Make Me Choose You

Chapter 1

Casey groaned frustrated, here she was less then a few weeks before classes started at Queens and she still didn't know what to do for the fall. She had been so set on going there earlier in the summer, had been going over class catalogs and even had gotten Derek excited about a few things on campus besides the hockey program or dating sorority girls.

Yet in a blink of an eye, a possibility of achieving her dreams of dancing fell into her lap and suddenly she was torn. She could easily take the job, move to New York with her Dad's help and pursue her dancing career. The thing was she could just as easily go to Queens, study law like planned and pursue...maybe something with ...Derek? Deep down Casey knew he was a factor, more then she wanted to admit because he was her step-brother and going to New York meant saying goodbye to everything she hoped for between them as crazy as it was, let alone what they had become the last four years which she liked to believe most of the time as friends.

Derek would play college hockey, maybe go pro and probably marry some dippy blonde model cause he was shallow like that to her. Yet what Casey did hope for their future was probably far less realistic in her mind, they were step-siblings after all so it wasn't like they could even achieve it and was basically wrong anyway.

The only thing Casey did know at the moment was her room was far to stifling to allow her to think properly so almost on autopilot she left it and found her self barging into Derek's. "Hey Case, you lost?" Derek asked with a smirk as he looked up from a booklet about Queen's hockey stats. Not answering him, Casey sat down at the end of his bed and sighed frustrated as she leaned back on her elbows, staring off at the random posters on Derek's walls. "Lemme guess, still haven't decided on Queens yet?" He asked as he tried to distract himself from the fact she was elongated on part on his bed currently but he was failing because his eyes were tracing her shape. Derek had always loved Casey's dancer body and it was an understatement to say he had only a few fantasy's about running his hands along it. So with her on his bed currently, it was more then just a little distracting.

"I don't know what to do. I mean I have already preregistered for some of my classes at Queen's and it would be incredibly rude to the professors to just drop out of them but then again New York is once in a life time opportunity. I can't guarantee that I am going to get another chance like this." Casey explained a bit dramatically as she looked over at him. "What do you think I should do?" Derek was broken from his little day dream of pinning her down where she was, at that question and looked at her dumbfounded.

"You actually care what I think?" Derek asked confused and a tiny bit sheepish after what he had been imagining. Casey looked back at him just as surprised she had even asked him for his opinion, maybe she was losing her mind from stress or maybe it was the look in his eyes that she caught sight of that did it. Well his eyes and allot more. From the angle she was at, she couldn't help noticing that his shoulders were becoming far more broader and the years of high school hockey had defiantly payed off in the muscle department. Why at that moment she was just noticing that but it was making her mind even more fuzzy. In any case though those things had to be the reason for her sudden moment of insanity of actually asking Derek Venturi for advice on her future. The guy couldn't even decide on what to grab for a snack out of the refrigerator about half the time. "Yeah, I guess I do...I mean I'll take whatever you say into consideration but I am not going to follow it exactly especially if it's extremely stupid, just so you understand that, Derek." Casey added quickly, not sure why she felt she had to clarify that. It's not like Derek was going to take giving her advice seriously, was he?

Was he? Derek didn't know himself, because the truth was, Casey going off to New York was driving him insane too. He just hid better, behind Queens hockey stats and chatter about all the frat parties he was gonna get invited to. Deep down Derek had been devastated when he found Casey had been offered the chance to dance in New York which made him feel like even a bigger jerk then normal because he knew how big of a dream this was for her. The thing was though he saw Queens as time to take a chance and explore whatever he thought going on between them if he could convince Casey to let him. She had to have felt it? It couldn't all be in his mind, right? And wasn't like they'd have their parents around to get in the way and if it didn't work out, no one would be the wiser besides the two of them. Yet all this, Derek knew all bets were off if Casey went to New York without him, she'd probably marry some smart, rich New Yorker who went to ballets and have four keener children, leaving him with "what ifs."

Was this Derek's chance to convince Casey to stay and get her to explore whatever had been building up between them since they met? Maybe but was it right for him to give up her dreams for something which was probably going to mess them up? For the first time in Derek's life, he was actually considering the consequences of his actions and it was weird to him, maybe Casey was rubbing off on him. Derek was usually the kind of guy who just played his life out where ever the cards fell. Then again these cards weren't just his he was playing with now, they were Casey's too and he could really screw up her life if she actually listened to him. This wasn't just about what he wanted but what would be best for her too.

Derek looked up at Casey, catching her eyes and gulped not sure what to say at first "Case.."