I zipped my books into my backpack and left the classroom. I went outside, to the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Arthur was going to meet me.

My phone began vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out and answered it. "Hey, babe," I said.

"Uh…don't ever say 'babe' again. It just sounds wrong coming out of your mouth. How was your first day of college?"

I grinned. "Pretty good. How was yours?"

"Eh. All right. I'm heading to the courtyard now. My last class ended about half an hour ago, but I was in the library. I'll meet up with you in a few minutes."

"What, are you trying to hand up on me? Having a hard time walking and talking at the same time?"

"Oh, shut up. I was the one who called you, remember? I can walk and talk at the same time. I'm not going to hang up. I'll keep talking until I get to you."

"Whatever. You know what's crazy? There's this chick in one of my classes who was pregnant with her fifth baby when she was just seventeen. She's awesome, though. And she's pretty smart in math, which is not my strong-suit. I'm amazed that she's going back to school. I'm sure it can't be easy to have four kids with one on the way, and going to college."

"Wow. Five kids. I'm thinking that I don't ever want more than three kids," Arthur said. It was crazy how often we had similar thoughts and ideas. "That's probably about as much as I could handle."

"Same here. Even then, three might be pushing it for me. I'd be happy with just two. I could never handle five. Anyway, she's pretty cool. I feel like we're friends already, even though we've just met, and we're definitely gonna be study buddies. It'll help me, a lot."

"Awesome. How are your professors? Mine are pretty boring so far. One guy, George, is the single most boring person I've ever met. He insists that we can call him by his first name, and he makes jokes about brass. Seriously, brass."

"Wow. That's lame."

"Yeah. I don't think I'm going to like his class. At all. But the other professors are good."

"Good. Mine are all right. None of them are too boring. But none of them are too exciting, either."

"Well, it'll be an interesting term, anyway."

"Yep."

"Oh, hey. I see you now. I'm gonna hang up."

"Okay. I guess it just finally got too hard for you to walk and talk at the same time."

"Oh, shut up, Merlin. You're obnoxious."

I chuckled. "I know."

I could practically hear him rolling his eyes, and then the line went dead.

I saw Arthur walking toward me. I lifted my hand and waved.