I'm so sorry I haven't updated since September. I've been having some health issues and job issues, but I'm currently working them out. ^_^ Here's chapter three! Hope you guys like it!

Eli

XXX

It was the first day back at college after spring break. I had arrived early, settling in a seat at the back to the right. Since I was a rightie, I hated letting people sit on my right, since they pretty much always jostled my arm, making my handwriting worse than the chicken scratch it already was. My backpack landed with a thump on the floor, and I nudged it under the table, taking my seat with a silent sigh.

I'd much rather be at home, sleeping.

I buried my head in my arms, blocking out the light and other students trickling in. No matter what class I was in, everyone around me was always way louder than they needed to be. Reminded me of the odd dreams I'd had since January...

"Hey, mind if I sit here?"

Lifting my head, I looked up at a tall, blonde-haired blue-eyed guy. I quickly looked at him. He had stylish glasses, a funny looking cowlick, normal jeans and t-shirt combo, blue sneakers, a brown bomber jacket draped over one arm and a plain black backpack slung over the right shoulder. He tilted his head, giving me what he obviously thought an award winning smile.

I lifted an eyebrow, amused. "Um, sure. It's a free country, so you ARE allowed to sit where you want." Then I frowned. "Unless you're only here to hit on me, and in that case I'd have to tell you to go away before I stab you with a ballpoint pen."

The guy laughed, grinning at me, warm and friendly. "Don't worry, I don't hit on anyone. Unless it's a fight. Then I hit a LOT."

I snorted. Funny...

"Name's Alfred. Alfred Jones." He held a hand out for me to shake.

I smiled, grasped his hand with mine and giving it a firm shake. "Charlotte. Charlie to my friends."

"Can I call you Charlie?"

As in, 'can we be friends?' "Sure."

XXX

Turned out, letting Alfred sit by me was the best decision I could've made. A couple of other people I'd never seen around the college before were in the same class. One was a quiet guy named Matthew, also with blonde hair and a cowlick, but his was curly. He had on blue jeans and an over-sized red sweatshirt with a hockey team logo on the front. I took a liking to him right away, and we bonded over our shared interests in anime, ice skating and short films. He and I made plans to co-write a short script.

The second person, however...

Yeah, he was a stereotypical French man. His name was Francis, and as soon as he saw me sitting at the same table with Alfred and Matthew, he made a beeline over to us, immediately feeding me the corniest lines I'd ever heard. I stared at him in disbelief, then looked to the two blondes for help, but they were too busy gaping at the french dude.

"Francis, dude," Alfred cleared his throat, glancing at my right hand clenching a ballpoint pen tightly enough to make my knuckles white. "I'd lay off if I were you."

"You have no claim on her," Francis sniffed, looking down his nose at Alfred.

I glowered at him. Yup, I'm leaving France off my list of countries to travel to after college.

"Maybe not, but," Alfred suddenly grinned, watching me as I lifted the pen up, preparing to jam it into whatever soft spot I could reach first. "Neither do you. And I don't think she likes the attention you're giving her."

Francis ignored the sage advice, and proceeded to flirt with me.

Needless to say, he had an obvious limp when he left the room after class was over.

"You're so vicious," Alfred sing-songed at me, cracking up.

i shrugged. "What can I say? I don't put up with stupid shit from guys."

Matthew was fighting a smile as he doodled on his notebook paper. "It'll be annoying hearing about it for years to come, but seeing the whole thing go down will be worth his whining."

Alfred grinned and opened his mouth to say something, but a text alert cut him off. He pulled a smartphone from his jeans pocket, tapping the screen a few times. Then he frowned. "Did you know Artie was planning on attending here, Mattie?"

Matthew looked over at Alfred's phone, reading whatever message was on there. "No. You know he never tells me stuff."

I shook my head, ignoring them, and shoved my notebook and textbook back in my backpack. I had one other class, but it was later in the day. The library was where I'd be until it started.

"Says he's gonna do general studies...and he's bringing Toni and the minion. They're doing creative writing."

Matthew chuckled softly, still doodling. "I think he's only coming to keep on eye on you. Remember the last college you attended?"

"That was ages ago!" Alfred said defensively, pouting at Matthew. "You'd think people would eventually let one little blunder go, but nooooo, they have to keep harping on it and harping on it. Sheesh!"

I looked up. "What college did you attend before this?"

"Liberty University*. It's in Virginia," Alfred told me absentmindedly.

"What'd you study there?"

"Criminal Justice."

"Because you have this unhealthy obsession with being a hero," Matthew muttered. He rolled his eyes at Alfred's wounded gasp.

"It's not an obsession if I really am a hero!" Was his argument.

"Whatever," Matthew replied, concentrating more on his doodle than on what Alfred was saying.

I stood up, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. "You guys have more classes today?"

Alfred looked up at me and nodded. "Yeah, there's this photography class that sounded like fun, so we enrolled in it."

"No way! That's the class I'm taking!" I grinned. "We should sit together!"

Alfred got excited about that. "Definitely! It'd be a lot more fun since somebody," he looked pointedly at Matthew, "is a real stick in the mud and refuses to talk to me."

"You're supposed to listen to the professor during class time, Alfred," Matthew shot back, not bothering to look up. "Not gossip like an old fogy stuck in a nursing home with nothing better to do."

