Hey everybody! Remember this story? Yeah, let's put the blame where it belongs. Kristine finished her part back in November, while I finished mine yesterday. I'm the loveliest co-writer in the world.

Please read and review and enjoy and all that. :)

/Cimmy & Kristine

Chapter Three

Adam sat quietly listening as Guy babbled on. Luis was there, as were Charlie, Goldberg, Fulton, and Portman. They were in the dining hall, getting something to eat before practice, though nobody was doing much eating. They were mostly listening to Guy rant.

"I think we should kill him," Guy said for about the twentieth time. "Maybe we could put cyanide in his food, or arsenic in his water bottle, or maybe we could just hit him with a rock – "

"He's been like this all afternoon," Luis cut in as Guy continued to poorly plan Rick Riley's untimely demise. "Anybody have any ideas on what to do?"

Charlie looked repulsed by the whole idea, and couldn't really get the look off his face. "Connie on a date with Rick Riley? Is that possible? It's disgusting! We can't let it happen!"

"Shut up, your panicked tone is dangerously close to his," Adam said, nodding at Guy, who was still mumbling, lost in his thoughts. Charlie stopped talking. If anything good had come from the fiasco that was the beginning of their freshman year, it was that Charlie had, for the most part, learned when to shut his mouth among friends.

"I'm sorry," Charlie said, "It's just that it's…wrong."

Portman chuckled. "Wrong? What exactly is wrong about it?"

Charlie opened his mouth but Guy broke out of his incoherent mumbling to again verbally assault them. "She's Connie! He's Rick Riley! She's a Duck! He's a Warrior! She's the love of my life! He's our sworn enemy!"

"Um, yeah, there's that," Goldberg said, "Chill out, Guy. Relax. You're driving us crazy." Guy went back to furiously muttering to himself. "Connie's been with Guy since forever, and it's one thing to break up, it's another to go out with a sworn enemy. I wonder if Connie is doing this to get to Guy," Goldberg added.

"It's working," Portman observed.

Fulton, ever the wise one, finally spoke. "First of all, Connie wouldn't do anything to deliberately make Guy a raving lunatic. Second, maybe we should just let her do what she wants."

The five other heads turned to look at him. "What do you mean?" Adam asked. He played on the Varsity team for a month or two, and he knew better than anyone that Rick Riley's motives for doing anything weren't pure, but it'd taken Adam the better part of fifteen minutes to convince Guy that he, Adam, had no idea what those ulterior motives were.

"I mean, maybe this isn't any of our business – not even Guy's," Fulton explained, and Guy glared at him evilly. "She's not stupid."

"But it isn't right!" Guy whined. "I want to go out with her!"

"Oh shut up," Portman rolled his eyes. "If you don't stop moaning, I'm going to knock you on your ass."

"Obviously she doesn't feel that way about you," Fulton added. "Give her some space to figure everything out. And give the rest of us some time to figure out what Riley's up to."

Adam could tell that the advice of "give her some space" was not sitting well with Guy. He fidgeted and looked as though someone had stuck a load of crap under his nose.

"I don't want to give her space!" Guy said finally in a would-be-calm voice. "I don't want to see her go out with Rick Riley!"

Charlie shook his head. "I don't like it either, man, but you don't have a choice. She's a big girl, she can do what she wants."

"She's my girl," Guy said bitterly.

"Not these days she's not," Charlie said shortly. "But maybe you can win her back."

"Win her back?" Guy said hopefully. Adam watched Fulton shake his head. Portman chuckled. Goldberg rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, win her back," Charlie said casually.

"How?"

"Is that really a good idea?" Luis cut in, looking clearly skeptical.

Adam could tell that he and Luis were on the same page about this. They could both see that Guy doing something like singing cheesy love songs under Connie and Julie's dorm window would not end happily ever after. It would probably be embarrassing for everyone, and Adam could picture Julie running down there in the middle of the night to explain to Guy that Connie was no longer speaking to him or that the entire girls' dorm thought he was gay for singing a bad version of Rod Stewart's Have I Told You Lately.

"Of course it's a good idea," Guy snapped. Luis rolled his eyes. "Continue, Charlie."

"I don't have any actual ideas. We'll have to come up with some," Charlie said, shrugging.

It was Goldberg's turn to sound doubtful. "What are you going to do, Guy? Write bad poetry? Can't you try playing it cool for a while first?"

"Shut up, Goldberg," Guy said.

"And are you really going to listen to Charlie?" Goldberg continued, as if Guy hadn't said anything at all. "He's not exactly a stud. And he's not really good at playing it cool. And he's not exactly smooth around the ladies."

"Shut up, Goldberg! When did this become 'pick on Charlie' time?" Charlie said. He looked a wonderful combination of confused, embarrassed, and annoyed. Adam smirked a little bit, but quickly coughed into his hand to hide it. He didn't want to pick a fight, but Goldberg had a fair point. Charlie was not a hottie by anyone's standards, totally blew his first date with Linda, and he was not really smooth with the girls.

"He's got a point, Charlie," Portman said easily. Charlie glared at him. Fulton elbowed Portman. "What?" Portman said, "I was just saying what everyone was thinking!"

Fulton shook his head at Portman. "Dude, how come you just make things worse wherever you go?"

"I do not!"

"Yeah, you do," Fulton insisted.

Portman laughed. "Yeah, I do."

Fulton rolled his eyes. "You might wanna work on that, Port," he said and then looked at Adam. "What do you think, Banksie? You've been quiet."

"I'm usually quiet," Adam answered. "But if you must know, I can't say I think this is a good idea."

