Letting out a heavy, relaxing sigh as she breezed down the sidewalk toward the frat house, she had a very strong feeling that today would turn out to be a great day.
After her and Arnold had talked about how they felt, he began to animalisticly kiss her senseless, pulling her back to have her shove him against his back wall. After they needed to catch their breath, after going far too long with out it, they had separated, panting and trying to get their breath back from the other, with him laying his head down onto her shoulder lazily while she leaned into him, feeling his lips tickle the skin on her neck. They wrangled in their desires, not wanting to let them go too far, and after a brief discussion on making sure that she was his girlfriend, and vice versa, he walked her to the front door, kissed her good bye and she floated back to her dorm.
They had spent time together throughout the week as it went by, and even Rhonda could see the subtle changes is Arnold's demeanor when he would walk her back up to her dorm. That soft, unnoticeable smirk, Rhonda could actually see it after he had kissed her. They had been drawing some attention by some people who probably knew Arnold as far as his reputation as the lone wolf went, surprised to see him joking around with her. And now that the week was over, she still has yet to realize just how hard she was falling for him. Ever since she had told him over again that he doesn't have to hold anything back with her, that he doesn't have to be afraid to express himself with her, he's opened that softer side of himself up to her. She would laugh at his well spoken remarks, and he would laugh at hers.
Just before she was about to leave of Rhonda and Thad for the soup kitchen, she had suggested to Arnold that they spend the day together, with no plans, they would just go where they wanted to, spending time together. She had a few ideas of what she wanted to do that she would run by him as they caught the bus toward downtown, but other than that, she didn't have a schedule, which felt liberating.
As she jumped up the steps of the frat house and rang the door bell, with Arnie pulling the door open after a minute. "Hey Arnie." She greeted.
"Hey, I'll let Arnold know you're here." He said, leaving the door open and quickly jumping up the stairs. She stepped inside a few steps, looking around the house as she waited for him. After another minute, she heard Arnie come back down the stairs. "He'll be down in a few minutes, he just got out of the shower." As her mind flashed her a picture of him stepping out of the shower with a towel hung low on his hips, hair wet and uncombed, stepping out into the hall way with steam enveloping him like a Greek god, she shook her head to sharply to rid herself of the image and smiled up to Arnie in thanks. After another moment, she noticed Arnie was still standing adjacent to her, his hands in his pockets and a soft smile on his still dopy face.
"Something on your mind?" She asked, obviously noticing that he was thinking of something, but not knowing what possessed her to know what it is.
He looked up to her with a raised brow and a smile, "Oh, it's nothing, really. Just..." He let out a sigh and turned to face her, looking over his shoulder before looking back to her. "I've never seen him like this. I mean, I haven't seen him smile since we were kids. He's even talking to me in full sentences now. I mean, we were never really that close, but... You know, I just wanted to uh... to say thanks."
She felt a smile push its way onto her face that she was trying to suppress, not wanting to give away too much on how much it affected her to know how much she affected him. "Oh, well... you're welcome, I guess." Catching a glimpse of his blonde her out of the corner of her eye, she looked past Arnie to see her boyfriend making his way down the stairs. She felt a barrage of butterflies pick up in her stomach when he reached the bottom and met her eyes with a subtle smirk. Arnie turned around and started back toward the kitchen just before Arnold reached up and patted his cousin's upper arm once as he passed. She felt her smile brighten so much she felt her ears flex as he stepped up to her, leaning forward to kiss her.
She returned his kiss, which only served to excite the butterflies going off in her system, and let him go ahead of her, briefly looking past him, over to Arnie who was stopped in the threshold of the foyer and living room, looking over to his cousin with a surprised smile. Arnie met her eyes for a second and she lifted her hand up to him slightly in a wave as she turned around to follow Arnold out the front door. Closing the door behind her, she looked over to him, feeling almost proud of him for showing in such a subtle way that he actually cared for his cousin in some manner. As the stepped down the steps, she gave into the urge and leaned over, pressing her lips to his freshly shaven jaw.
He looked over to her with a bit of a raised brow, but she simply let out a silent giggle and looked ahead. "So, I was thinking we could go get breakfast, then just walk around downtown for a while." She suggested just as they reached the sidewalk in front of the frat house.
"The only place around is IHOP, and that's still a ways away." He responded, looking over to her.
"That's fine. It's better than the crap they have in the dining hall." She said with a roll of her eyes.
