AN: Sorry it took a while to write this chapter. I've been moving my stuff away from home for University, so I've been super busy. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Thank you Jacobslover2014 for following and reviewing the previous chapter - glad that you enjoyed it and I hope that this one is just as enjoyable for you!

Chapter two - Men don't blush

Family has always been a term used loosely in our household. In normal households, family tends to stick together in a close unit. There's a sense of love, support and fierce protectiveness. Our family, on the other hand, is slightly different.

My brother and I have always been very close and I've never felt more happy than when he and dad were back under the same roof as Mum and I. Dad worked away a lot so he was hardly around, but we had always had a super tight relationship. Whenever he was home he'd taking me on weekend hiking trips and I received a weekly postcard from him, indicating which place in the world he was in at the time. When he was back at home it was almost as if we were a functional family and I even tried to pretend that the act my mother put on in front of him was real, that she was the perfect mother all the time.

My relationship with my mother, although seemingly abnormal to the passing bystander, had always been simple: she pretended I didn't exist most of the time, only passing the occasional distant remark in my direction when she had to put on a show of being a functional mother in front of my father, and in turn I didn't bother her unless spoken to. She never needed to be verbal with the disgusted looks she gave me. My brother has always tried to play the peacekeeper between mum and I, but now that he is away for college there seems to be less peace and more of a tense atmosphere. It was clear that I was simply unwanted by her, had been for as long as I could remember.

So it was a big surprise to see that she was sat at the kitchen table as I descended the stairs to eat my breakfast before school, a cup of coffee in front of her. Her blond hair was tightly wound in a ponytail, and she donned her usual smart black dress suit for work.

"Sylvia." She acknowledged tightly, her eyes piercing into my own as she beckoned me forward with a perfectly manicured hand. "Sit."

I did as I was told, wringing my hands together.

"You're not at work?"

Mum rolled her eyes and shot her signature look of disappointment at me. "No, I left for work half an hour ago and you're sat in this kitchen by yourself," She drawled out sarcastically. "Your father is coming home in the next couple of days. He's been advised to return by his superior officer."

I stopped wringing my hands and felt my lips turn up into a wide grin.

"I don't know what you're so happy about. You're not to overcrowd him when he gets home - it's about time you grew up and stopped being so attached to him. You're a leech when he's around. It's pathetic."

"But I haven't seen him in three months!" I blurted out, but immediately regretted doing so when mum's face contorted into a dark frown. She got up from her chair and slowly walked over to me, her heels clicking sharply against the floor, before she placed a firm hand on to my shoulder.

"If I catch you being too overbearing then you'll be grounded until the end of time. Do you understand me?"

I nodded my head, but couldn't help but notice that her angry expression was shaded with concern. She was worried about my father. "Why is dad coming home so early anyway?"

Mum briskly removed her hand from my shoulder and turned to walk towards the sink. "Just get ready for school and get out of here."

The walk to school was uneventful. Cat spent the whole time reminding me exactly what to say and what not to say to Seth, an unassuming pawn in her latest scheme. The only difference between Seth and I was that I was an assuming Pawn. I knew that I was being used by Cat, but I had more on my mind. My father was sent home early by his boss. He'd be home in the next couple of days, which meant we'd be able to spend some rare time together.

But I couldn't help but fret over the numerous possibilities for him having to return home early. Dad was quite an important part of his team in the military - he was a specialist in post traumatic stress disorder, and one of the best of his kind in the country. Officials often personally requested his assistance, which was why he had to travel around so often opposed to being stationed in one area. They needed him. So why were they sending him home?

I zoned back into my conversation with Cat, pushing my dad to the back of my mind. I'd question him when he got home. Cat seemed to be listing things with her fingers so it appeared that she had really thought through the procedures of her plan.

"- And remember not to make it seem as if I've asked you to speak to him.. he'll tell Paul and it'll be all embarrassing because I'll come across as desperate and needy, which are two things I definitely am not."

"Right, no mention of you. Gotcha."

Speaking to Seth was the last thing that I wanted to do now that I had the news of my dad's return on my plate. Seth Clearwater intimidated me; not because he was volatile and violent, but because he was exactly the opposite. The kid seemed to always have a content smile on his face, come rain, come shine. It just didn't seem human to be that happy twenty four seven. But assisting Cat with her problems had been a constant in my life for as long as I could remember, so it was just something that I'd have to get over and done with.

At least she hadn't asked me to speak to Paul.

Seth Clearwater's large frame was the first thing I noticed as I walked into homeroom. He looked almost humorously out of place in a classroom filled with smaller looking teenagers. It also didn't help that he had to bend over his desk in order to write comfortably. Despite his large frame, there was something distinctively young looking about him. It was probably the way that his face was almost constantly lit up like a child's face on the morning of Christmas.

Most of the chairs surrounding him were already taken because I was later than usual seeing as Cat felt the need to go through the plan another three times when we arrived on school grounds, but I spotted that the seat behind him was vacant so I marched over towards it and claimed it as my own.

I was hoping that he might have caught my eye as I walked past him, making it easier to start a conversation, but he seemed to be focused on whatever was on the paper that he was bent over. I noticed that his use of the pencil was delicate, as if he was afraid to ruin whatever it was he was working on.

