Innocence Lost On the Gamble of Love

Innocence Lost On the Gamble of Love: Chapter 10

The bell rang right when Derrick's friend Dan was finishing up telling his group about an incident that had happened during his last soccer practice.

"-with a bloody nose!" Dan concluded, slapping his knee.

"Oh!" Ritchie groaned, putting his fist over his mouth in order to hold back his laughter.

"That is epic, man," Leo commented.

Derrick was laughing as well. The mental image of seeing one of his friends, Josh, getting kicked in the face because he had ducked right when some other guy had decided to start practicing his kicks. It had all been a foul accident of course.

"Aw, hey, I got to go," Derrick said, abruptly getting up from his little perch that was one of the rocks his group surrounded themselves around.

"What, why?" Dan asked.

All of the guys never rushed to class, they would go right until they nearly had to. They had so many tardies on their records, but none of them really cared about it.

"What do you have right now?" Dan was assuming Derrick wanted to get to his class in order to avoid the wrath of a teacher or something.

"Econ," Derrick replied dryly. "But I was going to walk my girlfriend to class."

"Wait, girlfriend?" Dan asked wondrously. "I thought it was over with you and rice cake?"

Ritchie chuckled under his breath. "Ha ha, 'rice cake.' I would call her 'Panda Express' because she was always so willing to let Derrick take out her order if you know what I mean."

Derrick scowled while Haley giggled. They couldn't argue with that remark.

Derrick twitched his lower lip before answering, "It is over, but I'm with someone else now."

"Since when?"

"Since today," Ritchie answered for his friend with a sly wink.

"Really?" Dan asked impressively.

Derrick nodded.

"And you spent lunch with us but not her?"

"She told me I could," Derrick answered, sounding like a child reporting that they had received permission from a higher authority.

"Well,  slap my ass and call me Daddy, who is this chick?" Dan inquired wondrously with wide eyes.

Derrick turned around, and Dan did the same.

"The brunette," Derrick pointed out with a swift tilt of his chin. "The one wearing vans."

Dan gave his friend a sour look. "All of those girls are brunettes wearing Vans!"

Derrick inspected more closely and said, "Okay, well, the one wearing the gray sweater."

"Her?" Dan asked in disbelief when he finally spotted Penelope who was rapidly telling Brooke something. "You've had a crush on her for like a year now."

"Yeah, I know, now shut up," Derrick ordered with a scoff.

"Ooh, Derrick," Ritchie moaned playfully, mimicking a girl's voice. "I want you so bad right now!" 

Derrick turned around and sent his best friend a don't-even-mess-with-me-right-now face as a small crease between his forehead appeared. His eyes narrowed, and his lips tightened.

"Oh, please, I want to feel you deep inside of me," Ritchie continued, starting with those kissing faces again.

"Ritchie, don't make Haley jealous," Leo joked through loud laughter, elbowing his friend.

"I want to run my tongue all over your body! I want you to scream my name! Derrick, I'm going to-"

"Dude!" Dan interrupted, pointing at the lady nearby who was staring at Ritchie with an odd look on her aged face.

"Oh, uh, hi miss new principal!" Ritchie yelled out with shaky laughter, putting a hand behind his head nervously.

The lady walked away after shaking her head at the boy which led the entire group to clutch onto their sides from laughing so hard.

Derrick left after that, waving off his friends while approaching Penelope once more. He caught up with her just in time as she was slinging her backpack onto her shoulder.

"Hey," he said.

"Oh, hey. I thought you forgot about me."

Derrick couldn't tell whether Penelope was teasing or if she was serious.

"No, of course not," Derrick assured with a shake of his head. "So what class do you have?"

"Health, Del Sol, with Liz."

"Ha," Derrick said. He had finished that class already. "Have fun in there."

"Yeah, right," Penelope said scornfully. "There's only underclassmen in there."

Each of them was going to be graduating this year, which meant that they all had to get their A-G requirements done, and by some stupid regulation, a Health credit was required.

"What do you have?"

"Econ."

"Oh, right, with Lili and Renata."

"Uh, yeah."

Derrick should've known that Penelope's friends would inform her that they had a class with him. This explained why that Renata girl had randomly mentioned Penelope to him.

"Okay, let's go," Penelope huffed. "Bye, Adrian," she said in a farewell to her male companion, sending him a two-finger salute.

"See you, Pen! Bye, Liz!"

As soon as Derrick, Penelope, and Liz started walking to the far end of the campus, the girls began conversing.

"So what about Friday then?"

"Maybe, I'll ask my mom," Liz replied, trying to keep her voice light. She didn't like giving her best friend bad news because then she would start whining, and that was something to avoid at all costs. "If not, we can just hang out at the mall."

"Alright."

"What are you guys talking about?" Derrick asked, wanting to be involved in Penelope's little world.

"Having a movie night at Liz's house."

"Oh."

"And oh, what are you doing tomorrow?" Penelope directed at the girl beside her once more.

"Probably nothing."

It seemed to Derrick that Penelope already had a relationship with her best friend. Now that he thought about it, Liz and Penelope had always been connected at the hip. They followed each other everywhere. They even wrote on each other's Facebook walls.

"Okay, so I'll tell my dad to take us to eat somewhere. I'll tell Carina."

"Alright, sounds good."

"You mean tomorrow after school?" Derrick asked, feeling confused.

"No, we have no sixth, remember?" Penelope said daintily, making her voice sound more eccentric.

She had mentioned this to Derrick before. She had a no class for sixth period while he had decided to be a student aide for a class that all his friends were in.

"Ohh. Right." 

"Okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," Penelope said dismissively, once they had reached the other side of the 800 building. 

"You don't want me to text you or anything?"

"No, just focus on missing me," Penelope said, patting his shoulder.

Derrick smiled. "Yeah, okay."

Penelope gave him another hug before entering her classroom.

Derrick wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he had automatically missed her already after watching her go through that door.

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