Page 74 of Not Catching Love

I jump at Derek’s voice in the doorway.

Holy fuck, how long have I been standing here?

“Yes. Yes. I’m good. I’m ready.”

His lips kick up at the corner, and he holds something out to me.

“What’s that?”

“My JV sweater from high school.”

I hold my hands out, and Derek hands it over. It’s soft and smells like him.

“I was going to bring an old jersey,” he explains. “But with it being big enough for the pads and everything, you would have swum in it.”

“You were junior varsity?” I ask.

Derek winks. “Our school wasn’t very good.”

“And you want me to wear this. Around your friends?”

“You don’t have to,” he hurries to add. “You were worried about what to wear, and I thought … well, it sort of fits and—shit. This is dumb and weird, I get it. Don’t worry. I don’t know what I was?—”

I tug the sweater over my head, and I’m immediately surrounded by him. “You know you’re never getting this back now.”

“You’re gonna steal my sweater?”

“Yup.”

His eyes look extra green today. “Do I get a hug hello?”

I jump into his arms, and Derek catches me, like he needs that as much as I do. I bury my face into his shoulder, glad that Derek at least is giving me this. He lets me be needy. He lets me be just that bit too much.

“Come on, we’re going to be late.”

I reluctantly set my feet back on the ground and then pull on some sneakers before following him out to the car. It’s already warm, and the sweater is too hot to be wearing, but no way in hell am I going to take it off.

Derek drives us north, and it takes about an hour before we’re pulling up at a park where we’re meeting his friends.

Being this far from home, surrounded by strangers, gives me a solid moment of feeling completely displaced.

“Take however long you need to,” he says.

I turn to glance over at him. He’s wearing an old football T-shirt, stretched across his chest, and athletic shorts that hug his hairy thighs. His hair is messy, and his jaw is scruffy, and he looks like he’s begging me to crawl into his lap and hide there forever.

“These guys think we’re friends?” I clarify, focusing on them and not on all the ways I’m deficient.

“Wearefriends.”

I send Derek a glare out of the corner of my eye, which only makes his smile wider.

“Whatever assumptions they jump to about us are on them. We know what this is.”

“A two-year unnecessary torture session?”

“Exactly.” He grabs my hand and kisses the back of it. “Now, stop overthinking it and be yourself.”

I don’t point out that Derek is the only one dumb enough to actually like that person. But I’m going to fucking try.

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