Not Catching Love (Accidental Love #5)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Xander

“… meeting up with my football buddies.”

That sentence does something to me. First, Derek playing football is hot as fuck, and I need to see that, but second— “With Manny ?” I ask, switching my phone to the other ear.

He chuckles, and thankfully, he finds my jealousy amusing. For now. I’m not an idiot to think he’ll always be like that, but knowing he’s ditching me for them has a pit burrowing deep in my gut. “Of course he’ll be there.”

There’s a pause while I try to work out how the hell a normal person would respond to this. How to tell him it sounds fun and I hope he wins, without it sounding like I’m speaking through dirt.

He gets in first. “Did you, uh, wanna come?”

“And play football?” Does he want me to be murdered?

Derek laughs properly, and I’m glad he finds that idea as ridiculous as it is. “You can play if you want to, but I meant to meet my friends.”

The pit eases. “You want that?”

“Of course. I’ve met yours.”

The fact he’s even suggesting it lessens the stabby rage I wanted to fly into, but now I’m faced with the complete opposite. Anxiety. These are his friends. His friends who he’s been friends with for a very long time and are of the jock variety that I never vibed with in high school.

Derek might have his lust goggles on, but none of them will.

They’ll see right through me.

They’ll know I’m not good enough for him, and then what if they tell him that?

Is it so bad I want Derek to be deluded for a little longer?

“If that’s too much?—”

I cut off that train of thought. “No, I … I want to, obviously, but …”

“What’s wrong?”

I’m a hot mess, and you picked wrong, and you really should move on with your life and find someone who’s worth your time and won’t drag you down into their shit.

“Xander?”

“I’m …”

“Are you nervous?”

I guess that’s a mild way of putting it that won’t terrify him. “Yes.”

His voice softens. “They’re going to love you. I’ve … told Manny a lot about you.”

I’m not sure why that surprises me, but it isn’t something I’d thought about before. “What did you say?”

“That we’ve been hanging out a lot. That you’re really cool, and I love spending time with you.” Derek sighs. “I wish I could have said more. ”

I draw a circle on the carpet with my foot and shift the phone back to the other ear. “What more would you have said?”

This is one of those moments. One where we get close to Derek telling me what’s on his mind right before he pulls back again. The little tease of him telling me he wants more without him actually saying the words. I’m not so sure I’d survive Derek telling me he wants to be with me, so that’s something. No dying from spontaneous cardiac arrest before I even have a chance to find a boyfriend.

Like every other time, Derek’s self-control holds out.

“Can I come and pick you up?”

I glance down at what I’m wearing. “I don’t really have an outfit appropriate for standing in a field.”

“I got you.”

He hangs up, and I’m left wondering what the fuck that means.

Rush does a double take as he passes my room. “Are you okay? You’re very still. Is this a petit mal seizure?”

“This is meeting the boyfriend’s friends shock.”

He glances around again. “You have a boyfriend? Is he in the room with us?”

“Urg, you’re as bad as Seven. And Molly. And Derek.”

“I’m lost.”

“Fine, Derek isn’t technically my boyfriend.”

Rush crosses his arms and leans against the wall in thought. “If he’s not technically your boyfriend, then it means he isn’t your boyfriend, so therefore, you don’t have a boyfriend, so how on earth are you meeting the friends of someone who doesn’t exist?”

“Do any of us really exist? There’s a theory that the world ended in 2020, and our consciousness is refusing to let go of existing. ”

“That’s true. It’s impossible to know, really. The other theory is that the barrier between multiverses is weakening, and we’re slipping in and out. Which would explain why I keep losing my chia pet.”

I glance over at the clay unicorn on my windowsill. Madden gifted a different one to each member of the house. “Why do you move it?”

“I don’t. But somehow, it ended up in the downstairs bathroom.”

“Maybe you took it down there to water it?”

He thinks for a moment. “That actually makes perfect sense.”

My phone lights up with a text from Derek, letting me know he’s out the front.

“Shit, I have to go.”

Rush straightens and turns to leave. “I hope your consciousness has fun with your imaginary boyfriend’s not-real friends.”

“Thanks. I hope your chia pet is done playing hide-and-seek.”

