I clucked my tongue in disgust as my older brother slurped down his morning cereal. Much to my dismay, he had a friend over. Two of them. I could barely take one brother without his stupid friends spending every waking moment of their spare time here.

"Ugh. Okay, seriously Mark. Could you be anymore primitive?" I asked, scrunching my nose.

"Nope," he replied through a mouthful of Frosted Flakes, "All guys are cavemen, right Derek?"

"Uh huh..." Derek mumbled. His eyes were unfocussed as he stared at the flakes of cereal floating in his bowl.

"God Mark, how many hours of sleep did you guys get?"

"Oh. I don't know. I stopped looking at the clock after six." he raised his head from his bowl to glance at the stove clock behind him.

"WOO! TWO HOURS! NEW RECORD, MAN!" he raised his hand toward Derek in a high-five motion. To my delight, Derek chose to leave him hanging, his eyes glassing over from the sleep deprivation.

I took this time to notice the brilliant blue color of Derek's eyes. Cobalt blue with gray flecks. Hmm. Ok, enough Meredith. No thinky about the brother's good-looking friend. Pft. Good-looking was quite an understatement. Derek's hair was curly, thick, and raven-black. His hair was the type that begged to have fingers run through it. Maybe even my fingers...he had just a hint of facial hair around his jaw line and up his cheeks. His nose was crooked, like it had been broken and healed wrong.

I hadn't noticed that I'd been openly staring at Derek, chewing on my lip while thinking about him, until I saw those dark pools of blue staring back into greens ones. He blinked slowly and one side of his mouth turned up in a smirk as I snapped my head to the side, blushing furiously. Mark noticed this and looked at Derek, who had gone back to contemplating his bowl of cereal.

I refused to even look in Derek's general direction for the rest of breakfast, even though I could feel his eyes on me every once-in-a-while.

"So Meredith, how's sophomore year treating you?"I looked up at the mention of my name to find Derek looking at me questioningly.

"Er...good I guess. The teachers are more brutal...but I guess you already knew that." my voice trailed off at the end of my sentence. Stupid stupid, of course he knew that. Derek and Mark were juniors, fresh out of sophomore year.

"Eh, yeah I thought they were. But you're smart. You'll do great, I'm sure." he ended his sentence with what I'm SURE was a wink. A wink. Derek Shepherd winked at me...first he actually strikes up a full conversation-not that we hadn't had a few before, it was safe to say I was more comfortable with him than my brother's other friends-then he winks! But I'm getting too worked up. He probably just had something in his eye. Or maybe he has a twitch. Yep. A twitch, I'll bet that's what it was.

Mark interrupted my thoughts by announcing he was going out to his truck in search of his cell phone. He walked out without his keys. Moron.

"So do you always stare at sleep deprived guys or are you just trying to mix things up?" Derek asked casually, a small smirk playing on his lips.

My mind went blank in embarrassment and what I'm fairly sure is absolute horror.

"Uhhm..." I stuttered. I opened my mouth once, twice, three times, to speak, but nothing came out.

He chuckled quietly to himself, his smirk turning into an all-out grin. The grin made me want to hit him. Or kiss him. I'm still having mixed feelings on that one. The mere thought of kissing him mad me turn thirteen more shades of red and he chuckled a little more.

"Hey now, you keep that pretty little mind of yours out of the gutter." He said. He shot me a dreamy smile before he went off to take my very confused brother his car keys. I, on the other hand, still sat at the table, spoon half raised to my mouth, staring at the spot Derek had be sitting in.

A/N Wow, I can't believe I'm publishing a story. I'm really nervous about this one guys, so let me know what you all think of my beginning. Obviously, this story is about Meredith falling for her older brother, Mark's, best friend. Derek. Woo! So please, review. Please. Or send me a message. Either one is great, so long as I know what you all think. :]