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I really needed to post something, and this sucks and I'm so disappointed in this chapter. I'm sorry

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Disclaimer: All characters belong to Kelley Armstrong

Chapter 6

Chloe's P.O.V.

"I'm going out!" Tori called out, opening her bedroom door as she shrugged on a red peacoat and black scarf. Pulling a navy blue hat over her short cut hair, she began to tug on her charcoal colored boots.

"Where?" Derek asked, opening up his door, taking a few steps towards the kitchen, opening up the cupboard and grabbing a snack.

"She's meeting Ash's parents." I answered for her as Tori looked unusually nervous. "She's only been talking about for, what now, the past week?"

Derek shrugged, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table where I was sitting. "It's supposed to snow."

Tori huffed. "It's March, when will this weather act like it's damn supposed to?"

I glanced over at Derek from my homework. "How much is it supposed to snow?"

Derek took a bite out of his apple before answering. "A lot."

I sighed, grabbing my phone to check to the weather. With a groan, I put my phone down and pushed my homework away from me. "No point in doing homework, classes are definitely going to be canceled tomorrow. Almost a foot of snow in a few hours."

Tori took a deep breath, but reluctantly pulled her jacket tighter over her body. "I can't cancel, they're waiting to meet me."

"You probably shouldn't go then, after all, you want them to have a good image of you in their head, don't you?" Derek teased, his tone lighter than usual and a quarter of a smirk playing at his lips.

"Be safe!" I called out, giving Tori a small before getting up and walking over to her, embracing her in a quick hug. "Good luck."

Surprised by the sudden embrace, Tori stifled against me, but gave in and hugged me back. I had tried pretty hard lately to be more involved, already having a few careful conversations with Derek, and spending increasingly more time with Tori.

Derek stood up next, trudging over to us while fishing in his pocket. Firmly gripping his wallet in his hand, he plucked out twenty dollars and handed it to his little sister. "For a cab." He muttered simply, giving her a curt nod, before turning away. Tori smiled, putting the bill into her coat pocket.

"Thanks." Tori grinned shyly, something Tori would never do. "They better like me, or else getting caught in a snowstorm would've been for nothing."

I smiled softly at her, "They'll like you." I assured her.

She gave Derek and me a fleeting smile before turning her back to us and walking out the front door.

I turned back to Derek as I heard the lock click. "What time is it supposed to start snowing?"

Derek lifted his head up from his cellphone. "Around five, maybe."

I glanced at the digital clock that sat on one of the shelves in the living room. 4:07.

Derek swiftly stood up and grabbed one of his textbooks before plopping back down into the worn wooden chair. So Derek was staying in this area. Walking past him, I collapsed onto the warm grey sofa, cuddling with a plush navy blanket, pulling the soft cloth to my nose, the smell of pine and a hint of something invading my senses. It was strangely pleasant, however I'd never seen this blanket before, must be new.

Reaching for the television remote, I punched the On button and the screen roared to life, colors dancing and vibrant. Not wanting to bother Derek, I turned the volume down significantly and began to flip through the channels. Feeling strangely nostalgic wrapped in a fluffy blanket and with nothing particularly interesting on TV, I clicked on an older rerun of Spongebob Squarepants.

Minutes after deciding to watch the cartoon, I heard Derek's chair squeak against the hardwood floors. I checked the volume, noticing how low it was, and how careful I was to not interrupt him, I decided he just didn't like the show and went back to his room.

The couch dipped to my right, causing my heart to stop as I jumped in the air like a frightened cat. Derek leaned over closer to me as I placed one hand over my rapid heart, the other gripping the remote.

"D-don't do th-that!" My voice was shrill as I focused on breathing. "Next time I'll have a he-heart attack or something."

Derek scoffed, his green eyes bright against his pale skin. "Right, because healthy 5'1 twenty years olds have heart attacks everyday."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm actually 5'2."

Derek didn't say anything as he moved closer to me, his fingers grazing mine for a split second. I froze, now sure I was having a heart attack. Derek seemed to pay me no mind; his eyes glued to the TV screen as he tugged the remote from my grasp and turned up the volume, and moved farther away from me.

Oh, he was only reaching for the control. I flushed furiously as I tried to cover my face with my golden hair.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, both of us just watching the TV until Derek glanced over at me.

"How'd you get my blanket?" He asked curiously, wiping his hair out of his green eyes.

I looked at him. "Your blanket?"

Derek nodded. "It was on my bed."

Recalling just how much I enjoyed the scent of it, I blushed; it probably smelled like him. I began to untangle myself from it to hand it from him. "Sorry, it was here when I sat down. Here."

"Nah, it's okay. I can get it later, you seem cold." Derek shrugged and turned back to the TV.

"A-are you cold?" I asked, noticing how he was simply wearing a dark colored tee shirt and some faded jeans.

Derek shook his head. "I'm good."

