Chapter Six: Have a Drink on Me

Casey collapsed onto her bed and breathed a sigh of relief. She had taken her last final that afternoon and was confident she'd done well. Considering it was her math final, that was saying something. At the beginning of the semester, she'd been convinced that even passing the class was impossible, let alone actually earning a good grade. And she begrudgingly had to admit that it was all due to the help that Derek had given her in return for tutoring him in the rest of his classes. He was surprisingly patient with her and willing to take as much time as she needed to completely understand a concept. He really seemed to understand that even though math came easily to him, it was like a foreign language to her.

And to Derek's credit, he never once lorded the fact that he was better at math over her, unlike in high school when all he did for a week was gloat about his higher math scores whenever they had a test. And okay, back in high school Casey gloated just as much, if not more, about her vastly superior grades. But these days, bragging was the last thing she wanted to do. Sometime between high school and university they'd stopped trying to one-up each other and actually started trying to help each other out.

And speaking of Derek, he chose that moment to barge into her room and start digging through her closet.

Almost immediately, he started pulling things out and muttering to himself. "Too pink. Too frilly. Too blah." On the last criticism, Derek pulled a white blouse out of Casey's closet and held it up for her inspection. "Burn this. Burn it now."

"What?! What the hell are you doing?" Casey demanded in outrage, jumping up and frantically trying to pick up her discarded clothing items off the floor just as quickly as Derek tossed them.

"Here. Wear this." Derek thrust a knee-length black and pink halter dress out towards her.

"Derek Anthony Venturi! What the heck?!" she screeched in her patented Casey-screech.

"We're going out tonight."

"We are?" Casey asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow. It was true that they were getting along better, but their hanging out usually involved textbooks or watching TV.

"We are," he affirmed. "We deserve it. We're going to the Hockey House and we are going to enjoy our last night of freshman year. So what do you say?"

"Why are you so determined that I come with you?" Casey asked suspiciously.

"No reason," shrugged Derek. "Just that it's a hockey party and you're basically a hockey groupie anyway." He held the dress out to her once more.

"I am not a groupie!" she protested while eyeing the dress in front of her. She really did love it and rarely ever got the chance to wear it. And a night out did sound like a fun way to blow off a little steam after a week of exhaustive studying.

"Then what would you call someone who goes to all the hockey games and parties?"

"A loyal step-sister," Casey replied hotly.

"So then what's a hockey groupie?" asked Derek.

"Someone not related to a player," laughed Casey, taking the dress from him and holding it up to herself.

"So you're coming?" asked Derek, a hopeful note creeping into his voice.

"Fine," Casey agreed, already starting to pick through her jewelry box to find the perfect accessories.

An hour later, Derek was parking his car in the Hockey House lot, grateful that they reserved the closest parking for all teammates and not just the ones that lived at the house. Even though it was still early, the street was lined with cars at least three blocks in every direction around the house. He knew it must be crowded inside and sooner or later the party would be spilling out into the backyard, which didn't sound like a bad thing considering just how many people were packed inside the house already.

As Casey let herself out of the car, even Derek had to admit that she looked stunning. She would definitely be drawing attention tonight. Her pink and black dress hugged every curve and her dark hair was styled somewhere just between wavy and tousled. A simple pair of pink wedge heels completed the outfit. A second later, they fell into step beside each other and started leisurely making their way inside. It was a nice night so there was no need to hurry.

The moment that they entered the house, they were greeted by an overzealous scream of "Oh my god! DEREK! You're finally here!" which was quickly followed by a delighted laugh that fell somewhere between a hyena and Fran Drescher. Both Casey and Derek whipped their heads around to see Michelle Kowalski standing at the top of the stairs, waving wildly at Derek. He plastered a fake smile on his face and weakly waved back at her. Apparently, their encounter wasn't going to end there because Michelle immediately started bounding down the stairs and fighting her way through the dense crowd.

"Now that's a hockey groupie," laughed Casey.