I smiled smugly to myself as I placed my pencil case on to my own desk. Starting a conversation would be pretty easy considering the fact that I was pretty intrigued by what he was doing.

"Excuse me," I called out, but his focus remained unwavered. This admittedly made me quite frustrated because my promise to Cat was pushed to the side as my curiosity got the better of me. "Uh, excuse me, Seth?" I only had ten minutes to talk to him before Mrs Danae arrived to take the register.

The scratching of his pencil stopped and he straightened up to turn towards me. "Oh, sorry, I get carried away sometimes. My mum always jokes that I'm off with the faeries and-" It was almost as if his joyous speech got stuck at the back of his throat because he gulped for air as our eyes met. The depth of them pulled me in and I honestly felt mesmerized by them. Classmates, desks, chairs and the blackboard all seemed to disappear until I heard the scrape of a chair a couple of desks beside me, and we both seemed to be jolted out of this trance.

I mentally slapped myself as it all seemed to wear off, but Seth was still looking at me as if I was a freaking Holy Messiah or something. It was unnerving so I waved one of my hands slowly in front of his face. "Uh, Seth?"

My voice snapped him out of what appeared to be a trance like state as the biggest grin I had ever seen him don spread across his face. It was truly blinding.

"What can I do for you, Sylvia?" He chirped out, his body now completely facing me. My name rolled off of his tongue delicately, which I wasn't very happy about. He was talking to me as if we'd been best friends for years. The thing that frustrated me the most was that I liked the way he said my name, I wanted him to say it again.

I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know my name?"

Seth barked out an amused laugh. "Exactly the same way that you know my name. We do live in La Push ya know. Everybody knows everybody." Well, he'd certainly got me there. "So, what can I do for you, Sylvia?"

And suddenly that warm feeling in the pit of my stomach was back again. All because he said my freaking name. I cleared my suddenly dry throat and continued, shoving these new found reactions to Seth right under a rug in my mind. "I was just sorta wondering what you're concentrating so hard on."

He looked a little bit confused for a second, but then realization seemed to hit him and a light blush spread across his cheeks. "It's, uh, nothing,"

"Riiiiight." I smirked. "Then why are you blushing as if somebody has just walked in on you butt naked?"

Seth pouted indignantly. "I was totally not blushing just then," He proceeded to puff out his shoulders. "Men don't blush."

"And girls don't fart." I muttered under my breath sarcastically. Seth seemed to pick up on what I was saying, though, because he let out another one of his grand and mighty laughs.

"Oh, I figured out that statement has always been a lie before middle school." He glanced playfully around the classroom before leaning in closer, his hands around his mouth. "My sister Leah farts like a man!" He stage whispered. I would have let out a little chuckle at that, but my breath caught at the back of my throat when his warm breath washed across my face.

"If you keep your mouth open like that then you'll catch flies," I jolted back to reality to see that Seth was wearing a smug smile, which indicated to me that he was clearly pleased with himself for making me act like one of his stupid fan girls.

My eyes narrowed slightly and I gave him a light shove. "Funny, I could have said that to you a moment ago."

Seth blushed, again. "I don't know what on this fine green earth you're talking about." A comfortable silence fell over us, and I fought off the urge to squirm under Seth's gaze as his eyes swept over me. "You're great. I don't know why we've never really spoken before."

Fighting off a blush, I decided to veer the conversation towards the true reason why I had chosen to strike up a conversation with him. "I know! It's crazy to think that two of our friends had a thing going on and we've never crossed paths." When his face scrunched up in confusion, I leaned forward. "Your friend Paul and my friend Cat?"

His face lit up in recognition, but he simply shrugged, "I didn't really know too much about that."

"But you heard about their break up, right?"

"Oh, that? That wasn't a break up, Sylvia, they weren't even together really. Besides, Paul is eternally whipped by Rachel."

Uh oh. That certainly was not the news I wanted to be reporting back to Cat.

"'Eternally whipped'? How can he be when they've just met?"

Couples that got super intense super quickly had always irritated and confused me. True love is not something that just springs up out of nowhere; it takes time for that sort of emotion to grow. Not that I had any experience with relationships, but I could just never see myself falling in love that quickly. Seemed a bit too unrealistic.

Seth expression turned serious. "You don't believe in love at first sight?"

"You do?"

Well, of course he did. The majority of his friends were all in intense relationships that seemed to develop out of nowhere.

He nodded rapidly. "Of course it can happen! Have you not read Romeo and Juliet? There's was a fated love-"

"-Which was also completely fictional." I pointed out, cutting him off.

Another silence swept over us as he stared at me in disbelief. But his face took on another expression that I had never really seen on his happy go lucky self before, one of determination. But before he could rant on about fated star-crossed lovers, Mrs Danae walked into the classroom with a heap of paperwork in her hands and a wide smile on her face that almost trumped Seth's usual happy expression - I swear the only thing that has ever been fated is that she was assigned to be his tutor.

He gave me one last fleeting look before turning back to the front of the class. "This debate is not over, Sylvia." He said playfully, leaving me to stare at the back of his head.

My left eye twitched in frustration as I realized what he had said. A conversation that had initially only been started to find out information for my best friend had led to a debate that was, in his words, 'not over'. Why did I have the feeling that this was not only not the end of our debate, but also not the end of coming into contact with Seth all together?

One thing was certain: Cat owed me several packets of Cheetos.

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