They made their way to the bus stop, talking idle chit-chat until the bus came and they stepped on, sitting together on a bench against the window in the middle. After a few stops, and making comments about people that made their way on and off the bus, with Arnold writing them back stories, they stepped off and walked into the restaurant. "No, you're just saying that because you don't really have an ass." She said as she pulled the door open, holding it for him, her eyes briefly going down to what she was referring to.
"Helga, if guys were supposed to have asses, society would make us wear high heels." He replied smoothly, earning a bit of a smiling yet confused look from the hostess. Briefly accepting defeat in their debate, she stepped up next to him and up to the podium, asking for a table for two, with the hostess grabbing two menus and waving them along with a smile. They followed her to a small booth and she pulled off her hooded jacket and tossed it in the booth just before she sat down across from him. As the waiter came up, and she had ordered coffee, and him water, they both opened their menus.
As Helga's eyes traveled over the pictures and food, having a hard time deciding what she wanted, she caught sight of something that peeked her interest. As she looked over her menu to Arnold, seeing his eyes still down onto his own menu, she grinned devilishly and set her menu down onto the table. She folded her arms together on the table, leaning forward and bore her eyes into his, waiting for him to look up. After a moment, Arnold's eyes looked from the menu, up to her, "What?"
She reached up and pulled the top of his menu down to the table so it was laying flat, flipped over a page, and pointed down to the bottom, tapping her finger against what she saw. As his eyes went down to what she was pointing at, he looked up to her for an explanation. "I want you to order that."
He looked up to her as if she was crazy, "No."
"Yes." She argued.
"I'm not ordering that, Helga. I don't even like pancakes."
"I didn't ask you whether you like it or not, I just want to hear you say it."
"I would rather eat the menu, the have to say that out loud." He said, lowering his head and clenching his teeth.
"If you don't, you can forget about ever getting to second base." She knew she could never hold him to it, especially if things between them get heated enough, but she really wanted to hear him say it. He drew in a long breath, letting out slowly through his nose, leaning back and letting his hands fall into his lap just as the waitress came back to the table.
"You two ready to order?" She asked in a friendly tone.
"Yes, I'll just have the ham and cheese omelet." She said with a smile, closing her menu.
"And you, sir?" She asked, writing down Helga's order but turning her head towards him.
She felt herself grow excited and anxious at hearing him utter the words she wanted him to. He cleared his throat, covered his mouth with his hand, looking away from the waitress and out the window, moving his menu toward her and moving to point to the thing that she was forcing him to order. The waitress leaned over, her eyes just looking over to what he was pointing at, but Helga's hand shot up, "No! No..." She said, stopping the waitress, her eyes gleaming evilly over to him, "I want him to say it." She continued, catching the Cheshire grin the waitress smiled as the looked over to her, catching onto what she was up to.
Arnold let out another long sigh, his shoulders tensing, looking down into his lap. After a moment of thick, anxious pause, she heard him mumble something under his breath, the words not coming out clearly. "I'm sorry, sir?"
Arnold looked back up to her, a blithe look coming across to her. She simply raised her brow, silently ordering him to continue.
Letting out another long breath, his eyes closing and his head nodding off the side, "Rooty-tooty Fresh'n'fruity."
Helga felt her chest tighten in stifled laughter, watching as the waitress grinned, writing down his order and grabbing their menus, just before Arnold's elbows went to the table, his face going into his hands. After the waitress was out of ear shot, Helga burst out laughing, her head falling down to the table in hysteria. She threw herself back, slouching back in her seat to see his fists balled tightly in his hair, ready to pull it out. After her laughter had died down, a few chuckles still being let out, he finally met her eyes again. "Why don't you put me in a set of thumbscrews while you're at it?" He asked, annoyance very obvious in his voice.
"So what, you're comparing me making you order something that sounds like a four year old at a birthday party to a form of torture used during the crusades?"
"Might as well have been." She laughed again as his head fell to the table, folding his arms over his head. She reached over and poked the top of his head, feeling mischievous. "You owe me."
"And after that, my sister managed to convince them to go to marriage counseling. It took a while, but after about a year, they seemed to get their marriage back on track." She finished, looking over to him, seeing his eyes were down onto the ground ahead of him.
