A/N: Hello everyone! Again, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for the reviews! You guys are awesome! Special shoutout to Dark-Supernatural-Angel who had been reviewing the chapters whenever I update. Thanks so much. And to everybody else, hope you're enjoying the story so far.

This chapter that I was writing was beginning to be too long for my taste (I'm still in the middle of finishing it, haha) so I decided to cut it into two. So, this is the first part. I'll add more A/N at the bottom so it wouldn't get too annoying for you guys. ;)

Disclaimer: I do not own LWD or any of the trademarks. Most of the tweets here are made by me, with inspirations coming from LifeWithCasey and DerekVenturi on Twitter.

Chapter 5: I'm Waging a Bet

| DerekVenturi: Hey C, look what I found on your computer. It's one of your lame poems. It looks very interesting. ;)

Casey felt like she was about to get eaten alive by her bed any second as her wide-shot eyes fixated on her phone, it being gripped by rock solid hands on a frozen body. Her heart was beating a hundred times per minute, or so it seemed since she could've sworn it was loud enough to be heard from outside her room. What poem? Her mind was racing as fast as her heartbeat. She couldn't remember half of the literary works she had written and saved on her laptop. There were too many to even keep in mind. But she knew she would, somehow, if her racetrack of a brain wasn't the host of the freaking mental NASCAR competition, with thoughts going 110 km/h! One thing is for sure, she wouldn't feel like she was stuck in the tundra for 24 hours without proper snow gear if there wasn't anything wrong with this scenario. Her intuition was acting up, telling her something was about to get ugly if she didn't do anything.

No, there can't be. It's okay, it's just a poem. Somehow beginning to be successful in reasoning out with herself, she closed her eyes, calmed her nerves, and began a mental inventory of her poem list.

| LifeWithCasey: OH MY GOD. DEREK!

| DerekVenturi: "What I Really Wanted to Say" by Casey McDonald. Should I read it? Yeah, I think I should. Now, let's see..

Oh, no. Casey was hyperventilating now. No. She was right, it was the one that caught his attention. No. No. She couldn't bear the fact that Derek might be reading the entire poem right now and her life would shatter into pieces. She'd be the laughing stock of the town. She'd have to run away to another place, change her name, consider his suggestion to get face transplant.. or plastic surgery.. or botox. Where would she go? How would she live? Where would she get the money for her everyday expenses? Maybe she could escape to Toronto and be the 'resident bum', roaming around the streets for food and shelter, forever wasting her life while regretting the day she let her hacker of a stepbrother use her laptop. NO! I am too young, I have a dream, and I have to go to university!

"Der-ek!" She shouted from the top of the stairs, chest still heaving from extreme panicking.

"Back so soon?" The cause of all this Casey-generated screaming turned his head to face the epicenter of the yelling, smirk forming on the corner of his mouth.

"Hand it over!"

"What? I thought it was 'Derek-proof'?" Derek teased as he moved from the comfort of his recliner to the other chair in front of him. If Casey's going to have a panic attack, this would give him a better view. He wouldn't miss this show for the world. "'What I Really Wanted to Say' by Casey McDonald."

"Derek, please.." Oh my gosh... I think I'm going to be sick... She gripped the handle of the stairs as she heard the title of her poem in Derek's low voice, something that she had never ever imagined in her life that would happen. She felt her energy being drained and her lower extremities disintegrating (not really, but..), causing her legs to wobble as she trailed down the stairwell.

"I've been thinking for quite a while.. thoughts of you seem to bother my mind lately," Derek continued reading in what seemed to be a weird cross between British and Italian accents, while waving his right hand in the air and trying to be artistic.

"Please stop and just give it back," She clutched her chest as she felt a sudden rush of pain, possibly from beating too fast, as she rushed to where he was sitting. She couldn't believe he was reading it. And insulting it, but that should be a given, considering the type of species he belonged to.

When Casey was only a short distance away from Derek, he stood up and extended his arms to hand her the laptop. But when she reached out to get it, he dodged her hands and darted to the left where he had more square feet to run to the dining area. "HA!"

