I Don't Mind

Chapter 11

Derek's POV 

3 days later...

Well, today is the first day of practice of the season. I'm excited to get back to playing hard, but it also means that me and Adrian have to be communicating a lot, talking to each other, coordinating our defensive schemes. Me and him worked so well together last year and I hope that we can still work even if we're not on the best terms, mostly due to me. 

I'm being a dick and I fully understand that, I should stop, but like I've said, it makes me really uncomfortable that someone else knows about the secret I'm most ashamed of. I really don't want people knowing about me, and Adrian, by no fault of his own, knows my deepest secret. 

In the last couple days, the only person I've actually talked to multiple times is Damian. He's super chill and he's a good guy. Again, gay guys are not my favorite people. To be honest, I don't really like gay people. If you're gay but laid back, then that's cool and I'm chill with you. If you aren't flaunting your gayness around, then I will be more likely to hang out with you. 

Damian is cool like that. If someone to talk to is something I need, then Damian is and has been that for me in the last couple days. 

Practice is at 3 today. The football season is starting before classes, but I still need to know what it's like to have to juggle constant travel with difficult work. I think the person that would know best that I actually want to talk to right now is Damian, who stays in the building next to mine.

I text him and ask if he can talk for a bit (non romantically still, obviously, I cannot stress how not romantic me and his relationship is) and he writes back pretty quickly and answers that he can talk for a bit and to meet him at the tables outside his dorm building.

It's already 10:00 AM, and I need to get some food before I starve to fucking death. I can't eat too much that I'm gonna be tired when practice starts, but I need something in my system before any sports can happen. 

I leave my dorm building and walk over to the benches he said to meet me at and he's already there, scrolling through something, probably TikTok. TikTok getting banned is pretty sad to me, and I'm gonna miss it. Hopefully an American investor can buy it and save the app and all of us from having to move to YouTube Shorts. 

"What's up?" I ask, taking a seat across the table from him.

"Not much, how bout you?"

"I'll have shit going on in about 5 hours, but right now I need to know how to juggle classes and sports because I was able to do it really well in high school, but that was without the multiple days of travel that I'm about to have to deal with this year."

"It's kind of difficult, but not that bad. You'll have time, I assume, at night after practice ends, and that's when you have to get your work done. I've been lucky because some of my teachers have given me assignment extensions because they understand how difficult it is to keep up with two massive time commitments at once. Figure that out before class starts, it will help you a lot to know what your teachers are like so you can know what classes won't give you extensions and what classes will give you extensions. If the teachers won't give you extensions, focus on those classes and utilize the extensions in the other classes," he states.

"Alright. Thanks."

"No problem. Listen, I've got a date in about an hour and I need to get myself into something presentable, you know, fix up my hair and shit, all of that," he tells me, pointing at his clothes, which are definitely not date attire clothes. He's wearing basketball shorts and a black t shirt.

"Oh, you've got a date? Who is it?" I ask, trying and failing to be a good brother.

"It's just some guy I met the other day after I left the bowling alley. He seemed cool, he was totally into me, and I just thought that it's about time that I put myself back out there so I just swung on it and asked him on a date."