Troubled

7

chapter seven
percy

Grover was right.

The football games were crazy, to say the least. Even though it was a long weekend and many of the kids had cleared out, or so I'd been told by Grover, the game was still insane.

It wasn't insane in a good way, though. I mean insane like the quarterback kept yelling at their teammates, punting the ball away when he didn't get his way, and being generally a baby.

"Man, who let him be quarterback?" I joked to Grover as we sat in the practically deserted bleachers.

Grover, after giving a not so tasteful performance with the band, had joined me. It was now nearly half time and the team was losing. Bad.

"I don't know, he's usually not like this," Grover explained, trying to rationalize everything. "He's been off his game tonight."

I laughed. "Is he usually good?"

Grover squinted at the field. "No, but he usually doesn't intentionally hit his other teammates. At least not this much..."

"Who even is he?"

The quarterback in question was a tall, lean guy with close cut blond hair, a nasty scar across one of his bright blue eyes, and was dressed in a football uniform with the last name Castellan written across the back.

"Luke, Luke Castellan," Grover replied. "He's usually not this mean off of the field. He's just...frustrated. He's rather quite nice. Got a mean temper, though."

"I'll have to take your word for the nice part," I said as Luke threw the ball at one of his teammate's face, causing them to scream. "Who'd he just hit?"

"Uhhh...I think that was Jason Grace, but I'm not sure. Maybe someone else," Grover said. "It's hard to tell as he's probably hit all of them tonight."

I rolled my eyes. "And the coaches let him?"

Grover shrugged. "I mean, they tell Mr.D, but he doesn't care in the slightest."

Mr.D, there was that name again. Of course he didn't regulate the amount of violence at the football games. He didn't care.

"Woohoo, go team!" a cheerleader's preppy voice called out as Luke finally hit someone on the other team square in the jaw.

"Who's that?" I asked, nearly choking on my laughter.

The girl was fairly skinny with deep black hair, almond shaped brown eyes, and dressed in a tight cheerleader's uniform.

Grover groaned. "That's Drew. She practically worships Luke, it's quite gross."

I narrowed my eyes as I peered at Drew, who was currently doing several cartwheels in an attempt to catch Luke's eye. "Why doesn't he just date her?"

"He's got a girlfriend."

"Who's not crazy Drew?"

"Yup."

We remained silent for the next part of the game where the other team managed to score, which only made Luke more enraged and made Drew cartwheel more.

"It's almost over and they haven't score yet! Are they always this bad?" I whispered.

Grover nodded miserably. "Unfortunately, yes. Luke's usually more civil when there are more people around, something about his reputation, but we don't win often."

I watched as Luke spiked the ball directly at his teammate's face, sending them falling backwards in agony.

"Boo!" I cried, a grin appearing on my face. "Boo!"

Grover grabbed my arm. "Percy, what the hell are you doing?!"

I shrugged as Luke peered out into the crowd. Clearly he had heard my boos. "I dunno, he sucks. He deserves to be booed."

"You do not want Luke Castellan as your enemy," Grover warned me sinisterly. "He can make your life here a living hell."

"Oh, yeah? Well, tell him to bring it on."