Sorry it's kind of a short fluff chapter, but I wanted this chapter to be just Casey and Derek so I couldn't fit in the other parts yet. Posting the next one either tomorrow or the day after don't worry!

As we sit down at the diner, the waitress walks over to take our order. She's a middle aged blonde woman who gives a big smile to Derek.

"Derek! How are you?" She asks.

I guess he's been to this place before. Supposedly a lot considering she knows his name.

"I'm great Gina! How's my favorite blonde? Did you miss me?" he says with his usual charming smirk.

"Please Derek, don't try to flatter me. We all know who your favorite blonde is. I'm happy to see you back for the year though. Now who's this pretty lady?" She looks over at me with a friendly wave.

"Gina this is Casey. Casey this is Gina. Beautiful blonde that brings me breakfast foods, a woman after my own heart."

She laughs and smacks the back of his head while giving out a hand for me to shake.

"I'm Derek's st- friend from school. We're room mates this year."

I don't know why I'm continuing this whole 'pretend we're not family' thing around her too but I guess it'll be easier to practice the pretending if I did it full time.

She nods and lets me know it's nice to meet me before asking us to order.

"I'll have a hot chocolate with the #13 omelette and hash browns and she'll have the orange juice with the strawberry french toast." Derek responds before handing back mine and his menu.

After she leaves the table, I reach over the table and smack him on the back of the head, like Gina just had.

"Ow! It's not even noon yet and I've been smacked twice," he complains while rubbing the back of his head.

"Why did you order for me? I am perfectly capable of ordering for myself. What if that wasn't even what I wanted?"

"But was I wrong?"

"No… but still," I'm looking down at the table and mumbling now, "How did you know that's what I was going to order though?"

"I know you better than you think Princess," he responds.

"Who's the favorite blonde Gina was talking about?" Only blonde I could think about was Sally and I didn't think they were still in touch.

"Olivia, we came here a lot last year and Gina loved us."

"Oh," I respond, not really knowing what else to say. Why is he bringing me to the place he eats at with Olivia? I still don't believe him when he says he doesn't have feelings for her, there's no way he'd be that close to a girl without having feelings for her.

We talk about things here and eventually once our food comes, we eat together in comfortable silence. If it was anybody else, I would've felt like I need to keep the conversation going while we eat out of formalities, but I'm so comfortable around Derek it's nice to sit in silence together while we eat.

Furniture shopping goes well, of course Derek want's the most simple and ugly tables/couches while he says mine look too girly.

Eventually he agrees that we can get the living room furniture that I like if he can get a recliner chair. Typical but it's a good bargain to get to decide everything else, and we do have enough in our budget from what Abby and my dad had gave us for furniture.

Since George and my mom had paid for the apartment (George considered it an investment that he could lease out to future college students after we graduate - a good way to have a constant flow of money for all the other kids he has to send to college), Abby and Dennis had felt guilty and decided to help us out with furniture.

As for the rest of the year, the day to day stuff we'd handle ourselves. I still had a good amount of money saved up from working in New York, and Derek had just gotten a job as a waiter at an Italian place on campus that I had yet to see.

When we're done picking everything and settling on the shipment dates, he sits down exhausted on one of the couches.

I'm about to yell at him to get up so we can get going when he grabs a hold of my wrist and pulls me down on the couch too.

"Derek lets go homeeeee," I'm starting to whine.

He puts his forehead on my shoulder and acts like he's about to fall asleep. I'm rolling my eyes, furniture shopping is really not that tiring.

"Soon, lets rest here for a minute."

Sighing, I pretend like I'm annoyed but I'm actually kind of comfy so I settle into the couch, his forehead still resting on my shoulder with his head facing downwards.

A cute old couple is walking by us.

"Aw aren't you two just the cutest couple?" the grandma exclaims looking at us, "Newly weds shopping for your new home?"

"No- college students shopping for their apartment," Derek responds, not correcting her on the couple part.

"Oh so sweet, I remember when we were your age. Moving in together all young. Don't believe anybody when they say you're too young to know she's the one, okay?" the grandpa says.

I want to correct them on the couple part but I'm more interested in the story behind why he's saying this so I ask him what he means. They tell us a whole story about how they moved in together in college, and everybody said they were too young to know they'd be together forever but now they've been married for 50 years, and together for 55.

"Yeah don't worry, I know Case will always be in my life," he says while giving me a wink, his arm around me. When did he even put his arm around me? How did I not notice?

"Yeah well, our parents are close," I say giving him a smirk back.

—

On the car ride back, Derek starts turning towards our street.

"Derek I'm meeting Jake for coffee remember?"

"Oh yeah, how could I forget?" he groans, before turning around to drive me to the coffee place.

"Do you have a problem with this or something? Is Jake not a good guy?"

"No," he mumbles, "Jake is a great guy."

"Then what's the issue?"

"Nothing. I just don't like you dating my friends."

"No Derek if I seem to remember right, you don't seem to like me dating anybody. You didn't like Max or Truman either. Also made jokes about Jesse most of last summer."

"Well first of all, nobody likes Truman. Max just had no personality and Jesse I was right about not liking too."

"Is there any guy that you'll ever be okay with me dating?"

"Yeah- one guy but you wouldn't date him."

"Wait what do you mean?"

"Nothing, we're here." He leans over and opens the car door, kicking me out. Leaving me more confused than ever.