"DER-EK!" She shrieked as she lost her balance and fell face down on the chair from putting too much momentum on her movements. All to Derek's entertainment and amusement. He was clutching one side of his ribs while he held the laptop with one hand as he burst into deafening laughter.

"Urrgh!" Casey groaned in the pillow where her face landed, then quickly hoisted herself up and turned only to see a big area devoid of any annoying cad. "Derek?" No answer. "Der-ek!"

"Ey, Klutzilla. Over here!" A head popped out from behind the kitchen island. She looked at the direction of the voice and saw the mischievous grinning face of the Cheshire Derek-Cat, causing her blood pressure to increase and her own brain to get clouded.

Their game of tag, with Casey being the 'it' the entire time, lasted for almost three minutes before they ended up on both sides of the dining table – Casey, holding onto the edges of the chair while trying to catch her breath, and Derek, still holding her laptop in his arms and not wiping that devilish grin from his face. Their stares pierced each other like nails being driven down solid wood. Casey tried to hold the stare, gulping a little, as she rewind again and again in her brain that this person across from her is enemy and he was holding a very valuable possession. Therefore, exterminate at all cost. Feeling the adrenaline rush brought about by an aura of intense competition and tension, Derek let his tongue roll on the side of his inner cheek and mockingly sneered at his rival.

Oh my f.. Casey just lost her lungs. She lost them and now she couldn't breathe. She tried to keep her cool and not let Derek know she was getting affected by this gesture. She couldn't, she couldn't, she's losing it. Derek raised his eyebrow and pouted his lips a little as if trying to taunt her even more. Queen's, Casey, Queen's! She slammed her hand on the table, startling Derek and causing him to fall backwards and hit the book shelves behind him.

"Ow!" he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, wincing in pain.

"You get your freaking large stupid butt of a head here this instant and give me my flipping computer back! I will not let myself be Toronto's 'resident bum', living in the streets and wasting my life while I could actually finish my degree at Queen's and live my years riding a limo to work!"

"What?"

"I said..!" Getting irritated at this, Casey scanned the room from left to right and then finally behind her and saw his phone on the coffee table. Derek, still recovering from his headache, followed her line of vision with his own eyes. He couldn't exactly tell from where he was standing what had caught her attention, but if she would make a run for it, he'd follow her lead.

And she did. In a New York minute, she went for his precious smartphone, dashed up the stairs and dangled it while standing at the highest possible step before her head touched the ceiling.

"WAH! No, no, no, no!" Derek yelped in terror when he saw his phone hanging perilously between Casey's thumb and index finger.

"Give it!"

"Here, here! Take it!" He scurried to the bottom of the stairs and placed the laptop on the platform step, but still positioned his hand on top of it, just in case she would try to trick him and not return his phone back.

Casey slowly went down the stairs until she was on the platform then sat on bended knees and laid the phone beside the laptop, hand still slightly touching it, ready to grab just in case he wouldn't comply to the unspoken switching agreement. Watching each other's moves, they quickly lifted their hands away from the other devices and grabbed their personal belongings at the same time. Relieved to get his phone back, Derek kissed and caressed it. "Oh, my poor baby.. did the big, bad Casey hurt you?" To which she answered with a snort.

"Did you read the rest of it?" Casey brought the subject back, still worried about the issue.

"Why? It's just a lame poem." Derek huffed and rolled his eyes as he made his way back to his recliner.

"Der-ek, did you or did you not read the rest of the poem?"

"I didn't! I swear!" He defended himself as he adjusted his chair to the reclining position. Staring at the ceiling, he asked the question out of curiosity. "Who's that poem about anyway?"

"You have no clue, do you?" Casey put the question out there as a conversation ender, not expecting an answer back, as she hurried up the stairs.

"That's about Truman. I'm pretty sure."

She answered this with the sound of her door shutting.

| LifeWithCasey: Safe and sound in my room... that was traumatizing to say the least. And I don't think you'll ever understand. So put it out of your mind.

| LifeWithCasey: And just FYI, I have not, nor will I ever write a poem about Truman. Unless it's angry or hate-filled. Nothing nice... or recent.