I nodded and focused back on the show. During one of the commercials, Derek hit the mute button. "I didn't know you liked Spongebob." I muttered, facing Derek.

"Well, you were wrong." Derek replied, stretching out his back, his arms behind his head as he yawned.

I crossed my arms over my chest, staring at him. "You know, you remind me of Squidward."

That earned me a look. "And you remind me of Spongebob."

I grinned at him, pushing my hair behind my ear, about to reply when the power suddenly went out.

Derek groaned and stood up, pacing to the window as he stared across the New York City skyline, every light completely off as some snow began to settle on the chockablock streets.

I sighed, not expecting the power outage to come so early in the snowstorm.

"Do you think Tori got to Ash's alright?" I asked Derek, who was moving towards the kitchen.

Derek nodded. "Probably."

I nodded, silence settling in for a few moments before I shot up. "I should get some candles out before it becomes too dark to see."

Derek turned around to look at me before pacing towards one of the cabniets in the kitchen. Fishing out a flashlight he turned towards me, "Yeah, get the candles, we only have one flashlight."

I nodded, racing to my room to get any candles I could find. Sitting at the foot of my bed, I sifted through my belongs, searching for any candles as my neck rested against my plush comforter. Finally finding them, I stood up and walked back to Derek.

When I returned, Derek had slugged on an old sweatshirt, NYU written across his broad chest as he crossed his arms over his stomach.

"You should probably get something warmer to wear, the heater's going to be out all night." Derek pushed his dark hair out of his eyes as he stared at me.

"Thanks." I murmured, setting the candles down on the table. "So, what do you want to do?"

"Do?" Derek raised a dark brow.

I nodded, pushing my hair out of my face, as I pulled out a chair and sat down. "To pass time. Do you want to do something together?" My face was dark red, the heat of the question radiating off my cheeks. Based on the look on his face, Derek didn't seemed to want to be 'hanging out with me'. I really should have opened my mouth.

Derek didn't respond for a second before letting his arms drop to his sides, and for a second it looked like his guard was dropped. Derek shrugged, and pulled out a chair across from me; I tried to hide my blazing grin. "I don't know. What do you want to do?"

I thought for a second. "Got it! Board games!"

"Board games?" Derek snorted. "I don't think we have any."

I gaped at him. "You don't have any board games?"

Derek was quiet for a moment, thinking before letting out a groan. "I think somewhere in my closet there's a game from when I was a kid."

I smiled at him and jumped in my seat giddily. "Go get it!" I shooed him with the back of my hand as I got up and went looking for a match to light the candles.

Derek sighed, but got up nonetheless and trudged to his bedroom. After moments of rustling he emerged again from his room, an old dusty box firmly gripped in his hand. A crooked hint of a smile gracing his attractive features and my heart swelled.

"Prepare to get your ass kicked at Monopoly, Saunders."

…

"Pay up." Derek said, a deep laugh filtering through his voice as he held out his hand.

"No way I'm paying that much money for just landing there." I grinned back at him, shoving his hand aside.

"Rules are rules." Derek grunted as his green eyes stared in my direction.

"You know," I faked a yawn. "I'm suddenly feeling really tired."

He gave me a look. I coughed up the fake money pretty soon afterwards.

"It's freezing in here." I muttered, wrapping a blanket tighter around my body. Both Derek and I were wearing thick sweaters, and even draped in blankets it felt as though I was actually in the snowstorm.

Derek grunted in response, eyes focused on the game.

"I have an idea." I said with a smile, Derek looked up. "Wait here and no cheating."

I stood up and raced to my bedroom as I heard him call out, "No promises."

Swinging my bedroom door open, I leaped for the covers; ripping off the bed and holding them in both arms, making my small frame look absolutely ridiculous carrying the massive amounts of pillows and blankets. Slowly, one step at a time, I began walking back towards Derek, not being about the see anything in front of me and instead feel my way around.

"What the hell are you doing?" Derek wondered aloud, I could hear the annoyance laced in his voice as I set down everything I had just been holding.

"Not enough." I mumbled to myself as I looked around and noticed how little I had just heaved onto the floor.

I turned around, still not answering Derek's question and made my way quickly down the hall. However, this time, I wasn't grabbing the blankets from my room, but from Derek's.

The second I took a hesitant step into his room, I knew that it was a bad idea, but I've never been in his room before. I've never even seen what it looks like, but it was nearly twice the size of my room, a desk in the corner, plain white walls, and a black comforter placed on the bed. The whole room smelled so good, just like the blanket on the couch before, making my toes curl. But it was so clean, everything had a place and everything was organized, not one single article of clothing littered on the floor. Very Derek-like.

I stared at everything for a second before taking a soft step forward and grabbed the covers on his queen sized bed. Yanking them off I moved back to the kitchen, where Derek was staring at me as if I was insane, which this was. But hanging out with Derek was actually kind of nice, and I thought it would be fun.

