Derek was right. Spontaneous kisses were, in fact, amazing, but they could also have repercussions when involving your, eckhm, stepsibling.
After a passionate kiss in her family's closet, Casey made Derek vow never to speak of it again. If living in the moment made her kiss her literal stepbrother, Casey deemed spontaneity officially over and done with. Their parents were married, for Christ's sake, and they shared a brother, end of story! They couldn't ruin everyone's lives around them because of what could only be considered lust. Casey was adamant about never, ever kissing Derek again.
There was a point in time Derek Venturi would've ruined George and Nora's marriage just to get away from Casey, but now, he was willing to risk it all to be close to her. She was the apple of his eye (once sworn to be the Garden of Eden kind). Regardless of whatever feelings Derek had developed, Casey squashed them with her haste words, suggesting they forget all about their moment of, what she called, weakness.
Casey was always the one to want to talk things out, and yet she chose now to avoid confrontation? Her avoidance made Derek extremely heartbroken and embarrassed the kiss(es) happened in the first place.
Derek Venturi had every reason to be angry with Casey for ignoring their multiple makeout sessions, and yes, he was angry, but he also never wanted her more in his life. Kissing her made him crave the unattainable. Even with girls he's had chemistry with in the past, kissing became increasingly dull after the first round. Casey was different, and for some reason, she had the opposite effect on him. Sam's high school obsession with her was starting to make a lot more sense.
While Derek put in an extra hockey practice just to drown out his thoughts for a while, Casey stayed home to bury herself in her books. When her books failed to occupy her mind, Casey turned up the radio and started to clean her apartment from top to bottom.
There was a knock at the apartment door, and Casey rushed to answer, excited that her pizza order arrived. After cleaning, she definitely deserved a reward, and what better reward than greasy food?
Oh, great; she was thinking about greasy pizza and greasy pizza reminded her of Derek because Derek liked greasy pizza. Ugh! Maybe if she wore a rubber band and popped it every time she thought of his name, that would solve all of her problems.
Upon opening the door, Casey's smile faded when she saw Jimmy standing behind the threshold. Unless he was holding her pizza, she didn't want to see him.
"Hey, Case." Jimmy had a wandering eye while staring at a sweaty Casey. She crossed her arms, unwilling to play around with this guy.
"Hi, Jimmy."
"I was in the neighborhood, and I thought we could go out for a ride if you're not too busy."
"I am busy. Cleaning and such," she told Jimmy.
"Oh, are you sure? I just thought we hadn't hung out in a while, and you were so eager last week to get together..." The reason they hadn't hung out was all Jimmy's fault, actually. Jimmy couldn't solidify a relationship, and Casey was clearly a last option to him. She wasn't going to entertain him because he was bored, only to end the night the same way it began.
"Things have changed." She shrugged her shoulders.
"What? Is there some other guy?" He asked.
What did it matter to him? He didn't want to be her boyfriend, and he didn't have the nerve to friendzone her either. He was a coward.
Casey should have said yes to Jimmy's question to make him jealous, but he didn't deserve a lie. He wasn't important enough.
"It's not about another guy, but it's about me realizing what I deserve and what I don't deserve. Jimmy, you've strung me along for long enough. I'm sorry, but whatever this is or was is over."
With that, Casey shut the door in his face. Bye, Jimmy!
There truly wasn't any chemistry there to begin with, so no love was lost when Jimmy pulled out of the driveway for the last time.
By the time Casey finished cleaning and had a couple of slices of pizza, Derek finally returned. As he entered the room, he was busy smiling over the phone with someone.
"You know I can't wait to see my favorite girl again. Miss you, too. Bye."
Of course. Of course, Derek moved on already! Was Casey supposed to think their kisses were special? This is one of the many reasons why she could never ever let herself fall for Derek Venturi. She could never be one of his many girls.
Sure, she said she wanted to forget about kissing him, but he didn't have to move on so quickly. He was treating this situation carelessly, like Casey was just another girl to check off his list. Maybe she was being hypocritical, but it still broke her heart.
When he clicked the phone off, he found his favorite spot on the couch. Casey, not wanting to be near him, made her way to the kitchen to clean her dish and seal the extra pizza away for later.
Derek followed her, pretending to look for a snack in the fridge.
"There's leftover pizza if you want it." There was bitterness in her voice, but she couldn't help it. Quite frankly, Casey didn't care if Derek caught on to her tone or not.
"You stayed home all afternoon or...?" He asked, trying to make friendly conversation, but he could sense the thick tension in the air. The tension that was between them since returning to Uni.
"I did. Jimmy came over."
Was she trying to irritate him?
"He did? I hope he didn't stink up my couch with his cheap Axe body spray," Derek clenched his jaw, clearly annoyed.
Derek, like a dog that marked its territory, didn't want Slim Jim sitting in his spot.
"Axe is better than the smell of your stale chips in the cushions, but no, he didn't sit there. In fact, he didn't stay long."
"Good. I mean, you two have nothing in common," Derek said.