Even though Derek’s waiting, I pause to check my reflection. My reflection made up of fragments of a person. My hair. My eyes. My skin. Focusing on each little piece is easier than trying to look at my whole self because it disappoints me every time. Too short. Too skinny. Hair too harsh for my skin or too faded to be cute. My clothes too loose or too tight or too long or too short.

My freckles need a touch-up.

Some of them have faded, and the thought of meeting Derek’s friends, of them not being able to see the tattoos, not coming to the conclusion that I’m cute and sweet and worthy of him … I swallow the taste of panic and try to remember what Sherwin said. Something about refocus. About re membering what I do like. About taking back my agency. My eyes drift closed, and I try to remember. I’m here. I’m alive. There’s something about me that Derek likes enough to keep coming back.

“Hey, you ready?”

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.

“We are friends.”

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.

I climb out, feeling like I might vomit, and follow him across the park to where a whole bunch of really tall guys are standing. Some of them are still in shape like Derek, others have dad bods or scrawny legs, and one of them has a cuddly belly spilling over his gym shorts.

And all of them are happy to see him .

I step slightly behind Derek, hoping they won’t pay me any attention, until one says, “Hey, this must be Xander?”

I glance up at a Black guy with perfect teeth and a fade hairstyle. “Umm, hi.”

“Derek will not shut up about you. It’s embarrassing. He’s an embarrassment.”

My eyes cut to Derek, and my brain abandons me on what to say. How do I act around these giants? How do I guarantee that they like me and don’t pull him aside and tell him to ditch the loser?

I remember how jocks treated me in high school. I remember how they’d look at the scrawny kid with dyed hair and whisper slurs behind my back.

Derek steps closer, and his proximity is enough to remind me that whatever it was like back then, Derek would never let his friends be cruel. “I tell him he’s an embarrassment frequently,” I say, quieter than I want to, but the man laughs.

“I’m Manny. That’s Cherry, Dongo, Flipper, and Tim.”

“Tim doesn’t get a nickname?”

“Who says the others do?”

The teasing helps release some of the anxiousness throttling me. “Poor them if they don’t.”

“Hey,” protests the guy with the big belly. “I can’t help that my mom thought Flipper was a good idea.”

Flipper? Flipper ? Before I can tell him that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard and remind him that he can legally change his own name, Derek tilts his head by my ear. “Don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He’ll tell you that he saw aliens land in his backyard and kidnap his dog with a straight face.”

“That really happened,” Flipper insists, tossing a ball Derek’s way.

“And your name is really Pat.” Derek throws the ball back, harder. “Stop trying to scare off my friend. ”

“But then how else will we know he’s good enough for you?” Dad-bod Dongo asks.

“You trust me when I say that he is.”

It’s like my heart gets little wings as Derek and his friends head toward a bigger group further across the field.

Manny nudges me with his elbow as he passes. “Nice sweater. Now, I could be wrong, but I swear I’ve seen it before …”

My cheeks heat because I’m not sure if Derek wanted people to know or not. That said, it’s from high school—surely Derek knew these guys would recognize it.

I scramble for an excuse, trying not to give myself away. “I was cold.”

“Makes sense. I always have my JV sweater on the back seat, waiting for the day someone is cold at the start of summer.”

“Stop calling me on my shit. It isn’t cute.”

Manny laughs. “Hannah steals my clothes all the time too.”

“I have no idea what you’re implying.”

“Just … go easy on him. Derek hasn’t dated in a really long time, and I was worried about him there for a bit. Got real down about … I dunno. Something. Kind of lost himself for the last year or two. Just be good to him.”

I’m uncomfortably aware that I might have been the reason for the last few years. “I don’t know how to be good to anyone.”

Manny pulls me into step with him. “Clearly, Derek disagrees. My man doesn’t date just anybody.”

“We’re not dating.”

“Really?” He looks legitimately surprised. “I dunno, man. It looks a whole lot like it to me.”

Me too, Manny. Me too. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Derek hasn’t explained the whole situation, and so I have no idea how Manny would feel knowing that I used to be one of Derek’s patients. That I still would be if he wasn’t such a good person who actually has morals.

We might look like we’re dating. We might want to be dating. I might be growing more sure with every day that he’s the man I’m falling for.

But we’re not dating. And when my brain isn’t playing tricks on me, I know reality is the only thing that counts.