"No kidding!" added one of Derek's teammates who was standing close enough to them to hear Casey's comment. "She's been looking for you all night."

"Kill me now," groaned Derek. Casey, being the loyal step-sister that she was, just laughed at him.

"You know? This is probably the first time you've ever not wanted a girl's attention," she teased. Michelle had been flirting with him all semester. Derek had even taken her out a few times but quickly realized that he couldn't stand her laugh and each date was becoming more and more painful because of it. Derek didn't care how shallow it made him look.

Whatever Derek's retort was going to be, he didn't get the chance to say it. Michelle finally made it through the crowd.

"Hi, Derek! Great party, huh?" she asked, choosing possibly the most clichéd opening line. Derek was once again happy that he'd broken things off with her. He liked his girls to be a little more creative than that.

"I wouldn't know. I just got here," he reminded her.

"Thanks for inviting me."

"Sure," said Derek smoothly, even though he wasn't the one who invited her. He knew he needed to do something to take control of the conversation soon or the next thing out of Michelle's mouth would be an invitation to dance. So he did the first thing that came to mind. "Where are my manners? Michelle, you've met my date, Casey McDonald, right? She's my date." Derek wrapped an arm around Casey's waist and pulled her to him, completely ignoring the angry look that was taking over her face. He knew that he'd be getting an earful from her at the first opportunity she had. But he'd gladly take a tongue lashing from Casey over Michelle's laugh any day. He was just grateful that Casey was too nice to actually say anything in front of Michelle. She would never say anything to intentionally hurt the girl.

"Yeah, we've crossed paths before," nodded Michelle, trying to process the "couple" in front of her, clearly not expecting them to be there together.

"Nice to officially meet you." Casey stepped forward and shook Michelle's hand. When she stepped back, she "accidentally" misjudged the distance and the heel of her shoe landed on Derek's toes, causing tears to spring into his eyes. "Oh honey, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed with just enough false sweetness in her voice for Derek to know that she'd done it on purpose.

"Why don't we go get some drinks," suggested Derek quickly, noticing that Michelle had a full cup in her hand already, giving her no reason to follow them. "Have a good summer, Michelle," Derek added.

"Come on, honey." Casey took Derek's hand and led him away. She'd been to enough parties at the Hockey House to know that drinks were always on the back deck. But instead of going towards the deck, she dragged him to the kitchen, where it was almost always easier to talk.

The second the door swung shut behind them, Casey lit into Derek.

"Date?! What stunt are you trying to pull?!" she demanded. "Never, not once, did I say I would be your date to this party," she hissed.

"That's because I didn't know I'd need a date until five minutes ago!" he fired back. "Look, I knew if I didn't say something she was gonna ask me to dance and then I'd be stuck with her for the rest of the night!"

"So your solution is to make me be stuck with you for the rest of the night?"

"Umm, yes?" asked Derek hopefully.

"Der-ek!" she screeched. "Seriously? This was the best you could come up with?"

"Obviously!" He threw his hands up to emphasize his point. "Please, Case, help me out here. I'm begging you."

"Give me a minute to think about it. Meanwhile, I'm going to go get something to drink." On her way out, she called back to Derek over her shoulder, "By the way, Michelle is in line for the bathroom and completely distracted so you should be clear for a while."

"So does this mean you're gonna help me?" he called after her.

The only response he got was the door swinging shut, leaving him staring at it in confusion.


It took Casey a while to get outside to the drink table, partly because of all the weaving she had to do to get through the crowd but mostly because she kept stopping to chat with friends she'd made throughout the year. Surprisingly, a number of them were actual members of the hockey team and their girlfriends, whom she'd gotten to know at various hockey games and parties.

When she finally made it to the drinks, she grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with punch, taking a small sip of it to see just how much it had been spiked. Through past experience, she knew that the punch started out relatively tame but got stronger and stronger over time. This time, despite it being relatively early, the punch burned as she swallowed. It looked like the guys weren't going to take it easy tonight. And why should they? Finals were over for the year and most of them were going home the next day. If ever there was a time to live it up, tonight was it.

