𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗻𝘁

Second Chance at First Line

"What is she doing in here?" A boy with a towel around his waist jumps out of the way as my arms reach out to shove him. 

In a daze, I push a few half naked boys out of my way, and stumble through the boys locker room with Scott by my side. A few guys shoot confused glances at me, while some smirk, and some glare. While making our way to Stiles, my daze is broken once, by some random guys abs. Scott elbows me in the arm and twists his face in disgust. 

"Did you apologize to Allison?" Stiles doesn't even question my presence while changing into his lacrosse gear. He grabs a pair of socks out of his bag and sniffs them, before promptly turning away and tossing them in the closest trash can. 

Scott weakly nods his head, "yeah."

Slight exasperation shows on Stiles' face due to Scott's short answer. "Yeah? So everything's good now?" I can tell that Stiles knows something is wrong, but simply doesn't want to deal with it. 

I join in with Scott, weakly shaking my head, "no." We say at the same time. 

"No?" His head pops back out from behind the lockers. 

"Remember the hunters?" Scott begins,

"Her dad is one of them." I finish Scott's sentence, still staring off into space. 

"Her dad..."

"- shot us -" We respond. 

"Allison's father...?"

"- with a crossbow." 

"Allison's father?" Stiles repeats, now throwing his body in front of ours.  

"Yes! Her father!" Scott yells back, "Oh my god." He starts pacing around the room, running his hands through his hair. 

"Man what a loss!" I join in, trying to stop Scott from panicking. "She was so hot too! So was her dad!" I get a collection of confused glances from players leaving the room, some snickering at my comment. 

"What?! No, I'm not gonna stop seeing her just because of this!" Scott is throwing his lacrosse gear on with a sense of sudden urgency. I can hear his heart beat rising up to 120, which isn't horrible but definitely isn't good. 

Stiles makes his way towards me and puts his hands on my shoulders. I gulp, and Scott sends a confused glance my way. "No, Maeve, Scott is right. Wouldn't it be weird if you guys just randomly stopped being near Allison after meeting her dad? I would find it suspicious, thats for sure."

"You find everything suspicious, Stiles." I weave my arms under his and place them on his shoulders as well. 

One thing people usually miss when meeting Stiles is the fact that he is extremely observant. He is very physical when It comes to Scott and I, but not with anyone else. I don't think Stiles knows what love languages are, but I think he subconsciously realized that mine and Scott's are both physical touch. His, of course, is gift giving and receiving. That's why, every time I find a cool rock or keychain or something, I give it to him. He's kinda like a magpie in that way - you give him a shiny object and he will keep it. I'm 99% sure that's what his glove-box consists of. 

"Yeah, you're right Stiles." Scott's heart rate has slowed down, as he has obviously been too focused on listening to mine. 

"How does my heart rate sound, Scott" I harp at him before drinking a mouthful of water. 

"Sounds like someone has a crush." He smirks. 

Stiles twists his eyebrows in confusion as his eyes meet mine. Before he can ask what Scott is talking about, my mouthful of water has been spit on his face. He yelps and starts running to the other side of the locker room.  

"What?!" I choke out, "No! More like it sounds like anxiety. You guys do know I suffer from that, right?" 

"Oh we know!" Stiles yells out from wall of sinks at the end of the room, now using the paper towels to dry his face. 

"No really." Scott makes his way close to my face and begins whispering, "why did your heart rate rise when Stiles touched you?"

"It's anxiety, I swear. You know I have that issue with people touching me when I'm anxious. Normally I love it, but...oh! Also, remember how a few years back I had that whole heart palpitation issue?"

Scott nods. 

"Well, they diagnosed me with Supra-ventricular Tachycardia and said I would get those random heart palpitations where my heart rate would go up to 220bpm for 5 seconds." I whisper back, knowing damn well that I stopped having that issue a year after I was diagnosed. 

Scott wont catch my heart rate rising to this statement though, because I truly believe that is the only logical explanation as to what happened. I have no idea why I would get anxious when Stiles touched my shoulders, as if he hasn't been doing that for years. There is no reason that I would get nervous around Stiles, Therefore, my anxiety just surfaced at a very unfortunate time. 

"Alright," he lets out a sigh, "I believe you...anyways, we have to get to practice." 

Stiles starts running with Scott, and slips on one of the socks that he threw earlier, that missed the trashcan. His legs fly backwards as his face heads straight towards the tile. As this definitely isn't the first time Stiles has done this, I reach my hand in front of him. I get a hand full of Stiles' face, and his muffled screaming continues as I push his body back upright, leaving spit all over my hand. 

"Gross!" I wipe my hand on his lacrosse jersey.

"Thanks for catching me, but I think your hand whacking me in the face hurt just as much as the floor would've." Stiles says, wincing as he moved his fingers across the bridge of his nose. 

"You can thank me for the fact that your nose isn't broken right now." I look over to Scott, who is standing at the door leading to the field, laughing. 

"Alright Stiles," Scott manages to say between laughs, "We can't be late. Let's go."

"I'll be out there in a minute!" I yell after them. 

"You okay?" Stiles asks, stopping mid jog. 

"Yeah i'm fine, I'm just gonna get a snack from one of your guys' lockers." I smile, motioning my hand at them, telling them to go. 

I dig through Stiles' messy locker before deciding that any snack in there is no doubt molded. Scott's locker, unsurprisingly, has snack options for everyone. Saltines incase someone doesn't feel good, a bag of chips for people with nut allergies, a gluten free cereal bar, a vegan granola bar, and some good old candy bars. I go for the granola bar, and sit down on the bench outside of his locker. 

 I keep thinking back on the heart rate debacle, wondering why it happened. The only conclusion I can come to is anxiety, the treatable heart condition I used to have, or some fluke thing. It's not about a stupid crush, that's for sure. 

I do not have a crush on Stiles.