Casey reluctantly recalled the reason why she and Truman broke up, this time for good. Of course, she had to give him a second 'last chance'. Were his actions back at the party justifiable? No. Did it seem fair that he kept himself distant from her and went on kissing her cousin because he was too afraid of the brewing closeness between them? No. Was it a good excuse that he was acting up because he was dealing with his parents' divorce? Psh, big whoop, she was dealing with the same thing. But what could she do? From the looks of the surprising romance between her best friend and her stepbrother, she would seem like the third wheel. And she didn't want to look like the extra person in the 'three's a crowd' expression. She didn't want to be someone who would be asked to tag along just because she looked pitiful in all her single status. Not that she would tag along, no. Not with Derek around. Derek, the root of all her problems. Derek, the annoying itch she couldn't get rid of. She was hurt. Maybe because her best friend of high school years would be taken away from her, and she was all that she got. Aside from Lizzie. And that it would be awkward to have Emily visiting the house every week, only to hang out with Derek instead of her. What could she do? She had to hang on to the only solution sticking out at that time. She needed Truman around - she needed Truman to call her everyday so that Derek wouldn't hog the phone, she needed Truman to visit her at home so that Derek would be forced to stay in his room all day, she needed Truman to take her out on dates so that she would have to endure less of Derek's stupid pranks, and she needed Truman to prove Derek that she was fit to live dangerously and rebelliously. She needed Truman to keep Derek in place!

Oh yeah, breakup. Well, what else was new? He was downright scum. Nothing would change about that. There she was, giving him the chance of his lifetime, but few days after graduation, he was seen getting cozy with some brunette gal at an after-grad house party which she had chosen not to attend, thinking, gee, Casey wasn't there to cry her pretty eyelashes off on her stepbrother Derek, who happened to be at the same party. A little too bad for the scumbag, Derek happened to function automatically even without Casey's tears, and needless to say, he got what he deserved - no Casey and no pretty face to flaunt around town. He just had too much player rep baggage in his jeans for her to carry. Once was enough, twice was too much. So, he's permanently off the list.

And Derek.. it wasn't even him who told Casey everything that happened. She just heard about it. She tried to bring that up once, but the issue seemed to be tabooed by him. So, there were no further discussions.

| DerekVenturi: Then spill it. Who's this person you wrote about?

| LifeWithCasey: That poem and the subject of my thoughts are highly personal. The last person I would want to tell the deepest secrets of my heart to is you, so don't dream about it.

| DerekVenturi: Oh, c'mon. Do you really want to hide things from me? After what I did for you?

| LifeWithCasey: Typical. Let's milk the cow after feeding it grass, shall we? I knew there's a catch to this nice phase of yours, Farmer Brown. Why do you wanna know?

| DerekVenturi: Psh. Why don't you wanna tell?

| LifeWithCasey: Stop inquiring about the poem. End of discussion.

Derek squinted his eyes before making a full roll. What was this extra fuss about? How hard was it to spill out a name? He didn't need to do a roll call, it wasn't like there was a lot of probable candidates to inspire Grubby's poetic creations. He could blurt out three full names and her dirty little secret would be revealed faster than she could say 'what she really wanted to say'.

A mischievous smile crept across his face. Ah, of course. If her secret was going see the light of day, he needed to take advantage of this and milk the cow down to the last drop.

| DerekVenturi: Why don't we have a bet?

| LifeWithCasey: A bet?

| DerekVenturi: Yeah, since Farmer Klutz is trying hard not to spill the beans, I'm just gonna say outright who that poem is about. If I'm right, I get to ask you three questions and you have to answer them truthfully. If I'm not, you.. get to do the same to me.

| LifeWithCasey: No way! I'm not going to risk this just because you wanted to do your silly games.

| DerekVenturi: What? Scared? Tomorrow evening. Here on Twitter, we'll deal with this mystery person of yours.

| LifeWithCasey: I don't know..

| DerekVenturi: Chicken. Bawk, bawk. Old McKlutzy had a farm, e-i-e-i-o, and on her farm she had a big red scaredy chicken. E-i-e-i-o.

| LifeWithCasey: Shut up, Derek. I'm not chicken! And your version is beyond terrible. Don't ruin the song for the children.

| DerekVenturi: Oh, yeah? Tell that to someone who doesn't want to accept a challenge. What now?

| LifeWithCasey: NO WAY.

