The First Time

5.

Derek had another restless night's sleep. He tossed and turned as he ran over in his mind everything that happened between them.

He had thought that his interest was reciprocated but he'd obviously gotten that wrong, and yet he could swear that there was definitely some spark there. There must have been or she wouldn't have taken a rain check. And she had gone to the trouble to find out his name.

He smiled as he thought about it. He wondered if she'd had as much trouble finding out his name as he'd had finding out hers.

Hopefully someday he would find out.

But why hadn't she wanted to go out with him? It had only been for coffee after all.
Maybe she didn't drink coffee?

Another thought came into his mind. One that had been lurking there but he had been pushing it away because he found it so distasteful.

Did she have a boyfriend that she didn't want to cheat on?

He was surprised by the jolt of jealousy that speared through his body at the thought.

Not that he'd asked her to cheat. He'd only asked her for a coffee he reasoned.
But he knew already that he wanted more than coffee. He wanted her to cheat.

This girl was completely under his skin.

He couldn't believe how much the thought of her having a boyfriend upset him. It actually made him physically ill to think of another man touching her with his hands. It wasn't that he didn't want the competition. More that he was concerned that she wasn't the type to even be prepared to enter into a competition.

He didn't believe that she was the type of girl that would cheat.

And if she did already have a boyfriend then that would leave Derek on the outside.

Maybe that was what was so different about her from the rest of the girls that he usually associated with.

He sighed. The fog in his brain from a few consecutive nights of poor sleep was catching up on him. But it didn't look like that was going to improve in the near future.

And when she'd said "some other time" - why hadn't he asked when?

Maybe he was blowing this whole thing up out of proportion.

Maybe she just had an assignment to finish and she wanted to get home as soon as she could to work on it?

He glanced at his bedside clock realizing that it was almost morning and time to get up.

Maybe he could have made plans with her for this evening when she wasn't working but he'd been too dumbfounded by her rejection to even ask.

And he hadn't even gotten a contact number from her. What an idiot.

Maybe he did need his social secretary's help to even get past GO with any girl and this was the dating god's way of getting even with him for lying (or at least not exactly being truthful) to Mark.

He dragged his body from his bed and headed to the showers.
Somehow, he needed to find out just when "Some other time" was?

GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

Derek couldn't believe that he was doing this.

He'd made up some pathetic excuse to Mark about why he couldn't have lunch with him and here he was wandering the unfamiliar parts of the campus looking for her. He reasoned that if she was a student (which he still wasn't even sure of) then she didn't hang around any of the places that he normally did or she wouldn't have gone undetected for so long. So here he was outside the Psychology building watching the students as they filed out of class on their way to lunch and he realized just how stalkerish his behavior was becoming.