The First Time

3.

Meredith sat at her desk trying to stop thinking about her conversation with Izzie and the guy with the blue eyes ... Derek and get her mind back on to her assignment, in another apartment, just off campus; an interesting byplay was taking part.

"Tell me again why you aren't coming man?" Mark asked Derek perplexed.

"Mark!" Derek exclaimed starting to get frustrated. "It's not like I actually play football! Why do you need me to come along to watch anyhow?" Derek asked.

"Because you always come." Mark replied simply. "And then when the games over, we go and have a few beers with the boys. It's what we always do." Mark added. He looked forward to his game of football...otherwise know as a bunch of graduate students who wished they were still playing college ball running around as shirts and skins in the middle of the field at the edge of campus...every week and he didn't see why it should change. "It won't be the same without you."

Mark's last statement took all the anger out of Derek and he couldn't help but laugh. "Awww. That's touching. You'll miss me." Derek teased. "You know, you'd better not say that in front of the guys or they'll look at differently."

"Shut up. You're just jealous because Callie said she'd come out with me on Friday night." Mark replied.

"I told you I'm not interested in Callie. She's all yours." Derek explained.
"Why? What's wrong with her?" Mark asked, suspecting that Derek had some inside knowledge.

"Nothing." Derek assured him. "I'm sure she's great. She's just not my type."
"And what exactly is your type? I'd love to know. You seem to have tried out quite a few and yet you still can't settle on any one."

"I promise when I find out, I'll let you know." Derek said, thinking about a certain young lady and wishing that Mark would just get going and leave him to put his plan in to action.

"Hmmm. I'm not so sure that you will. You'd be too scared that she'd prefer me to you." Mark teased.

"That's it." Derek agreed facetiously. "I'm quaking in my boots." Derek replied teasing his friend. "Now ... don't you need to get going?"

"Yeah." Mark said looking at his watch. "Are you sure that you don't want to come with? " he asked again, still not prepared to give up easily.

"I'm sure. I've got some things that I have to do." Derek explained cryptically looking up from his desk where he had spread some books out in front of him hoping that Mark would take the hint. He didn't want to lie to his friend but he also didn't want to tell him what he had planned.

"Don't you dare try to tell me that you have to study?" Mark commented. "You haven't needed to study since you got here and you're still acing all of your courses. I'm the one that's barely scraping by."

"I've just hit a bit of a problem that I need to sort out." Derek responded looking up from the books and thinking that it was literally the truth. Normally he didn't have to study. As long as he concentrated in lectures, it seemed that the stuff just stuck in his brain. Ever since he'd started his first biology course, it just seemed that it all made sense to him.

But today he hadn't been able to concentrate at all. He'd even sat in a class where the topic of the day was the female reproductive anatomy and daydreamed his way through thinking about a certain junior's reproductive anatomy. If there had ever been any doubt, he knew then, that he needed to do something to get himself out of the funk that she seemed to have him in, otherwise he'd be flunking classes along with Mark.

"Okay." Mark said resignedly. "I guess I'd better get going then. Will you meet us for drinks after the game? You can be my wingman." Mark asked, still not happy with this change of routine.