"Does nobody but Charlie want me to get back together with Connie? Does nobody but Charlie and I see that Rick Riley is evil?" Guy sounded like the world was ending.

"Of course we all want that," Goldberg said patiently. "But Connie doesn't necessarily want to get back with you. And we all know Rick Riley is evil. But what can you do? And we don't want you to make a fool of yourself."

"How could I possibly make a fool of myself?" Guy asked.

"You really want us to answer that?" Portman asked.

"Yeah," Guy challenged, "How could I possibly make a fool of myself?"

Portman opened his mouth, but Fulton elbowed him again. "Just leave it, man. What did we just say about trying not to make things worse?"

"It's time to go," Goldberg said, cutting the conversation short and checking his watch. "Let's get out of here."

They all stood up. "Sleep on it before you do anything, Guy," Fulton advised.

But Adam could tell as they walked out of the dining hall that Guy was set on winning Connie back. Adam knew Riley was not a nice guy, but he also knew that Riley knew how to get what he wanted. He wished he knew what Riley wanted; it would make things much easier. But he didn't know what Riley wanted. He only knew that Guy wanted Connie back. Adam believed that Connie was supposed to be with Guy, it was one of the constants in his universe, and it brought him peace of mind. So in all honesty, he was hoping Connie would wise up and get back with Guy…or at least somebody other than Riley. But Adam was rooting for Guy. Of course he was. Guy was one of his best friends. Adam just hoped that this quest of Guy's didn't end in some kind of disaster.

After the last class of the day, Julie decided to head over to the library to work some more on one of her papers that were due the following week. The hallway was almost completely deserted, but as she made her way over to the stairway to the second floor, someone called out for her. "Julie, wait up."

She turned around towards the familiar voice, already knowing it was Scooter. "Hey," she said simply, not really in the mood for a chat with him. She'd already had her fill of Warrior related discussions this month.

"Hey," he smiled, throwing a quick look at the books she was carrying in her arms – at least that was what she was hoping he was looking at. "You goin' to the library?"

Julie started to walk again. "Yeah, I have some studying to do." There was a short, awkward silence while he tried to keep up with her pace. Then they both spoke at once. "Look, I have-"

"I've been thinkin'-" he started, but threw a glimpse at her and continued, "You go first."

"No, it was nothing important," she mumbled, wondering why he was suddenly acting so jittery. "Did you want something?"

"Yeah. I've been thinkin'…" he repeated, drawing a deep breath. "You know last week when we went out to see that movie?"

"Yeah…" Julie said slowly.

"And the week before that we went to that place to eat, you know?"

"Okay," she said even slower, now looking at him suspiciously, not knowing where the hell he was going with the stoic rantage.

"We never actually put a term on it, but I would think that they constitute as dates. So, I was kind of hoping you wouldn't mind going on another one."

Julie couldn't help but smile at this feeble display of affection. "With you?" she asked teasingly.

Scooter looked a bit confused for a second. "Yeah, that was the idea."

"I'm kidding," she assured him, walking up a few steps of the stairs. Scooter reached out and grabbed her hand before she could get any further. She turned to face him.

"So, what's the verdict?"

She stayed quiet for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. "I can't date you," she finally stated. "I'm sorry. It wouldn't work out." Her words had made him let go of her hand, so she took the opportunity to escape up the stairs and turn the corner. He caught up with her only seconds later.

"Okay, first: ouch," he said with a confounded expression, shaking his head slightly.

Julie shot him an apologizing smile. "I'm sorry. I just thought it would be better to be straight with you."

"Well, I disagree. A lie has never hurt anyone. Gee, way to let a guy down," he said, both sounding and looking a bit frantic and amazed at the same time.

"I'll try to remember that," she promised.

"For the next time you decide to rip my heart out?"

"Yeah, exactly." She stopped in the middle of the hallway. "Look, it's just not a good idea right now."

"Why is it not a good idea?" he asked. "I got the impression that we were kind of getting along, and you like me, right?"

Julie gave up a short laugh. "Yeah. I do."

"And I like you, so I really don't see what the problem is."

"Well, you should. We just… we don't belong in the same circles."

Scooter looked away from her, snorting dejectedly. "I forgot. The Montagues and the Capulets don't play well together."

"It's not just that. Everyone's kind of intense about this whole-"

"Rivalry?"

"Well, yeah. You can't say that your team isn't climbing the walls right now, 'cause mine is."

Scooter leaned up against the locker to his right, hoping to make some sense of the situation. "Yeah. Everyone's pretty riled up."

"And the keyword there is…"

"Riley," he sighed deeply. "Jules, I promise you, if I knew that he was up to something bad-"

"-you would tell me. I know that. Scott, I know that."

He looked up at her. "So that's it? We can't date, because Riley might be up to something? Maybe he's just grown bored. Maybe he just wants a date." He slammed his hand into the locker. "Damn. He's just… He's everywhere. Always. Always doing something that ends up ruining things for everyone else. I can't get him out, you know, just… out."

Julie took a step closer, placing her hand on his arm. "You can help me," she suggested quietly.

He turned his attention back to her. "I can?"

"You can help me by finding out what he's up to. What he's planning to do to my team. Do you want to help me?"

"I don't know…" he mumbled with uncertainty, once again having an inner battle with himself. "It's my team, too."

"Well, you look after your stuff, and I'll look after mine. And when this whole thing's blown over, maybe you can call me." Julie gave him a sincere smile, before she let go of his arm and went over to the door to the library. She was just about to walk inside, when he spoke up again.

"I can help you. But only if I find out that it's something bad. I'll do the best I can. I can't do more than that."

"No one can," she said. "Thank you."

Even though he'd basically just been dumped, Scooter felt oddly at ease with the day.