"Dude. What's Casey doing?"
James was standing in the queue for breakfast in the dining hall, Derek to his left. Across the other side of the hall, Casey was sitting at their usual table, her head down and if James wasn't very much mistaken, she was banging it on the grey formica.
"She has a hangover." Derek said with a smirk.
"And banging her head on the table isn't going to make it worse?" James frowned.
Derek turned back to the food. "The head banging isn't about the hangover, it's about the fact that she's got to go house-hunting for next year with a hangover. She's cursing herself for letting us persuade her to go out last night."
"We didn't persuade her. We kidnapped her and told her she had to come with us on pain of death."
"I know. But she thinks she was weak for giving in. And I'm not taking the blame for the fact that she can't hold her alcohol."
James rolled his eyes. "It was the first time she could legally drink, D."
"Yeah. But she didn't have to drink the bar out of rum and coke."
"And you didn't have to keep buying them for her."
"Hey. If she can't learn to respect happy juice…"
James clunked his tray down on the runners of the counter. "Sometimes I'm surprised you two are even talking to each other."
Derek laughed. "Most of the time we aren't."
"Why's she house-hunting for next year anyway? Didn't you tell her?"
Casey's step-brother shrugged.
"Nope. I'll get around to it eventually."
"You're evil Venturi."
"I know. And she loves it really."
"Hi Case." The short, dark haired girl appeared beside Casey as she hammered out her few remaining brain cells. "You okay?"
"Hi Clare. I'm fine, just a headache."
The girl looked surprised obviously wondering why someone with a headache would be banging their head against the table. Casey flicked her eyes up to look at her. "Long story."
"Let me guess…it involves Derek?" Casey and Derek and their fights were legendary among their friends - and most of Kingston.
Casey nodded. Clare sat down beside her. "So what are you doing today? We've got a free day."
"They published the housing lists yesterday, I'm going to go and look for an apartment before they all go." Casey replied. It was fast approaching Easter which meant it was time to be looking for accommodation for their second year at college – unless they wanted to stay in dorms or move to a sorority house. Casey wanted to feel she had grown up a little since the beginning of the year – she couldn't live in Dorms anymore. And hanging around with Derek and James as she did she still didn't have a large number of female friends so the opportunity to be invited into a sorority house had not really arisen.
"Oh."
"Where are you living next year?" Casey asked, finally sitting up straighter in her seat and wincing at the bright lights.
"The girls I know from home have asked me to move into their apartment now that the sixth person has finally moved out."
"The weird girl that was stealing their food?"
"Yeah. Anyway, they've extended their lease for another year so I'm joining them. I'd ask you to come too but there isn't room."
Casey smiled. "Thanks, I appreciate the thought. I'll find something. I'm just looking forward to being away from Derek, finally."
"You don't mean that. You guys are like best friends."
Casey rolled her eyes. "It's an act, Clare. We fight like cat and dog."
"And you both love every minute of it. Where's Derek living next year?"
"I've no idea, and I don't want to know. Next year is going to be the year that I finally break away from the annoying appendage that is my step-brother."
Amused, her friend grinned and jerked her head to one side. "Speaking of annoying appendages…" as Derek approached their table.
Casey spent the morning phoning landlords. The afternoon she had earmarked for visiting the places. At lunch time, Derek flopped down into the seat beside her.
"So when are you starting to visit these places anyway?"
"In about fifteen minutes, why?"
"Are these landlords male?"
"Some."
"Take James with you." Derek ordered, automatically volunteering their mutual friend.
"Derek I'll be fine. I don't need to take your best friend house-hunting with me. I'm not stupid."
"If you start visiting strange houses on your own you are."
"James has a lecture. I can't ask him to skip."
Derek frowned. "I've got hockey practice. Find someone else."
"Derek…"
"Casey. Do it. I need Nora to be on my good side. I owe her money."
His step-sister turned her attention back to the list she was working her way through. "You owe every one money, Derek." She said without looking up.
"I don't owe you any."
"Yes you do."
"No I don't. I bankrolled you last night and believe me when I say you can drink your way through a wallet."
Casey's eyes widened. "How much did I have?"
Derek smirked. "Too much to be comfortable, but not enough to lose your clothes."
"Arghhh!" Casey thumped her slightly-recovered head down on the table again.
"Whoops there goes another brain cell…" Derek chuckled. "Right. I'm off to practice. Talk to James, you shouldn't go house-hunting without him."
And with that, he was gone.
Casey picked up her cell and phoned Clare.
"Clare, I need a favour."
"What was the oven like in that place, I didn't notice?" Clare asked as they walked down the steps from the small apartment building.
"I don't know, there was so much fat on the door I couldn't open it to find out."
"Yuck! One to strike."
"Yup. God this is demoralising. Half of the list has already gone and of the remainder that I can actually afford, most of it is thoroughly disgusting."
"Maybe the next one will be okay. Lead the way."
The next apartment was clean but it was attached to a funeral home. There was a cloying smell of death about the place and Casey felt bile rising from her stomach. She decided if she lived here then she would never be able to get drunk because she couldn't handle the smell on an already delicate stomach.
A bonus to the place might be that Derek would never just "drop in".
Ten minutes, (and a suspicious burning smell coming from next door), later and Casey and Clare left.
"Definitely not." Clare said as they walked away. Casey sighed.
"Unfortunately, it has to stay as a "maybe". At least it was clean."
"Casey you cannot live with dead people."
"I live with Derek."
"Ha ha. Now get serious."
"Clare I am being serious. Beggars can't be choosers. I'm in too weak a pecuniary state to turn down a gift horse."