She was about to go say hello to another group of friends when she spotted Josh Abrams coming toward her. She looked around for an escape but Josh had already locked eyes with her so she resigned herself to making small talk with him for a few minutes. She had dated Josh briefly during the semester, but she'd broken things off when she found out that he'd stolen an old term paper off of her computer and turned it in as his own. He hadn't even had the decency to be ashamed of his cheating or to apologize to her.

"Lookin' hot tonight, Case," he said, letting his eyes leisurely travel up and down her body. For the first time all night, she felt uncomfortable in the clothing she was wearing. She crossed an arm over her body and turned to the side to better obstruct his view. "Come dance with me."

"No thank you," replied Casey politely, hoping that he'd leave her alone. When she dumped him, she'd made it perfectly clear that she never wanted to speak to him again.

Instead of taking no for an answer, he reached out and grabbed her free hand, trying to pull her with him. The unexpected movement caused her to stumble and nearly spill the punch in her cup. "Come on, it's just one dance."

"I believe she told you no," said Derek, suddenly materializing behind Casey, probably having seen the whole thing between her and Josh. She had never been happier to see her step-brother before in her life. She didn't even complain when he wrapped an arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her cheek and said "Sorry I didn't get here sooner, Babe."

Even though he needed to cheat on term papers, Josh wasn't a complete idiot and took Derek's arrival as his cue to leave. Neither Casey or Derek bothered to say goodbye to him. Casey was too busy downing her cup of punch and Derek was too busy watching her do it.

"Whoa, take it easy," he warned as she went to fill it up again. "There's already, like, four kinds of booze in there."

"I know. But if we're gonna do this fake date thing tonight, I'm gonna need a few drinks," she replied. She knew that Josh would leave her alone if he thought she was with Derek but the minute that he thought something was fishy, he'd be right back there asking her to dance. The same went for Michelle. If either of them wanted to be left alone, they were stuck with each other.

"Fair enough," agreed Derek, reaching for his own cup of punch.

For the rest of the night, they played up the couple charade. They stuck by each other as they made their rounds through the party, trying to squeeze in a final goodbye to as many of their friends as possible, all the while trying to look as couply as possible. Derek found excuses to wrap his arm around her and pull her closer to him and, surprisingly, Casey found it relatively easy to relax into him whenever he did that. Once or twice throughout the night, whenever Derek left to go refill their drinks, he kissed the top of Casey's head. And once or twice throughout the night, when Derek came back from refilling their drinks, Casey put her own arm around his waist and possibly slipped her hand into his back pocket.

To anyone looking on, they were a real couple, always finding excuses to touch each other. Anyone who didn't know them would say that it looked like Derek was trying to prolong their physical contact before he had to leave and that Casey was so eager to reestablish their touching the moment that he got back that she pulled him as close to her as possible.


Hours later, they stumbled up the stairs to their rooms, laughing like crazy. Somewhere between the fifth and seventh drinks, Casey had forgotten that she was angry with Derek and just started enjoying hanging out with him. That was about the same time that he'd forgotten that all their touching and couply stuff was just an act. At some point during their walk home, Casey's shoes had ended up in Derek's hands and they'd started trading stories from high school, making them laugh even more.

"Seriously?! You never knew?" gasped Casey as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Oh, you're one to talk," he shot back at her, feeling the need to defend himself. "You dated him!"

"How do you think I found out Sam's gay in the first place!" laughed Casey. "He seriously never told you? You had to find out on Facebook like the rest of his friends?" Sam had quickly decided that after telling his family, it was too much work to come out to all of his friends individually so he'd simply put it on Facebook and was done with it.

