"Carson! Have you seen my bag?"

It was Thursday night and I had things to do to get ready for tomorrow.

My brother came to my doorway then. "Sure have," he said, "up your butt and around the cor- oh hey dad."

Dad came from behind him to peek into my room. He looked at the fresh outfit I put on and saw that I was tying my shoe laces.

"where are you going?" he asked.

"Dad, I told you yesterday. I'm meeting my friends to help set up the gym for the pep rally tomorrow?"

"Right." He said unsure of himself. I did tell him yesterday, only now did I realize he was probably too focused on his work to actually process what I said.

"Hey why don't you take Carson with you? I could use some peace and quiet in this house for once." He whispered that last part as if Carson couldn't hear it standing right next to him.

"hey..." Carson said offendedly. Dad ignored him.

"Oh but dad, he's just going to bother my friends. How are we supposed to actually get any work done if he's there to distract us?"

"hey..." Carson repeated in the same offended tone. I ignored him.

"That's my only condition. Either take your brother with you or you can stay home." And he left to go back into office.

Carson gave me a mischievous smile. My friends actually liked Carson. Why they did went completely past me. He had his own friends in the year above me, since he was a senior. Why couldn't he just bother them tonight?

"You help us, or I make you walk home." I pointed a finger at him, once again wondering how he was the older sibling.

Leah gave us a ride to the school where we met Maylan, her boyfriend Riley, and a couple of others that usually sat with us at lunch.

Some of us were moving equipment out of the way to clear the floor. There was a ladder by the wall, and I was helping Maylan stick a poster with some pep rally related message up there.

"Has anyone seen Walter?" Riley asked.

As Leah explained he had some family related thing tonight, I motioned fake gagging myself up to Maylan who laughed and said, "That is a sensitive subject for Adelaide. He bothers the hell out of her."

"Hey what the fuck," I heard Carson say in a serious tone, "I'm the only one allowed to bother her."

"My brother ladies and gentlemen." I announced to no one in particular. Carson just shrugged his shoulders before exiting the gym to get another ladder to help out. He was surprisingly useful this evening.

Leah came up from beside me and asked quietly so only I could hear her, "do you have any updates for me in the Tristan department?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh come on Ada, don't think I haven't noticed you've been happy about attending detention this past week. Who gets excited about detention?"

"Are you guys talking about Tristan again?" Maylan asked from the top of her ladder.

"Tristan Presley?" Riley asked me suspiciously, "don't tell me you're hanging out with him."

I didn't miss his sharp tone, "so what if I am?"

"So you don't deny it then." Leah poked my shoulder at that.

"I never confirmed anything either. Seriously you guys I only see him in detention, you can chill out now."

And thankfully Leah guided the conversation past Tristan and instead spoke about the weekend we had planned.

"Everyone here is going to be at Bryan's party after the game tomorrow night, right?" she asked.

"Of course," Maylan said and I agreed, "after the week it's been, I'm ready for some fun."

The gym doors opened again, and Carson walked in with what looked a ladder. Only the wood on the side was snapped, shaping the ladder into a perfect L shape with large splinters sticking out.

"Hey uh... Is it supposed to look like this?" and I hopelessly sighed in response.

————————————

School the next day was buzzing with hype about the game tonight. I loved the vibes at school on a Friday. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Except Grumpy, who I saw once in the hallway with his head down and his usual brooding expression.

Detention didn't happen on Friday's so I didn't get to see much of Tristan today.

I was back at home after the game so I can change into a different outfit for the party tonight. I was redoing my makeup after wiping the war stripes off my face. We won the football game, and the team was moved up one step closer to finals.

I finished curling a few more strands of my hair and touched up my mascara before zipping up some boots on my feet. I heard honking come from outside and realized my phone had been going off under Leah's contact name. She was here to pick me up.

We blasted music and sang at the top of our lungs the whole way there, until we were in the middle of the dance floor singing and dancing along to the music pounding around us.

It was packed with people from our schoolcelebrating our win tonight. I was dancing for so long that I needed a break,so I left the floor to find the drinks.

"Having fun yet?" I heard a voice say from my right. Thinking it was Walter I hesitated turning around.

But it wasn't Walter, in fact I don't think i've seen him around before. "you're a new face. Do you go to Eastwood?" I asked, but I doubted he went to my school.

"Nah, I go to Anderson." he said casually.

Anderson was our rival school. Our football team against theirs was another level of competition. Everyone anticipated the final football game to be against Anderson.

"I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but how did you even get invited?" I asked him, genuinely curious.

"I wasn't," he winked at me, "me and my friends may have crashed the party but you can keep a secret right?"

I let out a small laugh at that and he stuck his hand out towards me, "I'm Tate."

I took his hand and shook it, trying to remember where I heard that name before. And then it clicked. This was the quarterback from Anderson that Leah had a summer fling with.

"Tate Pike, right? Aren't you friends with Tristan?"

He opened his mouth to reply when I heard Walter come over, "who the hell let Anderson trash in?" he spat.

"Hey man, Walter right? It's good to see you too." he said with a bright smile on his face, clearly not bothered by the fact he just referred to him as trash.

"There's no way in hell you were invited here. I think it's time for you to leave."

"Nah dude, i'm good here." he said, his voice a little more firm than before.

"Walter, it's really not a big deal." I said, attempting to deescalate the rising testosterone levels in the room .

"Stay out of this Adelaide." He replied and nudged me back a few steps. The sudden movement caused me to trip over my feet and I nearly fell on my ass.

Right then I felt a firm grip on my upper arm, steading my feet so I didn't completely embarrass myself in front of all the attention the boys had drawn. I looked up to see Tristans blue eyes on mine, realizing he was the one who caught me before I fell.

He positioned me behind him before turning his attention to Walter, "do we have a problem here?"

✨Authors Note✨

THANK YOU FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE VOTED AND COMMENTED ON MY STORY Y'ALL MAKE ME SOOO HAPPY!!!

I hope you guys are enjoying what I have so far, i'll try to update as frequently as I can!! So far i've been on a good roll. BUT thank you again!

Also, for personal reasons, I have decided that Brenton Thwaites is Tristan based off this gif and this gif alone. Thank you for understating.