Stress Relief

3: Spam

"I see why my dad made you football captain now." He smiled. "You have that kind of way with words."

"And here I thought you knew nothing about sports." He raised a teasing brow.

Elijah held back a snicker, feeling it was too much of a reaction. "I've asked my dad about it before. I'm not completely clueless, but the numbers still confuse me."

"If he couldn't explain it clearly than I'm not even going to try." Chase shook his head, looking out on the field. Elijah smiled at him. He really did seem like such a nice guy. It made him wonder what the deal was with the girlfriend thing he had going on.

He looked out at the field as well, spotting Diego's number, 20. He said that Chase was trying to be better, whatever that meant. Maybe it could be he was just a horny teenager, or maybe that he just liked having more than one option. "So about yesterday..." Ah, so it was yesterday. He looked over at him, confused when he noticed his hands together and his thumb rubbing his knuckles as if to soothe an injury. "Did you mean it when you said you'd help me?" Elijah quirked his brow, unsure why he thought he didn't. "Your dad's mentioned your grades before so I was hoping you could." The way he spoke made it sound like Elijah was a celebrity. If he was famous for anything at this school he sure hoped it was for some stupid grades.

It was weirdly random he brought it up though, "Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Was he talking to much? It might be annoying him. You're overreacting, stop it.

Chase's face seemed to light up, but he was clearly forcing his composure, "Do you think you could tutor me? Last year my grades weren't the best and I could use the help." Elijah opened his mouth to speak but found he couldn't. His dad said not to indulge himself with him until he figured out his behavior for being late. Once again he snapped out of that thought with the same reasoning, he was 18, he can do what he wanted. "You're not obligated to or anything like that, but I can pay you if you want something out of it."

That peaked his interest. "Wait-you meant that literally?"

The blonde shrugged, "You're smart, I'm dumb and need desperate help, seriously my grades were nearly all D's last year." Chase cringed a little when he mentioned his grades, he could see the embarrassment written on his face.

Tutoring was something he's never done before, but his therapist did say new experiences can lessen his self deprecating thoughts, "Alright, sounds fair. If you actually try to get to practice at time." Chase groaned in despair, "You're on thin ice with my dad, I dunno how he'd feel if you came over to my house."

"Okay, okay that's fair." He sighed, "I can't really promise to though, my girlfriend likes to try and keep me occupied."

Elijah rolled his eyes at the excuse. "Which one?" Chase went quiet and Elijah's stomach dropped, "Sorry I didn't mean it like that, it's just that uh..." didn't he know that they saw his phone? "When we went to to the park a while back, your phone had two names pop up in texts," he had thought it would've been obvious considering the face Diego made at the time, "sorry, I probably shouldn't have looked."

His eyes widened in realization and he seemed to physically relax. "Oh, them." Elijah was relieved that he hadn't offended him, "They were just some friends from break-actually I wouldn't really call them friends, but we fooled around during the summer and I tried to end things with them before school started." He nodded along, curious about his situation, "I'm sure you know some stuff about what I was like last year."

"I've been told, yeah. Diego said you were trying to be better." Despite not really knowing him for long, he was glad he was making the effort. It was their last year of highschool, better to improve now rather than later. "Anyways, if you can get on my dad's good side and convince him to come over, than I'll help you out."