Derek did expect things to go this way, but he realized that it did seem that the poem was more valuable for her than he thought. Why would she protect this certain piece of work so much? So what if the name of the person she wrote this for was brought out into the open? It wouldn't be the end of the world, and it wasn't like she hadn't bored him to death with her other literary pieces. Why hide now? What was it about this one that was so confidential? Maybe this is about that Jacob Black of a werewolf freak. She's so 'Team Jacob'. What a fangirl. He snickered at the thought of Casey obsessing over a fictional character while pounding his thumb on the screen of his phone. If he couldn't convince her alone to accept his proposition, then it's time to ask for backup.

| DerekVenturi: RT if you like (at)LifeWithCasey to have a bet with me. Ladies who'd RT will get a sexy DM from yours truly. ;)

Due to his known charming reputation on Twitter, he instantly received tons of support from girls who were following him, some thinking that this Casey girl was someone he was currently wooing (since not everybody knew they were step siblings and not everyone who followed Derek followed Casey too) and they approved of it. And of course, who would pass up a sexy DM from the King of Twitter Babes, right? Well, Casey reacted to the 'wooing' issue and clarified things. Derek didn't. Whatever it would take to make Casey uncomfortable enough and annoyed enough to just choose to end the flood of replies she was receiving from 'his ladies' by agreeing to the bet he was waging, he'd go with it.

| LifeWithCasey: I don't even know anymore! Fine, fine, okay?

| DerekVenturi: See, I knew you'd come to your senses.

| LifeWithCasey: Whatever. But only on one condition! You will never hack into my computer to see the rest of the poem. If I see you near my laptop even if you're not doing anything, bet's automatically off.

| DerekVenturi: Fine.

| LifeWithCasey: Fine.

Earlier the next day, Derek hung out at Sam's place for some band jamming/video gaming session with his two closest friends. Ralph hadn't arrived yet, so he was busy making himself comfortable on the couch in the living room while waiting for Sam to get some snacks. He was all sprawled out, with one foot on the coffee table, while strumming the electric guitar that wasn't currently connected to an amplifier.

"So, what's keeping you busy, man?" Sam entered the living room carrying two cans of Coke and two bags of chips, one of which he threw at his pal who was doing a good job making himself feel at-home.

"Oh, I have this bet with Casey," Derek replied, catching the bag and opening it by ripping the bottom part with his teeth. He caught most of the chips that came out of the bag with his mouth, but some fell down on the floor.

"Dude, my mom's gonna kill you if you make a mess on the carpet," Sam reminded his friend, who merely replied with louder chewing, eye rolling, and his trademark smirking. Shaking his head, he flung himself on the chair adjacent to the couch Derek was fully occupying. "Bet with Casey?"

"Yeah, about this poem she's keeping on her laptop," Derek answered, in an almost bored tone.

"You're having bets about poems now, huh. What's the haps?" Sam said, opening his own bag of chips in the process - properly.

"Well.. I need to guess who the poem is about. If I guess it right, I get to ask her three questions and she has to answer them truthfully."

"Interesting," Sam nodded. "And if you don't?"

"She.. gets to do the same?"

"Oh, that's bad," Sam shook his head as he heard what he was putting at stake, which only earned a "Psh!" from Derek. "Or not? You can wiggle your way out of it."

"You know it," Derek replied smugly, opening his mouth for another round of falling chips.

"So, do you have an idea already?"

"Still trying to figure it out," Derek replied while shifting to a different position and extending both his legs on the coffee table, resting the guitar neck on his stomach. "It's called 'What I Really Wanted to Say'. And it's recent. Who could she be talking about?"

