiled. Paul made a gesture towards the counter, indicating he was going to get a drink, and she just nodded. As soon as he walked away, the brunette let out a shaky breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding. Pulling out her cell phone for something to do, she fiddled with the buttons for a moment. She turned the volume off, then changed her mind and turned it back up. She moved to put it back in her purse but then at the last second, changed it to vibrate. Satisfied, she dropped it back into the abyss of her bag right as Paul returned, steaming paper cup in hand.

"Expecting a call?" he asked politely, conversationally.

"Huh? Oh, no, just uh, checking the time," she replied, willing herself not to blush as she stuttered over her words. Paul just smiled.

She was surprised at how quickly and easily they fell into conversation. It was so much like back in high school, and yet so very different. They laughed over Derek's cluelessness at the coming challenges of college ("Anthropology? What the hell is that, like the study of ants?"), and mused over the reasons for Principle Lassiter's sudden departure from the school (Paul heard he was offered a job at an elementary school at a nearby district and jumped on it like a starved wolf on a wounded antelope). As it turned out, the subject of Paul's rocky marital status didn't come up at all, something that Casey secretly found herself glad about.

Nearly two and a half hours had passed before they even realized the time. "Yikes, I really need to get going," Casey said apologetically, rising awkwardly from her chair. Paul jumped up too, grabbing both of their long-empty cups to throw away.

"I should be too, I have a lot to do before school starts up again," he replied.

They walked over to the trash can together, and Casey held open the flap on the garbage can while he threw away the cups. At the door, Paul returned the favor, holding open the door as Casey passed through, and then they paused awkwardly outside.

"Um, so, maybe we could do this again some time?" Paul asked, sounding more like an awkward teenager than a professional adult.

Casey couldn't keep the grin off of her face as she nodded slightly. "I'd like that," she said softly.

A few silent heartbeats passed, and Casey stuck out her hand for a handshake goodbye. Paul looked at the appendage strangely for a moment, and then pulled Casey into a quick gentle hug. As he released her, they both laughed nervously at the parallel to that last day at school.

Casey fiddled with the hem of her shirt as she looked at the ground, suddenly shy. "Well, u, bye," she said hurriedly.

"Bye," was Paul's soft reply. The tone of his voice caught her off guard, and she looked up and found herself caught in the warmth of his rich brown eyes. They held the gaze for a moment, before she blushed and turned away, hurrying off to her car.

Casey paused in her storytelling to finish off the last of her milk. Derek stared thoughtfully at her, watching the way her delicate white throat pulsed with the movement of swallowing. The redness in her face from crying was starting to fade, and he was momentarily struck with how beautiful she was. It would be a lie to say this was the first time he had noticed how gorgeous his stepsister was, but it wasn't exactly something he considered a big deal. He considered the fact that Casey was beautiful exactly that: a fact. One of those undeniable truths of life.

But something was different today. Seeing her so vulnerable…it brought out something in Derek, something that he tried to keep buried inside. He gulped nervously, shaking himself out of his reverie, and made a move to start cleaning up the mess they had made of their dinner. Casey set down her now-empty milk glass and stared at him incredulously. She opened her mouth to say something, but instead decided it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth and silently got up to help him.

A few minutes later, with the few dishes washed and the empty boxes in the trash, Derek put the leftovers in the fridge and pulled out a beer. Before closing the door he turned to Casey, and held up the bottle in a silent question.

"Yeah, why not," she said with a sigh, after a moment's contemplation. Wordlessly, Derek handed her the beer in his hand and grabbed another one for himself. Closing the door, he leaned up against the counter, absentmindedly drawing in the condensation on the side of the glass bottle. Across the kitchen from him, Casey pulled a bottle opened out of a drawer and quickly popped the top off her beer. Dropping the bottle cap on the counter behind her, she mimicked Derek's position and tossed him the opener. She watched as he repeated the action, putting her mouth over the rim of the bottle but not drinking. Derek raised his own bottle to his lips, about to take a sip when he noticed Casey hadn't done so yet. Instead of taking a drink, he held his bottle out into the space between them.

"Cheers," he said simply.

Casey raised a questioning eyebrow at him, but wordlessly tapped her bottle against his. There was, strangely, something immensely satisfying about that 'clink.' Simultaneously, they both took a long draw from their bottles.

Derek let out a satisfied "ahhh," while Casey set her bottle down on the counter and hopped onto the counter, letting her legs hang down over the lower cabinets. Derek looked at her expectantly, and she didn't need to ask why. Five years of living with someone leaves little need for words sometimes.

"So meeting for coffee somehow became a weekly thing, and it continued even once we started school…

It was about a month after starting university, and Casey and Paul were having their weekly get together. They occasionally missed a week, and they didn't always go for coffee necessarily, but they kept up with it almost religiously. On this particular day, they were strolling around downtown Toronto, drinking their coffee as they walked. Casey was chattering on animatedly about a project she was doing in her Intro to Mass Communications class, and Paul was listening quietly.

"But enough about me, what's new with you?" she finally said, having realized just how quiet Paul was being.

"Well, um," Paul let out a long slow breath, "Theresa served me the divorce papers yesterday," he said softly.

Casey stopped dead in her tracks, and after a beat Paul too stopped and faced her.

"Oh my gosh, Paul, I am so sorry," she said gently, reaching out and clasping both of her hands around one of his in a comforting gesture. After a silent moment, he pulled his hand out and moved it to her cheek.

"Casey…" he breathed, and she stood frozen, her heart racing at his touch, at his words. And then, like something out of a dream, he leaned forward and gently captured her lips with his.


So yeah. Hopefully there won't be anymore crazy delays like that...hopefully people still want to read this.