Alfred merely stuck his tongue out like a kid. I huffed a laugh, and he grinned at me.

"When's Arthur and the others coming?" Matthew asked. He was apparently done with his doodle, and shut his notebook.

"They're enrolling right now, and will be in class starting tomorrow," Alfred said in an unhappy tone. "Dude, I wish he'd stop treating me like a kid! I don't need a babysitter-oh." His face cleared up. "He might be here as emotional support for Toni and tomato-face."

"He has a perfectly good name, Alfred."

"I'll call him by his proper name when he sees fit to call me 'Alfred' and not Mcbastard. i mean, come ON! You call that an insult? it doesn't even rate as a real nickname!"

"Like 'Eyebrows' for Arthur?"

"That was one time!"

"No, actually, you call him that at least thirty times a year, maybe more, since I'm not always around you when you're around him. And for the record? His eyebrows aren't that big."

"Yeah, cuz he started plucking them finally after his sister got on his case about scaring everybody."

"...you're hopeless."

I laughed. "I'm heading to the library, if you guys wanna come?"

"Is there a cafe here, like Matthew said?" Alfred asked me, ignoring Matthew's muttered 'sure, don't believe me, ask the cute girl'.

I fought down a blush - drat that boy! - and told Alfred, "Yeah, but it's downstairs. You hungry?"

Matthew spoke before Alfred could. "He's always hungry."

Alfred made a face, picking up his own backpack and following Matthew and me out the the door. "I can't help it! I'm a growing boy!"

Matthew halted in the middle of the hallway and turned, gazing directly at Alfred's midsection. "Yeah, I can tell."

A half hour later, we were finally enjoying some warm food. Alfred had chased Matthew around the upstairs hallways and me, apparently the goody-goody (gasp!) of the group, followed and tried to get them to behave. It was almost as bad as trying to wrangle my twin brother, Garrett!

"So, what's your major?" Matthew asked before taking a bite of his nachos.

"Film. You?"

"Psychology."

i perked. "Really? A friend of mine is studying that! Maybe you'll meet him in classes. His name's Sam."

Matthew smiled. "That'd be nice."

I turned to Alfred, who was chowing down on his on nachos, chicken fajitas, and cheese quesadillas. The dude sure can eat. "What's your major?"

"Criminal Justice, same as when I was at Liberty," he responded after swallowing a huge mouthful.

Matthew and I couldn't help staring at him. "How can you breathe through all that?" I asked in horrified awe.

Alfred stopped stuffing his face for a moment, looking back at us in confusion. "What? I'm hungry."

Matthew and I exchanged a look. "Yeah, we can tell."

Alfred made a face. "Please don't start that again."

"Hey, sis! Who're your boyfriends?"

I closed my eyes and groaned loudly. "Garrett!" Opening my eyes, I whipped around in my seat, glaring at him. "Where were you? You missed class!"

Garrett gave me a cheeky smile. "Charlie, I dropped the class. What do I need to learn studio lighting for? I don't wanna be a filmmaker like you. The class I did attend just ended."

"Oh yeah? And what class was that?" I challenged him, narrowing my eyes.

"World history," he said simply, pulling up a chair to sit between me and Matthew. "Introduce me, please."

I almost missed the shocked look between Matthew and Alfred as Garrett sat down. i had no clue what was going on, but I decided not to say anything. "Yeah, yeah, dweeb. Garrett, meet Alfred and Matthew. Alfred and Matthew? This is my younger twin brother, dweebazoid, aka, Garrett."

Garrett narrowed his violet eyes at me."I'll get you for that, Charizard."

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Really? Pokemon? That's the best you could do? Grade schooler."

"You guys don't look like twins," Matthew remarked.

"I'm albino," Garrett said, running a hand through his white blonde hair, and smirking at Matthew. "Recessive gene. Lucky me, eh? The brightest of the family."

He cackled at my disapproving look. "You funny, funny moron, you."

"I'll be here all week."

"I think the staff would have a problem with that, Garrett." I swatted his hand when he reached to take a cheesy fry. "Bad boy. Get your own food."

"You're so mean to me," Garrett complained, pulling out his wallet and checking to see how much cash he had.

"Garrett, where's your debit card?"

He made a face. "Alex has it." I gestured for him to go on, and he sighed. "She's getting something I asked her to."

"Like what?"

"Do you tell me everything you buy?" He raised his eyebrows at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Just don't buy anymore bird plushies, hm? The kids keep getting into them."

"She's just picking up a bin for me to put them in, okay?"

I got out my own wallet and threw my card at him. "Here. Don't go nuts."

"Thanks, sis! You're the best!" He gave me a hug before running off to the counter to get food.

"You have one too," Matthew said, grinning.

I nodded. "We both have a 'foodie' in the family." I looked at Alfred, and cracked up at his indignant expression.

"Hey! I resemble that!"

"We can tell," Matthew deadpanned.

XXX

*Liberty University is a real college. I looked up American colleges on the internet to pick one at random, as long as it had a criminal justice program, and voila! I found Liberty University. Perfect for Alfred, right? Right.

Tell me whatcha thought! I wrote this in one go. Seems my writers block has let up a little bit...hope I didn't just jinx myself! O.O I don't wanna have another five month dry spell!

I'll try to write and publish the fourth chapter soon as I can. Thank you for being so patient with me!

Allonsy~

Eli