...
Don walks in to the school Friday morning, praying that nobody saw his performance with The Front yesterday night and that it wasn't posted online.
Fortunately nobody seems to know or care because everyone continues to grin at him or give him the occasional high-five, so Don lets himself relax.
Until Tom Keen walks around the corner.
Crap.
Don's hated Tom Keen ever since sophomore year. He goes out of his way to make Don's life a living hell. Tom was his best friend in junior high and freshman year, but as sophomore year progressed and Don started to become popular, it seemed that Tom was trying to top Don in just about everything; grades, girls, and especially football, and he did in everything but football. He and Tom became rivals after Don was chosen over Tom to be the quarterback last year. Tom still got a good position (he's the linebacker) but he never shows up to the practices anymore after he was elected class president (another one-up for Tom. He's now just as popular as Don, even Pete worships him). Don does his best to avoid him, but he's in some of his classes. His parents are filthy rich and it seems he goes on vacation every few months. For his eighteenth birthday they did a tour around Europe which is why Don hasn't seen him since March.
Two amazing Tom-less months he will never get back.
Unfortunately it looks like he's back for the rest of the year, even for prom.
Damn it.
"Oh hey, Don." Tom says coldly, glaring at Don's letterman jacket even though he wears the exact same one.
"Hey, Tom." Don says, even more coldly. "How was Europe?"
"Good." Tom barely reacts. "I recently heard of your bet with Pete Maguire."
"Of course you did," Don mutters, but Tom pointedly ignores this.
"As the class president and an advocate for the student council, I would normally try to intervene," Tom continues, fixing his neat brown hair which is already coiffed to perfection. "But this time, I say go for it."
Don blinks.
"It's true. I'd like to see how this plays out." Tom grins, but not warmly.
Don isn't having any of it. "What's your angle, Keen?"
"Angle?" Tom laughs so irritably it makes Don's blood boil. "There's no angle to this, Ressler. You've never considered that maybe I want to have a little fun?"
Don doesn't answer, so Tom shrugs and nonchalantly walks off. Whatever Tom's true motives are, they're certainly not going to be good. He doesn't want Lizzie involved with Tom and his scheming.
"Hey, Keen!" Don yells after Tom, who has almost reached the end of the hallway. "Stay out of this one."
"Whatever you say, Ressler." Tom hollers back, walking down the stairs.
Don just shakes his head and heads to class.
...
The next day is a Saturday, which is perfect for Don because today he plans to take Lizzie out to the beach.
He pulls up by her house (he got Aram to tell him the address. It's pretty easy to get anything out of Aram, it seems), and spots Mr. Reddington out of all people chatting with who he assumes is Lizzie's father on the driveway.
"Morning, Mr. Reddington, Mr. Scott," Don says courteously as awkward as the situation was.
"Donald." Mr. Reddington nods curtly.
Don stifles a groan. He hates it when people call him by his full name (what would motivate his parents to name him Donald?).
"Donald?" repeats Mr. Scott, looking at Don up and down. "Are you the boy who's been persistently pursuing my Lizzie? You know there's a word for that, son, it's called harrass-"
"Um y-yes, I mean no sir," Don interrupts quickly. He certainly doesn't want he father to get a bad first impression of him. "I'm not trying to offend your daughter, um, I like her and I want to get to know her better."
Mr. Scott nods, clearly not convinced. "She's inside."
"Thank you, sir." Don mumbles, walking onto the porch.
"I could have sworn, Sam, that I heard a rumour that Donald and-" Don hears Mr. Reddington begin, and his heart starts to race, but fortunately Mr. Scott cuts him off.
"Raymond, what in the hell happened to your car?" he exclaims, having leaned against Mr. Reddington's car and spotting a large dent, and Don is briefly
grateful for the fact that Mr. Scott gets easily distracted. "I work at the shop dealing with cars six days a week, you think I wouldn't notice something like that? How did it happen?"
"Oh, Sam, you wouldn't believe what happened to this thing on the way to work yesterday." he hears Mr. Reddington respond, apparently dropping the subject as fast as Mr. Scott did. "There was this blue Prius. . ."
