Suite Mates (bxb)

Chapter 18

Derek's POV

When I finally realized that waving my dong in James' face wasn't going to make him suck it, I tucked myself away and we walked downstairs.

My mom was cleaning up the kitchen and she grinned when we walked down.

"Hi, kids! James are you hungry? I have left-overs," she offered.

"No thanks," James politely turned her down. He grabbed my hand. "We actually have some news for you."

A bit of nerves fluttered in my chest, but I wasn't sure why. Mom loved James. "Mom, James and I are officially dating."

She gave me a wide grin. "You're telling me you weren't already? Well, good thing then! I've been watching you moon after this boy for a while now."

James snorted and nudged my side. "You've been mooning?"

I felt myself blush before I could even stop myself. "Jeez, a little. Mom, way to expose me."

James' phone dinged and he glanced down, only to have his face pale. "Oh my God, that's Noah. He says he's still going to give it a shot with Ryan."

Wait. Cranky Noah? I grumbled. "I don't like Noah, he was mean to me."

"Noah's mean to everyone, no worries," James said as if that was supposed to make me feel better. "But it gets worse. They want to go on a double date."

"Right now? Why?"

"To talk about the situation, I guess. Ryan wants to say sorry," James mumbled. "They want to go stargazing outside the dorm together."

"Wow. That's so stupid."

"Derek! Bigger problems here."

Mom paused in her cleaning and wrinkled her nose. "So, what's the situation?"

"Well," I began, "Ryan had an idea—"

"Oh boy."

"Exactly. He wanted to make a boy like him, so he lied to a lot of people and apparently fake-cried a lot," I explained.

"Well, that sounds like a grand old time. Have fun, boys."

I practically had to drag James to his dorm, where Ryan and Noah were waiting outside the building with a blanket and some waters.

"Okay, guys!" Ryan chirped, clapping his hands excitedly. "Noah has brought it to my attention that my actions were probably mean." James snorted. "So I'm here to soothe your anger by looking at the stars romantically."

"This is just as insane as you," James snapped.

"Now now, James," I chuckled, grabbing his wrist. He was very tense. "No aggression on our double-date."

"You aren't his mother," Noah snapped. It was only then that I noticed how he glared at me. This guy definitely had some kind of possessive feeling for James to be so mean to me.

"Well, this is pleasant," Ryan said uncomfortably.

We all sort of collapsed onto the blanket and grabbed our waters. "So, you aren't in love with me?" I asked Ryan.

He shrugged. "Nope."

"Then why did I always get a sort of sense that you had feelings for me?"

"That was your ego, Derek."

Before I had the chance to respond, a dark-haired tall man stopped in front of our blanket. "Um, hey guys. What's going on here?"

I had no idea who he was.

"Jeremy! Hey!" Ryan said, giving him a wave. "Long time no see! Lots of drama happened without you, but we're on our way to recovery as a friend group."

"We are not a friend group," James growled.

Jeremy gave an awkward laugh and stepped towards the dorm building. "Well, that's nice. I think I'm gonna head inside, you all have fun."

He wheeled it over to the door and disappeared into the building.

"...Was that your roommate?" I asked Ryan.

"Yeah, isn't he cute?"

"Are you only dating me to make Jeremy jealous?" Noah cried. "Because that would seriously piss me off, pipsqueak."

Ryan actually blushed. "No, I'm done with apparently unhinged plans involving my friends' emotions. Um, Jeremy is very straight, if it makes you feel better."

It actually did seem to make Noah feel better. The guy relaxed a tad and held Ryan's hand on the blanket.

We were definitely an odd group. Noah totally hated me, James definitely hated Ryan, and Ryan and I were unlikely buds. Even though he'd used me in his master plan. I was like of used to that kind of behavior with Ryan.

As the stars came out and Noah started going off about some sort of galaxy stuff, things loosened up a bit. I made a Star Wars reference that got me a bright smile from Mr. Grumpy over there, so I guess I was winning him over.

And then Ryan actually apologized to James, like a real proper one, and James nodded in a dude-bro kind of way.

And I started telling a story about freshmen year when Ryan had tried to hit on our Chemistry professor. He'd thought that his acting skills would help him be charming enough. The guy had ended up cussing Ryan out in front of a whole group of students and Ryan had mooned him in response.

"I'm glad to know his insanity isn't limited to just affecting his friends' lives," James snorted, and then everyone was laughing.

It was actually pretty fun, by the end of it. We were all smiling and there wasn't a ton of animosity. I was glad that James could get over the fact that Ryan was a manipulative freak, because it really was just his personality.

Ya had to just get used to it.

I made sure to give James a good and long kiss before I left him. It was crazy to think that we'd finally gotten together after so much craziness. In a way, the moment we'd sat on the blanket together looking at the stars, holding hands like real boyfriends, it was just the beginning of our story.

And I was damn determined to make James fall for me, so our love story was far from over.

And in the easy way he smiled at me and the sweet way he kissed me, I think making him fall wasn't such a farfetched idea.

—/—

It's over! I hope you all enjoyed Ryan's freakishness, Derek's relentlessness, James' obliviousness, and Noah's overall salty personality. Definitely a cliffhanger ending, sorry about that!

I have a new story out, called Puppy Love! It's a fluffy romance involving baked goods and puppies. Here's the link if you wanna check it out: https://www.wattpad.com/642316683-puppy-love-mxm-chapter-one

Thanks for reading!