Stiles' hand trailed down from my face, down my neck with the tips of his fingers, and to the front of his jacket I wore over my body. "Keep it," he whispered after he withdrew his lips from mine. A smile pulled at his lips and he kept his face close to mine, our foreheads nearly touching. "It looks better on you, and I kind of like seeing you in my clothes."
My cheeks burned red at his words. I glanced down at the oversized jacket, smiling. "To be honest, Stiles," I giggled. "I had no intention of giving it back to you anyways."
His eyes lit up at the sound of my laughter. Stiles wasted no time in pressing his lips back to mine for a quick kiss, one that was filled with love, lingering just for a few seconds to drink in the moment. With every kiss, the butterflies went wild in the pit of my stomach and nearly made my knees feel weak enough to be compared to jello.
My eyes fluttered shut when his lips were against mine, slowly opening once again when he pulled back. I sighed in contentment. All this time I had fought back on my feelings for him when I should have given in to them a while ago, except, like Stiles had said, the time had never been right for us. I had just gotten out of a relationship with Scott.
"I love you," Stiles stated with earnestly. His hand cupped my face again, gliding his thumb over my cheek.
"I lo—"
Suddenly, the front door of the house burst open, loudly slamming against the wall inside of the house, startling the two of us. Before either of us could fully turn our heads in the direction of the door, Isaac rushed out of the doorway and grabbed a handful of Stiles' shirt collar, roughly throwing him against the side of the house by the door. Stiles groaned in pain when his head bounced off of the wall.
"Isaac!" I shouted at the back of his head, appalled by his actions. As I tried to interfere, ready to push my brother off of Stiles, Aiden stepped out of the house, grabbing onto my arm and forced me away from the two, easily pushing me behind him. "Aiden!" I slammed my fist against his chest. "What the hell is wrong with you two?"
Isaac's hands tightened around Stiles' collar, holding him flush up against the house. He flashed me a smile with a simple glance in my direction, stating, "We just need to talk to him, Chloe. It will only take a minute."
"I'm sure there were other ways to have a conversation— Ow!" Stiles groaned when my brother forced him harder against the wall. He tilted his head back, yanking on the hands around his shirt that held onto him. "Okay, fine!" Stiles grumbled after a few seconds, realizing there was no use in fighting back against him.
"Now, after Chloe's last relationship, I've made sure to learn from my mistakes, so consider yourself to be the first one that gets threatened about ever hurting her," Isaac began.
"Guys, I appreciate the thought of you two caring so much, but this is not necessary," I stressed to Isaac and Aiden, glaring at Aiden for a little longer with him standing directly in front of me. "So, get the hell out of my way, Aiden."
Aiden firmly planted his feet down, arms folded over his chest with a look in his eyes, like, he dared me to try to get past him. A smirk graced his facial features.
"Just give me a minute, Chloe. I need to make sure Stiles, here, knows what the consequences will be if he ever hurts you." Isaac barely glanced in my direction before he continued with a low chuckle. "You see, I'm going to make a promise to you, Stiles. If you hurt my sister in any way, I will kill you."
"Both of us will," Aiden added with a devilish look.
I shook my head with a roll of my eyes, quick to reassure Stiles, though he surprisingly did not look worried. "No, they won't."
"She has no control over us," Isaac maintained his threatening behavior.
My head tilted to the right as my eyebrow rose at his response. I shifted my weight on my feet, arms folding over my chest, and heavily glared at the side profile of my brother's face, questioning his behavior. From the corner of my eye, I barely caught Aiden nervously swallow when he saw the look on my face before he covered it up by holding his head high.
"I'm your Alpha," I reminded him.
Isaac's threatening gaze on Stiles faltered for a few seconds before a short sigh fell from his lips. His tone softened as he added, "She has some control over us, but I'm still her older brother. I reserve the right to threaten her boyfriends."
Stiles chuckled at the control I clearly had over them. A look of amusement was cast over his facial features before they hardened up with a sense of seriousness. "Look, we all know I hated how much Scott treated Chloe when they were together, and I can promise you that I would never hurt—"
"Yeah, yeah," Aiden sarcastically scoffed. "You would never hurt her. Scott said the same thing once and we all know how that ended."
Squeezing my eyes shut for a second, I pressed my hand to my forehead, breathing in deeply over the situation that was occurring in front of me. Some people were known to bring baggage into new relationships, but it would seem that I was bringing a whole luggage set with me this time. Aiden and Isaac were simply far too protective over me to let a guy into my life again that resembled how Scott treated me at the end of our relationship.
They didn't give Scott enough credit. When we we first got together and in the middle of our relationship, he was an amazing boyfriend to me and will always have a special place in my heart, considering he was my first love.
"Well, it's a good thing we aren't the same person then," Stiles snapped. His chocolate brown eyes darted to mine over Isaac's shoulder. They softened as he stated, "I'm not Scott, okay? I've been in love with Chloe for a while now, and I know you two knew that for a while because you could hear how my heart raced whenever I was around her."
My lips parted in shock, even more so when Aiden and Isaac shared a look with each other, like they were agreeing with what Stiles had said. Did the two of them know this whole time that Stiles loved me? Why did they never tell me?
"The last thing I ever want to do is hurt her," Stiles gazed into my eyes as he said it.
A smile began to form on my lips and I quickly hid it underneath my hand, growing warm with a pink tint on my cheeks. Isaac glanced to the side at Aiden, raising one brow, like they were having a mental conversation with each other. Aiden's tilted to the side, like a shrug, for a quick second.
Bringing his attention back to Stiles, Isaac gradually loosened his hold on the shirt collar he held tightly in his hand. "Don't worry, Stiles," he said, taking a step away from him. "We like you more than we liked Scott, but we will murder you if you ever hurt her."