Just then, the front door swings open and a furious Lizzie is standing in front of Don with her face etched into a frown, her glasses lopsided and brown hair tied up into a messy ponytail.
"You know, I can press charges-"
"Please don't. I got the address from Aram, okay? All I want to get to know you better, that's all."
"You can't keep showing up wherever I am anymore, it's already strange that my calculus teacher is close friends with my dad, don't make this any weirder-"
"And you can't keep avoiding me. Like Thursday night, what was that?"
"You're asking me what that was? Looks like you were trying to-"
"Do you want to go to the beach with me?"
"What?"
"I'm trying to cut to the chase here." Don explains as Lizzie steps onto the porch and shuts the door. "Do you want to go to the beach with me?"
Lizzie blinks. "No, not really."
"Great. Grab your swimsuit and let's go."
"What? No!"
At that moment her phone rings in her pocket and she steps aside to take it.
"Aram!" Lizzie glowers into her phone, apparently to Aram. "I swear, if you've given my address to anyone else, I will - yeah, he's here, he wants me to go to the beach with him." She takes time to glance at Don, who just puts his hands in his pockets. "What? You're saying I should go with him? Aram Mojtabai, don't you dare-"
Don hears the phone line click dead, indicating that Aram has hung up. Lizzie turns back around to face Don, her mouth a thin line.
"Okay, fine. If this will shut you up-"
"It will."
"-I'll come to the beach with you."
"Alright, that's great!"
Lizzie looks at Don for a second more, and with a frustrated huff she walks back into the house, then appearing minutes later dressed with all her stuff.
This may actually work out.
...
"So, you've never been to the beach before?"
Don and Lizzie were setting up at Don's usual spot where he'd come with Audrey and Pete and the others. Most days the area was packed with people swimming and sunbathing but today it was unusually unpopulated even though the weather was beautiful.
"Um, yeah, no I mean I've been here a few times with my mom when I was like really young. I can't remember it though."
"Oh."
"She, um, she died six years ago." Lizzie says softly, seeming to have read his mind.
"Lizzie, I'm sorry-"
"It's fine." she puts a hand up to stop him. "I've already grieved. Both me and my dad took it pretty hard, but we're doing our best to get by now, you know."
Don nods, looking down at the ground. He didn't know how bad Lizzie had it; he always figured she was just the dorky girl in his calculus and geography classes.
"Well today, just let yourself go. You should smile."
"I do smile!"
"Yeah, but not enough. You're at the beach, have some fun! Oh, come on now, don't tell me you don't like the beach!"
"I never said that!" she defends herself, although she's grinning.
"Alright, but-"
"Hey, Ressler!" a loud voice calls out, interrupting their conversation.
Don looks up at the stairs leading down to the shore and he sees Pete and the others walking down to them, holding towels and umbrellas and volleyballs.
"Alright, if you and I are gonna be friends, you've got to deal with line at least once." he tells Lizzie, who stares at them like they're aliens from another planet.
This was supposed to be our day, he thinks, a little miffed that his friends had decided to join him today out of all days.
"Hey man, what's up!" Pete sets down his stuff next to Don's and gives him a high-five. "We called your house, they said you were here so we figured we might as well crash your date!"
Lizzie's face turns red, and Don quickly says, "It's not a date."
"Whatever, Mr. I'm-Totally-In-Love." Pete laughs and helps the others set up.
Don shakes his head as Lizzie tries to hide behind him.
Then he sees Tom, who is walking straight towards him.
Damn him.
But to Don's complete surprise Tom walks right past him and faces Lizzie.
"Hey. You're Lizzie, right?" Tom says, sounding sickly sweet.
"Um, yeah." Lizzie was clearly unsure of what was happening as well.
"I'm Tom." he grins, shaking her hand.
Lizzie smiles a bit, and for some reason this enrages Don (but he's not jealous). "I know. Nice to meet you, Tom."
Don notices that Tom's look lingers a little bit too long on Lizzie, but fortunately Pete yells out, "Who's up for some volleyball?" and the moment is over.