Clare stepped in front of her. "Casey, I would rather you spent the year wedged in the tiny floor space between my desk and my wardrobe rather than let you sit next to me in lectures smelling of formaldehyde."
"I'll keep looking."
"You're late." Derek announced as Casey walked up the steps to the dining hall.
"You're obnoxious."
He grinned. "Any luck?"
"Nope."
"Nothing?" Derek queried as they went inside the building to meet James.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether or not I can stomach living next to dead people."
"Dead people? What they so short of accommodation they're renting out crypts now? That's funny."
"Your brand of humour stinks, Derek."
"Hey I'm not the one who's going to be sharing lying down space with decaying corpses."
Casey sighed, picking up the tray and starting to load her plate.
"Grab me an extra slice of the Crispy Cake." Derek instructed her.
"On my points?" Casey asked, referring to the credit system the catering employed to pay for the meals.
"Are we seriously going to argue over the inevitable?" Derek asked. "I'm growing. I need sustenance."
"The only thing getting bigger round here is your ego." Casey retorted, but Derek watched amused as she picked up an extra piece of crispy cake.
"You really shouldn't be watching my ego." He said, aware of the double entendre in his words.
"How can I miss it when you keep waving it in front of my face?" Casey said and Derek wondered if she had truly missed the double entendre in her words.
This had been one of the subtle changes in their relationship in the past six months that he had noticed. Their banter had not changed much, they still fought almost constantly. But the content had altered slightly, becoming more grown up and less…high school. On occasion, they both used phrases and terms which were almost sexual in nature – something Derek was aware of, but he doubted that Casey had noticed. She wasn't a complete innocent, although he was fairly sure she still hadn't put out for any of the losers she had dated, but he doubted that the idea of Derek as anything other than her brother had ever occurred to her.
She liked order and uniformity. Derek's father was married to Casey's mother therefore he was her brother. The fact that her comments were sexual just wouldn't compute in her logical mind.
Of course the other way that things had changed between them was that their bantering became part of their friendship. Clare wasn't joking when she described Casey and Derek as almost best friends. Casey didn't have many female friends because she had been adopted by Derek's large circle of male ones. And she liked it. They at least treated her like their sister even if her brother didn't.
It never occurred to her to date them.
Derek dated and some of them Casey even got on with. There weren't many that she met. He met girls at parties, but only if he or one of their friends had already seen Casey home. He never took them back to their dorm, and he never dated any of their roommates.
He had a reputation again, but it was more for his achievements on the ice rather than his pranks – although the Senior Hockey team one had been installed into the book of Queen's legends and rarely a party went past without people talking about it.
They had both grown up, and both acknowledged it. Even if they still wouldn't acknowledge the "friends" word.
They finished filling their plates and made their way to the cash desk. The member of staff sitting there smiled when she saw them.
"Is he pinching your food points again?" The matronly lady asked cheerfully.
"Hey! I'll waste away on the allocation they give me." Derek objected. "I'm a hockey player. I'm supposed to eat well."
"I doubt that chocolate crispy cake is high on the coach's list of priority foods." Casey pointed out. "There's too much saturated fat and refined sugars."
"Stop trying to be a killjoy. I'm just going to take my lump of fat and sugar and go sit over there with James." He grinned. "I'll see you in a sec."
The older woman smiled at Casey. "Your boyfriend is cute. He cares about you a lot."
Casey chuckled. "He's not my boyfriend. He's my step-brother."
"Really?" The tone said it all, but Casey was oblivious, her mind already on the housing problem again.
.
"Hi Case!" James greeted her when she sat down at the table.
"Hi Jay."
"Busy day?" He noted she looked tired, frazzled almost, although a lot of that was the way conversations with Derek sometimes made her feel.
"House-hunting. Honestly, I swear most of the places you need a Tetanus shot just to step through the front door."
Derek raised his head from his food. "I thought you'd decided to go live with the dead people?"
James frowned at Derek. "You've still not told her?"
Derek smirked and shrugged.
"Told me what?" Casey asked, suspiciously.
James sighed. "He's let you spend the entire day house-hunting hasn't he?"
"Yes…why?"
"Because my parents have decided to go into property rental. They've bought a student house in Kingston for me to live in and rent out the other rooms. There are four bedrooms: Me, Derek, Carl and I told Derek last week you could be the fourth. If you want to live with us that is."
Casey stared at her step-brother.
"Do you mean to tell me, that I just wasted a day off trudging round the disgusting pits of humanity known as student housing, knowing that I had a room in a house with friends already sorted out?"
Derek beamed. "Yup."
"Der-ek!"
James looked confused. "Do I take that as a yes?"
Casey flicked her eyes back to his. "YES! Please!"
Her friend smiled. "Great! That saves me finding someone else. I've got lots of friends but most of them are animals and I have no intention of living with them. At least I know you'll clean up after yourself."
Derek snorted. "Herself and everyone else."
James shrugged. "I'm not complaining. In fact, I think it's only fair as Casey will probably end up doing more than her fair share of the cleaning that she gets to have first pick of the rooms…after me of course."
"What?" Derek exclaimed.
"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me." Said Casey smirking at Derek, who narrowed his eyes at her in a way that said "just you wait".
"There's a converted attic room with en-suite that I'm going to take because it is almost a mini-apartment. Then there are three rooms on the second floor. One room is the old master bedroom, you'll probably want that Casey. Then the other two are doubles, but quite a bit smaller."
"The master sounds fine to me." Said Casey.
"You'll probably want the next biggest room, D. It's the last bedroom with a big bed in it. Oh…that won't work. It's next door to Casey's room."
Casey groaned as she saw a gleam appear in Derek's eyes.
He smirked. "I'll take it. It will be Home Sweet Home."
"Bugger." Whispered Casey.