a great storyline by the way...
there are 5 LIs, one of the least liked is Maya and she is the only one for whom MC has to be somewhat grateful to Derek, who, however, after bringing them together at every opportunity will tend to try to sabotage them, sometimes directly and unapologetically
without Derek and with a normal friend in his place, Josy would have gone straight to MC's room and everything would have been solved with a good fuck (solving Maya's problem as well..)
with Bella and Jill, Derek's influence is only negative
and from memory, fortunately, there was no interaction with Sage