"I know, which is why I ended things. We were hardly friends, and there were no benefits, so I wiped my hands clean of that relationship."
Derek knew Casey and Jimmy never kissed, but it was nice to have Casey quite literally confirm it. He didn't want another guy touching her, and he didn't care if that came off as possessive. It wasn't a secret he was trying to hide anymore.
"That means I won't have to see him again? Can't say I'm heartbroken."
"What about you? Do you have a hot date tonight with the girl you were on the phone with?" Casey asked, scrubbing too hard on her dish, fingertips shriveling up.
"The girl I -" Derek thought for a minute, wondering what Casey might be referring to until the light bulb went off, "Oh, you mean that phone call. Why? Would you be jealous?" He smirked.
"Jealous? I don't even know her. She's probably some blonde bimbo -"
"Brunette." He corrected.
"Brunette bimbo you'll hook up with and never see again."
She was jealous and a horrible liar. As much as he liked to watch her squirm, he had to set her straight.
"That would make sense if it wasn't Marti I was talking to," he said.
"Marti?" Casey asked, processing what Derek said, her face turning red.
"Yeah, she called because she missed her big brother. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't call my little sister a brunette bimbo," he chuckled.
"Whoops. Sorry." Poor Marti.
"Casey McDonald, were you jealous?"
"Me? Jealous? Pfft. Never."
The crown for master of denial had slipped from Derek's head and landed on Casey's.
It was funny to think about how everyone around them assumed there was something between them, and the more they assumed, the more Casey pushed against the idea, denying the existence of anything going on. (Even after the kiss.)
Heck, just last week, Becca Tang from French class suggested Casey go on a date with Derek. Of course, Becca didn't know they were related, but she sensed their suppposed chemistry. And what did Casey do? She denied and denied and denied. But lying to one's self doesn't change the truth.
"Just admit it, you were jealous. I, Derek Venturi, am in your system now." Derek slid his hand over the marble countertop as he situated himself beside Casey.
The tension between them was so thick that it was bound to snap eventually, and Derek was not trying to stop it.
"Yes, you're in my system like a horrible flu," she scoffed.
There's that denial again.
"You're attracted to me," Derek said, as a matter of fact. As if this wasn't up for negotiation.
Casey looked at him as if he called her the ugliest name in the book. It was one thing to kiss on a whim, but quite another to verbally communicate about your so-called attraction.
Derek inched closer, his arm brushing hers as she dropped her dish towel over the sink.
"Derek, we are total opposites," Casey said.
"Opposites attract."
"Not us. Face it, we want different things -"
"I like kissing you. You like kissing me. That's not so different, if you ask me."
Casey's heart started to pound. Sharing a couple of kisses with Derek had inevitably opened a flood gate she desperately needed to close before she drowned. If only the gate was as easy to close as the door that she slammed in Jimmy's face, but it wasn't.
"I never said I liked kissing you," With the way she kissed Derek, it was implied she enjoyed it, but still. "I barely even like you as a person."
"You know... and I know... that's a lie." Hmm, Derek wasn't falling for it.
"Okay, well, you don't like me as a person," she said.
"Let's say I've had a change of heart," he suggested.
"That would require you to have a heart." Ouch.
"And if I admit I have one, will you admit you're lying? Will you admit you enjoyed kissing me?"
Learning at an early age to have self-restraint with the ladies, Derek found himself oddly slipping with Casey. He didn't want to be a gentleman. He wanted to lift her onto the countertop and kiss until her moans audibly explained to him just how much she enjoyed kissing him.
"I'm not lying."
"So if I," Derek placed his calloused hand behind her neck, tilting her face upward with his thumb, "kiss you again, you wouldn't kiss me back?" Derek's mouth hovered over her lips and then motioned down to her neck. Casey reached for his shirt, clutching the fabric, but ultimately mustered up enough courage to push him away.
"I'm not kissing you! What happened between us was a mistake!" Who was she trying to convince? Derek or herself?
"Was it? I tend to forget about my mistakes, so why is it I can't stop thinking about you?" Derek muttered, almost as a desperate cry for help.
Derek couldn't stop thinking about her, and it wasn't until he said as much out loud that she believed him.
"I - I don't know. Maybe there's unresolved tension from when we were kids that we're getting out of our system. But we don't need to let it go any further. It'll get messy and -"
"Let it get messy," Derek shuffled closer once again.
"You don't mean that."
"Oh, I fucking do. Right now, I want to kiss you just to shut you up, and then I want to kiss you again for good measure. So unless you have a valid reason why I can't touch you in the privacy of our kitchen, I'm gonna -"
This was it; the gates were officially broken.
Casey caught both of them by surprise when she reached on her tippy toes to kiss Derek. Derek, taking no time to recover, kissed her back gently and slowly, relishing a moment he was afraid he would never be able to experience again.
Casey was dead wrong about this being solely unresolved tension or lust. This was real. This was raw. This was scary.
As Casey struggled to wrap her mind around the truth, Derek was beginning to worry he may be in love with Casey McDonald.