Don walks over to where Pete is setting up the net, still keeping an eye on Tom.
At that moment Lizzie takes off her sundress, and Don has to admit, Lizzie Scott looks pretty damn good in a swimsuit.
"Wow." Pete adds, clearly noticing Don staring. "Who knew what she was hiding under all of those flannel shirts."
All Don could do was nod.
Meanwhile Lizzie had taken out a book and was attempting read while lying down on her towel.
"So." Samar Navabi, one of Don's friends who plays basketball says as she sets up her chair next to Lizzie. "Don's clearly over Audrey."
Lizzie looks up. "Hm? Oh, I don't know, I guess."
"You guys dating? Sure seems like it."
"What? No, we're. . ." Lizzie stammers.
"Just friends?" Sarah, who was suntanning nearby, finishes.
"Yeah. I guess you could say that." Lizzie didn't really know what else to say.
"Audrey and Michael are clearly more than friends." Sarah states, giving a knowing look to Samar. "I'd prefer coming here than going around everywhere with Audrey and her boy toy."
"Yeah." Samar agrees. "She certainly doesn't need us twenty-four seven anymore."
"Hey." Pete runs up to them. "You girls want to play some volleyball? Although my team's gonna win, it would be fun to see you guys try."
"No way. I've only been tanning for five minutes." Sarah says, fixing her shades.
Samar shook her head. "Me neither."
Pete turns to Lizzie. "How about you, Lizzie?"
Lizzie, who by then was feeling a little excluded in the conversation, shrugs. "Um. . . sure, I guess so."
Sarah scoffs. "I don't think you should. I've seen you in gym class."
"Oh, is that so?" Lizzie arches an eyebrow, standing up and taking off her glasses. "Maybe you should watch me now."
Samar gets up as well. "You know, maybe I will join in. Come on, Lizzie."
Pete grins and they all walk over to the net, leaving a horrified Sarah alone under the umbrella.
A few other girls and boys join in, and soon the game becomes full-out war between the two teams.
Don observes that Lizzie clearly isn't all too well-versed in volleyball, so he does his best to improve her volleys, and by the end of the third game, Lizzie has improved immensely.
Her team won almost all of the games.
Tom, who was on Pete's team, was getting quite annoyed of Don and Lizzie's team's constant victories, and Don noticed that each time he celebrated with Lizzie, the angrier Tom got.
They played for almost the whole afternoon and it wasn't until Pete's team had actually won that they decided to stop playing and pack up.
"See, that wasn't too bad. Not all my friends are complete jerks." Don says to Lizzie, as they walk up the stairs to the parking lot.
Lizzie laughs a bit. "I guess so."
"Great game, Lizzie." Pete says, as he passes by with Tom. "You guys coming tonight to the party?"
"Pete's house is gigantic. His dad owns a construction company." Tom explains, and to Don's annoyance, winks at her.
Pete laughs. "Like you have it any worse, Keen."
"I don't know," Lizzie says, glancing up at Don. "Sure, I guess."
"Great, see you guys there." Pete exclaims before catching up to Samar, Sarah and their other football buddies.
"Oh, but be careful." Tom advises, mostly to Lizzie. "Audrey'll probably be there. Even if she's with Michael, she'll freak out if she sees you two. Maybe even tear you apart."
Don clenches his fists, but Tom just smirks and walks away.
"Ignore what he just said, don't worry about it." he tells Lizzie, who looks petrified, her eyes wide behind her glasses. "You should come."
Lizzie shakes her head. "I can't, the house is like extremely dirty and my dad's working late."
"But earlier, you said that-"
"I just remembered now. Sorry, Don." she says, trying to sound apologetic.
"Don!" he hears Pete call from up ahead.
"Hold on a sec," he tells Lizzie, and runs up to Pete. "What is it?"
Pete waits for Tom, Samar and Sarah to walk farther away from earshot so only Don can hear him.
Then he says, "Tom wants in on the bet."
...
A/N: This was a really long chapter, so thank you if you managed to read the entire thing! I may post another multi-chapter fanfic soon, but I won't abandon this one, don't worry! Expect another update within a few days again!