Challenge | Adam Banks

SIX

The first week of school dragged by monotonously. The early excitement that came with the idea of high school quickly disappeared as the workload increased and the routine cemented. Delanie spent most of her time with Rosa and Mabel, doing homework and chatting aimlessly about anything and everything. Rosa complained a lot about the amount of work she had to do, as hers was probably triple what the other two had. Mabel talked mostly about how annoying she thought people were, or how cute she thought boys were.

Delanie just listened. She was content with doing just that.

She didn't talk much to Julie, though that was probably because she didn't see her much. When not at practice she was often out with her teammates, meaning that Delanie only really saw her as they were getting ready for bed. They were friendly in passing, but remained as acquaintances, and were content as such.

She didn't talk at all to Adam, though they remained seat partners. Luckily enough for Delanie, history was a lot of quiet studying and note taking, giving her an excuse to stay silent. At times she caught pieces of his conversations with Julie, an example of this being their first conversation after tryouts. While Delanie planned to tune them out every time they mentioned hockey, she couldn't help but perk her ears at the mention of the varsity team - more specifically, the mention of Adam joining the varsity team. This of course meant that he'd be playing with Jett.

Jett. Someone else she hadn't talked to at all.

In fact, she had been speaking to Jett's friends more than she had been speaking to Jett himself. She wasn't particularly fond of being seen with him, mainly because of all the unwanted attention it brought her. She couldn't escape his friends, though, especially not when she was forced to remain sitting next to Chris in her first period class every day. And then, of course, there was Nigel.

Nigel's second period class was directly across from the history room, which lead to an awkward run-in nearly every morning. Delanie tried her hardest to avoid him by just slipping through the door, but there were quite a few instances where that didn't work. This one was no different.

Just as her second period classroom came into sight, Delanie realized she wasn't walking unaccompanied any longer. She didn't even need to turn her head. She just sighed, "What do you want, Nigel?"

The handsome senior let out a husky chuckle. "Well good morning to you too, Lanie," he said smoothly. Delanie cringed at his easy use of her nickname, a nickname that was pretty much only used by Jett. She thought that was common knowledge by now, especially to Jett's best friend.

"Again, what do you want, Nigel?" Delanie repeated impatiently, tugging at the straps of her backpack. They had reached their classrooms, meaning that they were now resorting to simply loitering in the hallway. Delanie didn't enjoy loitering. Especially not with Nigel Sweeney.

Nigel smiled. "You know, first hockey game of the season is tonight. 6 o'clock sharp. You should be there, you've never missed a game before." When the girl opened her mouth to correct him, he held up a hand, "Okay, you've missed plenty of games, but not any that were this easy to attend. All you've gotta do is show up."

Delanie hummed as though she were genuinely considering it. "I'll have to think on that one," she said, her voice dropping off for a moment before returning with an increased tempo, "Thought about it, realized I'd rather do anything else, and am now going to decline. I hope you guys lose." She gave the boy a sickeningly sweet smile before the façade completely disappeared from her face, leaving only her apparent boredom to color her countenance.

Nigel sighed, "You're just mean, Park." His tone was teasing, but there was a little bit of honest disappointment seeping through. He turned to head into class, pausing briefly to asses his friend's sister. He met her gaze once more. "Just think about it. I'm sure Jett would appreciate it."

Delanie rolled her eyes, dismissing the older boy. She said nothing else before crossing the hall and entering her classroom. Julie and Adam were already in their seats and engaged in conversation when she got there, so, as usual, she just slid into her chair silently, keeping her eyes glued to her bag. She listened as she placed her notes onto her desk.

"If you and the guys still wanna come, our game starts at 6:30 tonight," Adam informed the blonde across from him. Julie nodded thoughtfully, clearly trying to memorize that fact.

Delanie suddenly couldn't help herself from interjecting, "You mean 6, right?" As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She shouldn't have cared whether or not he got the time wrong. She shouldn't have even been listening. Yet this was the first chance she had gotten to knock Mr. Freshman-On-Varsity down a peg, and she wouldn't be Delanie Park if she passed an opportunity like that up.

Adam turned to the girl by his side, his eyes wide with surprise. She hadn't talked to him once since the first day of school, and now all of a sudden here she was. He had almost forgotten what her voice sounded like and while he was hoping she would open up at some point, he didn't expect their first conversation to start with her... correcting him.

Once his initial shock died down, he furrowed his eyebrows. "No, I meant 6:30," he pressed stubbornly, attempting to sound confident in what he said. He didn't quite know why, but the situation irked him.

Delanie grimaced, tilting her head from side to side. She weighed her options: she could give up here and let him have the last word, or she could challenge him further and risk getting into an argument.

She wasn't much of a fan of not having the last word.

"I'm pretty sure you meant 6:00," she said innocently, her gaze not rising to meet either of the blondes'.

Adam let out a huff before shoving his hand into his pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper, a focused frown on his lips. "I'm pretty sure," he began his defense once more, pausing for a moment as he unfolded the schedule in his hands. As soon as he could read the print, his frown deepened. He was wrong. An angry sigh left his lips as he balled the paper back up in his hand. He looked to Julie, who had her eyebrows raised expectantly. Delanie still wasn't even looking in his direction, which made the whole conversation even more annoying. "You're right," he grunted angrily, his eyes focusing on the brunette's side profile, "how did you know that?"

Delanie shrugged, but said nothing. Painfully, she held back the satisfied smirk that toyed at her lips. She remained as stone-faced as she could, her eyes going straight from her notebook to the board at the front of the room. She heard Julie chuckle softly at Adam's expense, and couldn't hold back the smirk any longer when she heard the boy sharply shush his former teammate.

She never once turned her gaze towards the boy, which partially relieved him. At least that way, she never saw the furious blush that had washed over his pale cheeks. It was obvious that she knew he was embarrassed, just as it was obvious that she got quite the kick out of it.

He wasn't entirely sure what it was that made her so cold towards him, but he figured he had an idea. If Julie was right about her really loathing hockey because of her brother, it made sense that she'd hold a strong disdain for his teammates. If that's how she was going to be, then it was game on, and Adam had two strategies. He could either devote the entire school term to proving her opinion on hockey players wrong, or he could spend that time getting on her nerves just to get a rise out of her.

He just wasn't quite sure which idea he liked more.