She had just told him her childhood story, about her mother's alcoholism, and her father being emotionally withdrawn with everyone around him, and her parents counseling. It was still nothing compared to the stories he's told her, but he wanted to know more about her, and she was more than willing to tell him. "There were times when I thought about getting into alcohol, mostly after a left high school, but I figured I would wake up with the same problems."
"Left high school? What do you mean?" She never really knew about what happened to him after middle school, or how he really got into reading, but she figured that now was as good a time as any to ask.
"I left high school." He said simply, saying it with absolutely no shame in his voice.
"You dropped out?" She asked, almost astonished.
"Graduated early." He corrected her, looking over to her with a soft smirk. "After the tenth grade, I helped the school system realize that it had nothing left to teach me, so I graduated early."
"Oh... What'd you do after that?"
"An old friend of my grandparents ran a demolition company and he payed me under the table for about a year."
"When did you decide to go to Washington State?"
"Whenever I heard Arnie got accepted. I was getting bored just working, day in and out. So I applied and sent them a paper I wrote in high school about the education system, and I got accepted."
"You wrote a paper on the education system?" Since he was so willing to tell her about his past, she was more than willing and more eager than ever to ask.
"I wrote it during my sophomore year of high school. It was during English, and it was a state exam where they would give you a topic and you had to write at least four paragraphs on that topic. Instead, I wrote about how useless our education system is, and how it's only function and purpose is to create mindless, robotic, workers who don't have the ability to think or decide for themselves. I got called into the principles office about a week after, but they couldn't do anything because all the teachers who read the paper said that I wrote the best paper. I kept a copy for myself and sent it in when I applied for Washington State."
She smiled at his accomplishment, and continued, "So, what exactly made you want to go to college? I mean, if all you think the education system is good for is creating workers, why go to college?"
"Because I wanted to learn. Not because I want to get a high paying job some day, but because I wanted to learn."
"Is that why you're undeclared?"
"I declared my major a few months ago." He said, surprising her.
She looked over to him with an expectant brow, "Really? What is it?"
"Philosophy." He said with a small shrug. She smiled again, thinking why she hadn't thought of it beforehand.
She reached over, pulling on his wrist to pull his hand out of his pocket, entwining their fingers together as they walked through the mall. She looked over to him again, to see him softly smiling over to her. "Listen," She began, almost nervous to bring it up, but feeling as if she had to. They never really got into it before he stepped onto the bus. "I'm sorry for what happened with my sister."
"It's not you're fault." He said, his voice soft and almost apologetic.
"Yes, it is. I wanted you to meet her so you could get to know me better, but I didn't think it through. I knew she would start asking you questions, and I should have told her to stop when she started asking about your parents, and I'm sorry." After a moment when he didn't respond, she looked over to him and saw his eyes cast down to the ground, his head hung a bit low, an almost sad furrow in his brow. "You know that you can talk to me when you're ready, I'm not pressuring you to though."
He let out a sharp breath through his nose, still not meeting her eyes, but his brow moving down as he spoke, "Why'd they leave?" He asked.
They pace slowed a bit while she started to run her thumb along the outside of his in a motion of comfort, "What do you mean?"
"I could handle it if they died or something, like if my mother died giving birth to me or something, but... they just left. Why'd they leave?" His tone said that it was the one question he wanted answered more than anything else, and it broke her heart that she couldn't answer it for him. She averted her eyes while she tried to think of something reassuring to say, knowing that he needed to hear something.
She pulled on his hand and stopped him, reaching over with her other hand to grab onto the one she wasn't holding, looking over to his eyes. "It's their loss that they don't get to see the man you are today."
He smiled softly, but sadly and averted his eyes down to the small space between them, leaving him only a moment before she leaned forward to capture his lips. She heard him let out a breath through his nose as he pressed his lips to hers, returning her gesture, moving to push her lips open with his after a moment of pause, shooting a familiar wave of tingling fire down her spine. After one last kiss, lasting longer than she intended it to, she pulled him into her, wrapping her hands around his neck, with his hands entwining behind her back, holding her to him. "If it really means that much to you, I suppose I could meet your sister again."
She chuckled lightly before she answered him, "Actually... there's someone else I'd like you to meet."
"Oh?" He asked, raising his brow.
"Mhm," She hummed, smiling, "Her name's Grace."
A/N: Just so you guys know, it took me about ten minutes of working of the nerve to type out Arnold's order, and I even cringed very heavily while I was doing it. And any guy who reads this, besides me, knows what I'm talking about.
