Return ↠ Argent [2]

24. Distractions

"Stiles," I shout as I scan everywhere in his room, searching for my blue hoodie Allison had given me awhile back. "Where's my hoodie?"

Stiles shouts back to me, still in the bathroom as he brushed his teeth. Whatever he tried to say, I could barely make it out. "I don't know-"

I grab a few shirts on the floor and toss them away, frantic now to find it. I knew it was in here somewhere; it had to be. The only reason I was so frantic was because Stiles and I had woken up late for school; mostly because we barely got any sleep from the night before.

A groan leaves my throat as I turn around to run out of his bedroom door and search the laundry in the dryer, but before I could exit, Stiles' father was standing there looking at me. He had a coffee in his hand, and his dark bushy eyebrows told me that he wanted to talk to me about something. I didn't really have the desire to know what that something was.

"Corey, I just wanted to talk to you about-"

"I'm sure he knows to use protection, dad!" Stiles shouts from the bathroom, causing Stilinski to sigh and close his eyes. My face started to turn slightly red as he steps inside the doorway and shuts the door, making sure that Stiles could no longer hear him. It was just me and him.

"Anyways, I know you've been staying with us here for awhile now, and you're a great kid, Corey, you really are, but there's got to come a time where you decide what to do," he says, leaving me confused for a moment before he goes on. "Either you tell us the truth or we'll have to send you someplace you won't like. Technically, it's illegal for me to even have you under my roof right now."

I wasn't sure what to say; I couldn't tell him the truth, so I tried to play something off. "Thank you for letting me stay here, Sheriff. You and Stiles both have been really kind to me, which is something I've been pretty numb to. I just...I can't tell you the truth, not yet at least. I will, I promise. I understand though if you have to get me out of here for the sake of your job-"

"I'm not going to kick you out onto the streets, Corey," he says, sounding so much like a fatherly figure. "I won't do that; I'd rather lose my job. I'm just telling you that sooner rather than later would be better, but you'll always be welcome here, kid."

Something about what he said brought a smile to my face. "Thank you, really-"

"Don't mention it," he says before his eyes go someplace behind me. "Is that your hoodie right there?"

I turn around then to see where his finger was pointing, which was literally on top of Stiles' curtain rod over his window. How in the world...

"I'm not even going to ask how that got up there," he says before opening the door and walking down the hall, shouting back to Stiles and I both. "Hurry up or you're going to be late!"

"Wait! Dad-" Stiles says as he runs out of the bathroom and to his father, allowing me to hear faint murmurs between the two of them. I could tell that it was about the murder last night at the school; a girl named Tara. She had been on the police force, and Stiles was pretty upset about it. I wasn't sure what he was saying to his father, but if I had to guess, it was about her case.

I stop listening in when I feel my phone buzz in my pant pocket, causing me to pull it out, seeing that Allison was calling me. "Hello?"

"Can you come over?" she says, sounding quiet. I wondered if her father was around.

I lick my lips. "Yeah, of course. What's wrong?"

"I just need to see you," she almost begs. I would have wondered why she sounded like that, but then I remembered her telling me about how bad her nights were with the hallucinating and nightmares, so I didn't say anything more. I felt a sharp pain in my gut when I realized that I had basically left her alone to deal with that while I was thinking about Boyd and wasting my time on Jade.