Right about the time Derek wound up with Casey's shoes, their conversation turned to their friends in high school. Specifically, Sam and his coming out (who knew how they even got to that topic). In her drunken state, Casey found it extremely hilarious that she'd found out Sam was gay when they were fifteen (mere months after meeting him) and that Derek, his best friend since first grade, had to find out along with the rest of their friends after going off to college (which she had already felt the need to point out to Derek).

When they reached their bedroom doors, Derek was oh-so-pleased to see that there was a tie on his doorknob, indicating that his roommate was entertaining a guest. That was the last thing that Derek wanted that night. He was tired and the room was about three minutes away from spinning and he wanted to be in bed and passed out before that actually happened.

"And I told him I'd be home tonight, too," groaned Derek, gesturing to the tie.

"Just sleep in my room like usual," offered Casey. This was certainly not the first time either of them had been sexiled from their rooms by their respective roommates. Early on, realizing that this would be a recurring situation, they'd agreed to let the other sleep in their room when needed. Luckily they'd never run into a situation where both were sexiled at the same time. Poor Tanya would probably wind up with two extra roommates for the night, then. "Tiffany moved out already," she added.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed. He could pass out in Casey's room just as easily as in his own. "Would you hurry up and find your keys already?" He was getting impatient and she'd been digging in her purse ever since they got to their doors. The purse wasn't even that big. "You can't possibly have that much stuff in there."

"Oh yeah?" Just to prove her point, she proceeded to sit down on the floor and dump the entire contents of her purse out in front of her.

What Derek saw had to defy the laws of physics. He sat down across from her and started picking through the pile of stuff, hoping to unearth her keys. She had a small makeup counter's worth of products in there along with her ID, hand lotion, hand sanitizer, tissues, extra change, her phone, a nail file, and a flash drive, but her keys had to still be buried under the dozen other things she had in there.

At that moment Derek's phone rang. He checked the caller ID and sent it straight to voicemail. "Michelle," he explained when Casey raised her eyebrow.

"Why can't you ever stay with a girl for more than two minutes?" she suddenly asked him.

"Found your keys," he announced nervously, trying to dodge the question. Naturally, the keys were the last thing he found after digging to the bottom of the pile on the floor, meaning they were probably right on top of everything before she dumped her purse out.

Before Casey could say anything else, she yawned and Derek took advantage of the distraction to deflect her question even more. "Let's get you to bed." He stood and reached a hand down to help her up. In his drunkenness, he misjudged the force he needed and pulled her up way too hard, sending her crashing into him and the two of them crashing into the door behind them, just barely missing the doorknob. She laughed nervously as she realized just how close they actually were. He had to realize it too. Had to realize just how closely they were pressed together. But neither of them seemed in too much of a hurry to move, either.

"You never answered my question," Casey reminded him.

"Because I can know in two minutes if there's anything there between us or not. Usually, there's not. Not long-term, at least."

"How?"

"Like it says in that song, it's all in the kiss," he told her, trying not to think about how close they were and how good she looked and how good her perfume smelled. She'd looked stunning earlier that night when they'd left for the party but now she just looked downright sexy with her hair messed up from the windy walk home and her smudged eye makeup. And damn did her lips look so kissable right there.

And little did he know that she was thinking the exact same thing that he was. Casey couldn't help but notice how good he looked in his dark jeans and leather jacket. He'd let his hair grow out a little over the year and she wondered what it would be like to run her hands through it (the shoes in her hands were the only thing stopping her right now). He'd kissed her on the forehead countless times that night and every time he did, she couldn't help but wonder what those lips would feel like against her own.

She wasn't sure if she moved or if he did, but somehow their faces got even closer together. One little kiss wouldn't hurt, would it? Like he said, there usually wasn't anything there anyway so it wouldn't mean anything. It wouldn't hurt to kiss her, then he could move on instead of constantly having to remind himself that she was his step-sister. One little kiss could fix everything.

But neither got to figure out the answers to their questions that night. Right as they were about to close the remaining distance between them, a door slammed from somewhere down the hall, breaking whatever spell they had been under.


Re-uploaded with minor updates November 2022.