Stiles moved away from the way, fixing his ruffled shirt and popping the joints in his neck that had tensed up. "I think that might be a little extreme, but fair, nonetheless--"
A pair of manicured nails snapped in front of my face, bringing my dazed mind back to reality instead of the thoughts that were scattered around in my head. Lydia stepped in my line of sight as she lowered her hand down, a single eyebrow raised at me. "Are you okay?" She asked with a concerned look etched out on her face.
Quickly realizing I was caught lost in my thoughts, I awkwardly nodded my head. "Yeah, sorry," I apologized to my strawberry blonde friend.
Slyly, I glanced off to the left from the corner of my eye, where Stiles stood near Parrish's desk in the Sheriff's station. His back faced the two of us, unaware of quiet conversation.
Lydia narrowed her eyes, like she didn't believe a word I said. "Did something happen with Scott?"
A disbelieved snort came from the back of my throat before I could stop it. My eyes grew wide at my loud mistake. "Oh, my God..." I muttered to myself. "No, no." I shook my head. I glanced at Stiles once again, thinking back onto what happened last night. "Um, I just-- I had an interesting night. I'm kind of distracted by it still."
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, paranoid I would accidentally blurt that I was dating Stiles now. The two of us talked last night that we would not outright announce that we were together because we didn't want to take away from the seriousness of the dead pool. We may be slightly worried about how Scott may take the news.
Before Lydia had a chance to question me anymore, Stiles and Parrish walked over to where we stood, already in the middle of a conversation. She closed her mouth when she saw the two of them approaching.
"-- your dad should be back within the hour," Parrish informed Stiles, briefly glancing at Lydia and I once they reached us. He gestured to Mr. Stilinski's office a few feet away. "You want to wait in his office?"
"Actually, we want to talk to you," Stiles stated when he stopped to stand on my right side.
Parrish raised a brow.
I pointed to Mr. Stilinski's office. "Privately," I added.
A confused look crossed his face, though he continued to lead the three of us toward the office without another word. Stiles purposely let Lydia follow behind him to slid up beside me, lowly whispering, "Are you okay?"
I gave him a surprised look. Maybe he did notice the dazed look in my eye before Lydia had broken me out of the trance I had fallen in. I pressed my lips together, nodding. "Yeah, I just feel, like, I'm going to accidentally blurt that we're dating now."
My eyes locked onto the back of Lydia's head, afraid of her overhearing our conversation. We weren't, per say, hiding our new relationship. We just weren't announcing it for the whole world to know. If someone happened to find out, then that was fine, but neither of us wanted to openly admit it.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Scott called me this morning and I was glad he couldn't hear my heartbeat through the phone." Stiles ran his hand through his dark hair.
"I mean, it's not like we're lying or anything, we just--" I grimaced. "We just aren't stating it out loud, but if someone else notices--"
"-- then that's okay," Stiles finished, nodding.
"Exactly!"
We shared uneasy looks, worried about one thing. We didn't care who found out about us dating now. Honestly, we think everyone truly expected it by this moment. Stiles and I just happened to be concerned with how Scott would react once he found out. Sure, he gave his approval for us to date, but it still felt kind of wrong in a sense.
Scott's ex-girlfriend and his best friend dating broke all of the rules of bro code or friendship.
Parrish spun around after he stepped inside of the office, waiting for us to tell him what we needed to. As I shut the door behind us, Lydia grabbed the folded piece of paper to him with the list of the names she recently decoded.
Without uttering a word, Parrish grabbed the paper from her, creasing his eyebrows in confusion when he saw the names and numbers beside them. "This is a hit list?"
Stiles glanced at Lydia and I before he stated, "We call it a dead pool."
"Recognize any of the names?" I asked.
Parrish nodded. "Yeah, the Sheriff had me run a bunch of these through the system last night, but we couldn't find any of them."
"Show him the other thing," Stiles told Lydia, who stood closest to the deputy.
Pressing her lips together, Lydia stepped closer to Parrish, grabbed the paper to unfold the bottom portion of it. The three of us remained silent as Parrish read his name at the end of the list.
"Okay, that's kind of terrifying," Parrish admitted, eyeing his name. "What's the number?"
"That's how much your worth..." I informed him, hesitantly.
"I'm worth five dollars?" Parrish asked in a disbelieved voice, almost like he was disappointed in how little he was worth.
Stiles held a hand up in the air. "Five million," he corrected the deputy.
Parrish brought his gaze back down to the list. "I only make 40,000 a year. Maybe I should kill myself," he muttered to himself. He shook his head once before he peered at the three of us over the brim of the paper. "I don't get it. Why- Why am I on this?"
"Honestly, that might be a question for another day," Stiles said. "Right now, there's still another third of the list we gotta crack."
"We need the third cipher key in order to crack it, but we need some help to get it." My fingers threaded together and I placed them underneath my chin, innocently smiling at him.
Parrish gave me an odd look in return, like he was marginally afraid of what I would say next. "From who?"
"Meredith," Lydia deadpanned.
Parrish swiveled in her direction. He glanced back forth between the two of us, silently wishing that Meredith wasn't the person we needed. "The girl from Eichen? The last time you saw her, you almost gave her a nervous breakdown."
"Uh, almost." Lydia weakly smiled.
XXXX
This chapter was kind of a pain to write. I was really struggling with how to write a smooth transition from the flashback to present day. Hopefully, this sounds okay. I only rewrote it, like, eight times.
On that note, I hope you guys liked this chapter.
Question: Do you think Stiles or Chloe will blurt out they are dating or someone will figure it out first?
So, yeah!