Dark Side of the World // S.S. [Book Two]

Chapter 3

I stand between the bleachers as Scott and Stiles talk. Stiles is reassuring Scott. "Of course you're still the team captain. You got your grades up just like Coach told you to, right?"

Scott nods. "Yeah, but he never told me I was back on the team. He just told me to show up at tryouts today."

Stiles shrugs. "We got bigger things to deal with anyway. Did you tell Argent yet?"

"Ah. I texted him but he didn't get back to me."

My eyebrow raises. "Seriously, Scott? You told him his sociopathic sister was back from the dead over text?"

He turns to me and justifies, "I didn't have the money to call France."

"You two are truly ilithioses. I need to go either to my locker or to sleep. Maybe both. Enjoy your practice boys. Kick their little freshman asses, but not too hard." I pat Scott on the shoulder and kiss Stiles' cheek before walking towards the school.

School starts and as I'm walking to math, I see Malia enter, and leave seconds later. I grab her shoulders and lead her back in the classroom. She frowns at me. "I hate math. It's pointless."

"Sadly, math is part of school and is essential." I tell her.

"To what?" Malia grumbles.

"Knowing how much to tip at restaurants." Stiles interjects.

Lydia frowns. "And other less important things like medicine, economics, engineering..."

"Tipping." Stiles repeats.

I roll my eyes as Mrs. Fleming begins class. "Alright, volunteers to the board. Lydia, Diego, Malia."

Malia looks up and frowns. "Um...I didn't volunteer."

Mrs. Fleming gives her a tight smile. "You did now. To the board."

They share a quiet conversation and I tap my foot anxiously, awaiting math to end.

It finally does, and Malia, Kira, and I walk together to the lacrosse field.

I narrow my eyes as I see a kid, I'm guessing he's a freshman, dominate everyone on the field. Including my supernatural best friend. He's a fast runner, great at goal, and pretty much every position.

Malia turns to Kira. "What's wrong with you?" She then turns to me. "You, calm down. I can feel your anger."

Kira frowns. "Me? Nothing."

"You reek of anxiety. And it's distracting. What's going on?"

Kira bites her lip. "Scott and I sort of had this thing happen. But it wasn't much of a thing. And I'm starting to think it never was anything at all."

"What do you want it to be?" Malia asks bluntly.

"More."

As we watch the freshman dominate on the field, Kira says, "Isn't the captain supposed to be one of the best players on the team? Or good?"

I narrow my eyes at Scott. "Yes. Yes he is. Why is he acting so awful?"

As soon as the words leave my mouth, my friends find their rhythm and start doing better. "That's my boys!" Coach yells. "Those two are like sons to me."

"Yes!" Kira cheers.

When the dominating freshman walks up, he gets past them with a twisting maneuver I've often used in battle. "That was luck!" Malia yells. "Do-over!"

I shake my head and try to tell her off. "Quiet, Mal."

Coach walks over to us and stops in front of Malia. "Sweetheart, there's no do-overs. This is practice."

"Ten bucks on Scott and Stiles." Malia returns.

Coach smirks. "I'll take that action. Hey! Get back in there, Liam." He does so and on his second run, Scott flips Liam. He stands, but is in obvious pain. The boys insist on taking him to the nurse and I jump down from my spot to follow. I see Kira catch a lacrosse ball and hear Coach's voice. "Someone ask her if she's ever played lacrosse."

I grin all the way to the nurse's office. Stiles turns to me. "What are you smiling about?"

"Kira caught a lacrosse ball with her superfast kitsune reflexes and impressed Coach."

The nurse walks over to us. "He has a pretty bad sprain. He needs to go to the hospital."

We take him and get him settled, making sure he's okay. Scott leaves to talk to Kira and comes back. Melissa walks up to us. "Uh...Hi, Mom." Scott says awkwardly.

Melissa smiles at Liam, wheeling him away. "Don't worry, Liam. We'll take good care of you."

Stiles turns to Scott. "Meg and I have to get going. Someone needs to raise her grades."

I narrow my eyes as Scott says, "Sure. I want to check on him anyway."

I glance at my friend. "Scott, I hope you know that wasn't your fault, though I think you already know that."

He bows his head. "I don't know."

Stiles frowns. "Scott, if you had used any wolf power, that kid wouldn't be limping, he'd be crawling, back to the other half of his body."

Scott shakes his head. "If I hadn't been so worried about being captain, he wouldn't be hurt either."

I give Scott a small smile. "The world's not gonna end if you want something for yourself every so often. You're both team captain and a freaking Alpha werewolf. And remember; you are still human."

Stiles drives me to his place and after studying for awhile, my ADHD gets the best of me. I slam the book shut and press a kiss to Stiles' lips.

"Hey, we're not finished yet." He protests.

"Maybe you're not, but I am."

"Okay...I promised I'd help you study. Then we can go back to that. Like, so much...What's with all the highlighters anyway?"

"I sort of stole your system. Basically, green is what I understand, yellow is what I'm working on, and red...Well, red means I have no idea in hell what I'm doing." Stiles kisses me and I pull away. "And Lydia's notes are swimming off the page. They're numbers. They aren't supposed to be swimming!"

Stiles grabs the notes from my hands and frowns. "This certainly isn't math. What is this?"