Out To Get Her

5| What Are You Playing At?

"ARE YOU SERIOUSLY telling me that Riley was at your house for the entire evening yesterday, and didn't attempt anything?"

"Pretty much, I watched him like a hawk, all night," Alex shrugs, "Maybe Dean didn't mention the dye."

"Or maybe he's biding his time, plotting something on a larger scale."

"Maybe."

"I know I know, I'm being overdram- wait a second, did you just agree with me?"

"Yeah?" Alex gives him a strange look.

"The world really must be ending, or maybe I'm gravely ill and hallucinating the things I could never have."

Alex pinches the bridge of her nose, "I don't even know what to do with you sometimes."

"That's why you keep me around," he grins, "I keep things interesting."

~*~

It turned out that Dylan was not the only person keeping Alex's life interesting. She did nothing out of the ordinary, simply walked into registration and sat in her usual chair. Wariness made her narrow her eyes a bit on Jake and Riley grinning and high fiving, but she didn't think too much of it. That is until she got up to go to first period. Well, attempted to get up, her butt had been glued to the chair.

"Riley!" she whips around to glare at the dark haired boy, who almost falls out of his chair, he is laughing so hard.

"In a bit of a sticky situation there, Alexis?" Jake Thompson approaches her, a wicked grin lighting up his features.

She glares at him and his halo of golden hair—the irony, he's the furthest from an angel one could get—but doesn't otherwise respond.

She squirms for a few minutes in frustration as her jeggings stretch rather than pry off the plastic of the chair. Why did Mr Simpson have to go to the staffroom two minutes before the bell rang?

"What are you playing at, Riley? I thought we were even," Alex stares him down as he saunters across the empty room.

"Oh, did you now?" He tilts his head to side slightly as he leans against the desk across from the fuming girl.

"We," Jake motions between him and Riley, "Happen to know of a certain prank attempt that you failed to pull off yesterday."

"And that," Riley continues, a smirk dancing across his lips, "Tilts the scale, making us no longer even."

Alex groans internally. The prank completely failed, but still managed to get her into deep shit.

~*~

It took over thirty minutes to unstick Alex's behind from the chair, and another twenty to acquire some pants to replace her trashed ones. She was very, very late to English.

"For homework, I'd like you all to choose a topic from the board to write about. I want it be personal and engaging, don't worry, no one besides me will read it," Mr Leyton finishes.

Alex runs her eyes of the hastily scrawled topics. 'A childhood memory,' 'A mistake,' 'A regret.'

"But a regret and a mistake are the same thing," Abigail Moore's high pitched squeak sounds.

"No," Drew Lewis counters in his stoic manner before Leyton can respond, "A mistake is morally wrong, something that should not have been done in the first place. A regret is often right in the moment, but wrong thinking back, like 'I should have been there, maybe he wouldn't have gotten hurt."

"Excellent explanation Andrew, thank you," the balding teacher smiles as the bell rings, signalling the end of class.

Alex peers at Drew curiously as he shoves his notebook into his bag and slings it over his denim clad shoulder. He flips his dark hair out of his eyes before striding towards the door. Alex breaks her stare to pack away her things.

"Ah, Ms Taylor."

She looks up as her journal hits the bottom of her bag with a thud, "Sir?"

He approaches her down the row of desks, while the last few stragglers exit the room, "I read a piece you wrote for the school paper at your previous school. It was brilliant. I think you should think about writing for The Advocate, your talent could really be useful there."

"Thank you sir," she focuses on zipping her bag up to avoid maintaining eye contact, "But I don't write anymore."

"I see. The doors will always be open for you if you change your mind."

"Thank you," she repeats, turning to hurry to her next class.

"Please do think about, a proper good think," he halts her in her tracks.

"I will," she lies, still facing the exit, before escaping before he can say anything more.

~*~

"I know right," Alex turns to mash another fry in Dylan's face, "And he absolutely wouldn't take no for an answer. I swear I had to sprint to get away from his persistence."

Dylan laughs, almost falling off the table edge he's perched himself on in the process, "Who's the melodramatic one now?"

Alex socks him in the arm, almost making him fall off again, "Jerk."

"All jokes aside," he composes himself, "Maybe he has a point."

Alex immediately begins to shake her head, "No, not a chance."

"You used to love it so much."

"Exactly. Used to."

"That very negative 'used to' could become present tense you know."

"It won't," Alex says with finality, "You already know why. Can we please move onto something else?"

Dylan turns to study her expression for a long moment before, "Are you coming to tryouts on Friday?"

"Of course," Alex grins playfully at him, "I'll always be there to support my favorite Kung Fu master."

Dylan rolls his eyes, "It was one time. One time! The ball was going there and it was just reflex to kick it away. It got the job done, didn't it?"

"Well yeah, doesn't mean I can't tease you on your epic Kung Fu moves though," Alex does a sequence of wild slicing motions through the air to demonstrate.

Dylan smacks her hands out of the air, "Stop, you're embarrassing yourself. Even more than usual."

Alex makes an indignant noise, "You did it first."

"It was one time. One time!" He repeats, turning to face her, "One time!"

"There was also that time at that Greenstone match..."

Dylan face palms.

~*~

From the moment Alex walked through the front door, she knew she wanted to take a nice, relaxing shower. She set up apple scented candles, started up her 'can't resist singing along playlist' and laid out some comfy clothes.

She performed her heart out under the hot water, getting through the entire playlist plus a repeat of two and a half songs. She left her conditioner in for extra long as well, for even softer hair. After wrapping the fluffy, cream towel around herself upon leaving the heavenly water, she approached the fogged up mirror. And that was when chaos ensued.

"Riley Freaking Wilson, I am going to murder you!"