Archie made his way over to where his friend was and took a place at the table, and to both him and Jacob's surprise, Marcus had also come into their class, which they hadn't realized he had been in, so the three of them started talking among themselves, as it was the first day and it wasn't as if they had any work to catch up so they pretty much were just laughing making the most of a free period before the end of school.
Eventually though, the three noticed Zach had been sitting there quietly at the table not talking as other than Jacob, nobody at the table knew who he was, and the other two had probably assumed it was just some random kid who had decided to sit with them, but Jacob who had noticed this decided to be nice and introduce him to his friends, "hey by the way guys this is Zach, he's in my third block class and he actually just transferred here" and Zach who clearly appreciated the gesture, decided to start pitching in more to the conversation at this point as he felt more comfortable now that he didn't have to introduce himself, because like Jacob and Archie he wasn't exactly the most outgoing person.
"So I heard you guys talking and you guys are on the football team?" he asked trying to contribute to the conversation, and Marcus who may have thought it to be funny at the time replied "well I play on the football team, these guys just kind of get front row seats" he said, as he was referring to the bench, but looking over at his friends he realized maybe it wasn't as funny as he thought as they both had put their heads down, not necessarily because it was mean to say or anything like that, but just because they both knew he was telling the truth.
Zach trying to cheer up his two new friends simply replied "well I'm trying out too so you never know, maybe I can give you guys someone else to talk too while we watch", and with that the latter laughed a little bit, but it really didn't cheer them up, especially Archie who while he had played football since he in elementary school, was not necessarily a bad player, if anything was actually a really good player, but just never had the size to back him up on the field, and with going up from junior varsity to varsity and he was still not very muscular, he knew the gap between him and his teammates had only grown, because no matter what he tried, he just wasn't really able to put on muscle, and for him it had always been his dream to play in college but as a junior he had no offers and really it just wasn't looking good for him, and then for Jacob, while football wasn't exactly his biggest concern by any means, he still would have liked to start, and he was more than capable of being one, but Carson was never going to give up his spot without a fight, and with how things stood as of right now, that was a fight that Jacob knew he couldn't win.
So after the comment by Marcus the group naturally moved away from the topic as the two bench players had made it clear it not a topic they wanted to talk about anymore, so Jacob, still curious about the new kid of the group decided maybe it wouldn't hurt to get too know Zach a bit more, so moving on from the football he asked 'so anyway Zach, besides football, anything else you like to do" and after thinking about it for a second, as if he was contemplating what he wanted to say, he finally replied "well me and my dad do a bit of hunting every once and awhile, but that's about it, cause we've been doing it my whole life" and naturally the group thought that it was a pretty cool hobby to have, but hearing this brought Jacob back to a question he had wanted to ask earlier, but hadn't gotten around too, "so anyways I was actually going to ask you earlier, but who was your dad again, I know you said he was a teacher here right?" and with that Zach's face lit up, making the group realize it was someone who he looked up too in a high regard, and he replied shortly after "Oh I guess I never did say who my dad was, well maybe you guys have him for one of your classes, our last name is Orion", and while Archie hadn't paid attention to their teachers name, Jacob had the name embedded in his brain from first block, and right as he was about to say something about it they heard the bell ring and with that Zach got up and waved goodbye as he started heading towards the locker room, while Jacob was still in disbelief that their nightmare of a teacher was Zachs dad.
So with Zach having left the group to go get ready for tryouts and Jacob, Archie, and Marcus having stayed back and started walking to the locker room together, Jacob felt the need to let his friends know about his realization, "Archie, our first block teacher is Zach's dad" he said loudly for Marcus to hear as well, still stunned about realization, and Archie shared the same look on his face as Jacob upon hearing this, but not totally convinced he snapped back "Dude how do you even know that, our teacher never even said their name" and then Jacob told them about how he saw his nameplate on the desk on the way out, and filled Marcus in on how awful the class was.
"So what, just cause that's his dad doesn't mean anything, it's not like he's anything like him from what I've seen" said Marcus, and while he was right, it just didn't sit right with Jacob and Archie, but they had no time to think about stuff like that, as they were coming up on the locker room and they knew it was time for the first day of tryouts, or as most people called it "Hell Week".