"What are you doing?" Derek asked again, crossing his arms over his chest, his muscles bulging under the confinements of his sweatshirt.

"We're going to build a fort." I looked at him carefully, wanting to gauge his reaction to the previous comment.

He scoffed, brushing his dark hair out of his face. "No."

I pushed out my lower lip, pouting, hoping him to succumb to the innocent puppy eyes. "Please." He didn't budge.

"I'm not going to build a fort." He spat at the last word and moved back over towards the table at sat down promptly.

"Fine," I huffed, already pulling at the covers. "I'll do it myself."

Derek scoffed. "Yeah, knock yourself out."

I frowned, really hoping Derek would help me. I thought, that after a few months of occasional talking, he would have opened up more. That he would be wanting to spend more time with me and we could become friends.

Are we friends?

It was hard to tell with Derek, but I think we are friends, in a way. Given, I've only had a handful of conversations with him, but I seriously doubt Derek would have played a board game with just anyone. So actually, he's opened up enough. I never would have expected the Derek who slammed to door on my face the first day we met to ever be playing Monopoly with me. So, actually, this was a vast improve and I just expected too much, which wasn't fair.

In the midst of thinking about my rocky friendship with Derek, my foot caught on one of the sheets right as I was pulling on it, causing me to fall to the ground with a loud 'oompf', the noice echoing throughout the silent apartment like a scream. With a shaky laugh, I was thankful I landed on my soft comforter rather than the hardwood floor. I laid back into the sheets, one arm draped over my eyes and forehead as the other rested on my stomach.

Seconds later, Derek's deep voice was grumbling over mine. "I told you this was a bad idea."

I removed my arm from my face and opened up my eyes, Derek's body stood towering over mine. "Actually, you just said you weren't doing this."

Derek didn't say anything and began to retreat to couch, before I held out both my hands and called out to him. "Hey, aren't you going to help me up." I wiggled my fingers, as if a sign for him to help me up.

Derek stopped in his tracks for a moment, before letting out a sigh and moving back towards me. Jutting out his large hard, Derek held it in reach of mine, before I reached forward and gripped it firmly in mine, his hand the size of a baseball mitt compared to mine, but the jolt of electricity the zapped through each of my fingers sent a blush to my cheeks and I nearly pulled my hand away. I had to look away from him, embarrassed as to how good it felt and how my body reacted to his touch.

But I grabbed his hand firmly in mine and pulled, hoping for him to fall down and into the cushions, just like every movie where they pull someone into a pool. But he didn't move a muscle.

He let out a chuckle, "Nice try."

I grinned up at him, "It was worth a shot." My blue eyes glittered in the dimmed room. "Help me up for real now."

Derek's lips moved into a soft smile and my heart galloped against my ribcage, bringing the flaming blush back to my cheeks. Suddenly, the apartment was freezing cold anymore, but so, so hot and when Derek's hands touched mine for the second time I was sure they were sweaty and gross.

"No funny business." Derek's voice was calm, the interaction clearly not bothering him as much as it did to me. I couldn't speak in fear of stuttering, so I merely just nodded, and Derek's fingers became slightly tighter around mine and he easily pulled me up.

However, Derek overestimated how much I weighed, and picked me up harder than necessary, sending me flying into Derek's chest. In order to stop my self from collapsing onto the floor I threw my hands forward, in order to protect my face from the fall. But no impact seemed to come. Opening my eyes I realized that the hand I used to the ease my fall was pressed against Derek's chest, and his hand wrapped securely around my waist to prevent my fall.

Still pressed against him, I hesitantly looked up at him, and the world seemed to halt for just a second and my cheeks were now an unrecognizable shade of red and my heart felt like I had just sprinted a thousand miles in a single minute. The effect seemed to have no effect on Derek, he simply just looked down and me and dropped his arm from my waist seconds after he realized I wasn't going to fall.

I pushed my hair out of my face and jumped backwards, finding it suddenly difficult to breathe.

"Sorry." Derek muttered and stuffed his hands into his jeans.

"N-no pr-problem." I stuttered, turning my back to him to calm down. What was wrong with me?

After a few seconds I calmed down enough and stared at my handiwork. The fort.

"If I say so myself, I did a pretty good job." I lied, it was absolutely awful, half of the sheets falling under the furniture and pillows were scattered across the living room.

Derek snorted and swept his hair out of his eyes. "This is the worst fort I've ever seen."

I rolled my eyes and turned towards him. "Like you could do any better."

Derek smirked and looked at me as well. "I can."

I smiled softly, realizing this was the way to get him to help me build this.

Putting my hands on my hips, I smirked back at him. "Put your money where your mouth is and prove it."

I really really needed to post something, I'm so sorry this sucked. I had such a cute little plan for this chapter, but I really failed at executing it. Like big time.

Don't forget to favorite, follow, and review!

Thanks, Bridget