"Maybe it's Truman?" Sam shrugged, remembering that he was her most recent ex-boyfriend, thanks to Derek and his fist. He was at the party, he knew.

"No, she said it wasn't him," Derek responded right away. "I'm guessing it's Jesse. That summer fling-wing she had back at the lodge. Got moves, but no style. No swag, too flimsy."

"Wow, opinionated much, D?" Sam let out a chuckle, teasing Derek in a way that made him purse his lips and squint his eyes. The latter guy didn't want to go there. Now or ever.

"Whatever. Just help me out," Derek dismissed his best friend's jesting and grabbed one of the Coke cans Sam placed on the coffee table earlier. "So, it's either him or I don't know.. her dad?" He pulled the ring to open the can and chugged a portion of the contents.

"Maybe it's about you."

Derek, who was still busy downing his soda, choked on his drink, spilling pop on his shirt and the guitar which now got moved to his lap when he lurched forward in surprise.

"Ah, dude!" Sam hurried to move the guitar away from him then pulled a few tissue flaps from the box sitting on top of the end table.

"Well, I'm alright, thanks for asking," Derek rolled his eyes as he eased himself from coughing, pulling the wet portion of his shirt away from his skin. Sam threw him the tissue box so he could try to dry it up a bit.

"About me?" Derek asked, pertaining to the last comment Sam made about the mystery subject of Casey's poem. "Nah, she's not gonna waste her energy writing poems about me," answering himself, he went on and blotted tissue paper on his damp shirt.

"Any other clues?" Sam inquired, placing his guitar on the stand beside him.

"Well, the first two lines say.." Derek tried to recall the words he read from the poem yesterday, "..damn, I can't remember." He took a few more seconds before responding. "It's something about 'bothering her thoughts lately'."

"You think her dad bothers her thoughts?"

"It's possible!"

"And Jesse?"

"Probably, she was supposed to go to New York with him to try out this dance thing, but she turned it down. Maybe she was reconsidering the option," Derek mentioned, suddenly recalling what he did to Casey's planner a couple of nights ago. Feeling a little smug about his mischief, he snorted and shrugged, and went on to finish the rest of his soda.

"The chances are slim, dude. You'll never win this bet. It involves thinking and clearly you don't have enough clues," Sam said in a matter-of-factly, you're-kinda-screwed type of tone.

"Yeah, thanks for the pep-talk, man. My confidence level skyrocketed through the roof," Derek sarcastically replied.

"Seriously, though. It's Jesse," Sam gestured his right hand while his left hand dug into his bag of chips.

"Jesse, right," Derek nodded in agreement.

"Or you," Sam added with a sly smile.

"Don't push it, Sammy boy. I told you, she's not going to-" Derek pointed his finger at him, obviously starting to get peeved at his best friend's teasing.

"I know, I know. Gee, can't even take a joke," Sam waved his hand in front of him, aware that Derek could lose his cool any minute, although he wouldn't deny he was enjoying his antsiness.

"Or maybe it was about you, huh, Sam?"

"Nah, I don't think so. I've never really talked to her lately. And, come to think of it, D, you're the only person she gets to see everyday who actually bothers her all the time. So.."

"Not listening," Derek lay full-length on the couch, grabbed the pillow on his head and smacked it on his face.

"What's wrong with you, man? So what if the poem's about you?"

"It's not about me."

"Okay, fine. Whatever you say. It's not about you, sure."

Both guys glanced at the direction of the sound when they heard footsteps coming from the hallway. Ralph was finally in the building.

"Yo, what's up, dudes? Let's start rockin'!" Ralph greeted the two, hitting the snare drum he was carrying as a signal to start the jamming session.

A/N: As promised, here's half of my notes. This chapter is a little different than the original Twitter story because I added some things. Although they did have an argument about the poem and they did have a bet. I just chose to make the argument longer and then I added the Sam and Derek conversation.

Anyway, I'm almost done with the other half of this chapter, where they actually talk about the bet, but I'll just put this out there so you can read it.

ENJOY! Please review! Happy New Year to all!