Chapter Text
Erica was waiting forever for it. She had read all the magazines she could find and kept a journal with cut outs and annotations along the margins on costs and where they could be found. One day, she kept thinking, one day, it will be my day.
Days bled into months, months into more months, and then it hit the two year mark. And it did not happen. He did not ask her, in fact it seemed he’d never get around to asking her. Instead, they existed like friends who went out for movies and ate at restaurants. Conversations dwindled, as if there was nothing left to be said. That should be said.
She was younger and sometimes felt as if she was out of his league. He was everything. Older, handsome, successful and mature. To Erica, her years could not erase the things she said and how she said them. She thought he loved her bubbly and maybe a little childish.
He might not say it, but he loves you. She believes what she tells herself and does not overanalyse the way he’d tense up when their friends cancelled out on group hangouts or how he’d visibly have fun when they were out with Scott, Allison Lydia and Jackson, or Isaac and Boyd. She’s just thankful they were together…
*
It started when she was just a junior associate at Payne and Klein Consultancy, doing grunt work as a newbie PR person after graduating from college. Her hours were not hell and she was the only other person constantly at the loft, everyone else either in a graduate programme or surviving newbie hell.
“Evil dead remake?” Derek pops in, taking in her neon pink lycra tights, big grey sweater and mustard coloured headband. She was just at the gym and was lazing on her bed, listening to 3oh!3.
“If you’re buying.” She smiles widely.
“Come on. I’m driving.”
-
So they caught a movie and another one the week after that.
-
“Evil Dead beats VHS 2 hands down.”
“You are cray-cray, Derek. VHS has multiple storylines, I say it’s value for money and just as gory!” She yells at him.”
“Value for– what do you care? I paid for it. Tell me, who doesn’t like a good possession.” He returns with faux ire. He spots a bar along the way back to the loft, “a night cap before a dreadfully packed Saturday morning?”
She’s surprised at his ability to offer sarcastic remarks and merely nods her assent.
-
A drink turned into two and then five shots of whiskey.
-
“She’s totally flirting with you.” Erica stated, assessing the flirty blonde by the opposite side of the bar.
“Who?” He could not be that clueless. She remembers Isaac talking about his game. A guy that hot had to have game, even if he didn’t want it. That’s the way of the world, hot people were given things. Derek was given hot blondes with huge breasts.
“Duh dumbo, the ho with the hot rack giving you the eye-fucks.” Maybe the fifth shot was affecting him too; he was standing close to her. Leaning into her more like it.
“She’s not the only one.” Derek offers, invading her personal space and grabbing hold of her hips. She raises an eyebrow. “Wanna make her hate you?” He smiles and leans in.
She was feeling reckless and this was Derek. She would be lying if she said she did not find him attractive.
She closes her eyes and the next time she opens them, she was waking up and it was Saturday morning and Derek was a hard body spooning with her in his bed.
*
They wake up like this every Saturday for the first month until Boyd finds out. After that, everyone knew and they became Derek and Erica.
*
She was thankful it was not a one-time thing. Or a I-have-someone-else-in-mind turn of events. It would have been okay if it were then, but knowing what they can have now, and then refusing her would have killed her.
Sometimes she thinks he knows that, the information of her fragility lurking in the blues of his eyes.
She snaps out of her thoughts when she hears the front door close. Seconds later, Derek pops his head into her room, like how he did all those years ago when he asked her to Evil Dead, “Hey.”
“Hey.” She smiles, “I made beef goulash and lamb shanks.”
“You’re a dear! I’ll go wash up.”
She nods and sets her notebook down on bed writing desk, time to set up dinner.