Hello there, guys! This took me a lot longer to write than I originally anticipated but hopefully you guys enjoy! There's more Hiccup in this chapter and in the upcoming ones!

Without further ado...

Chapter 4

Astrid had decided it was best to not tell the others about inviting Hiccup until they got to her apartment. She wasn't afraid they would be upset, she knew they wouldn't, just something inside of her that wanted to keep him to herself for as long as possible. And that's not a bad thing to want that. Right?

Convincing herself she was right, she started straightening up her already immaculate apartment. Little things here and there; placing a book back on the shelf, lighting a candle, putting a dish rag in the dirty hamper. For some reason she felt compelled to make tonight more than what is usually was. She was even going to attempt cooking (she's getting better at it, she's been practicing.) Astrid even called her mom for her best recipe, which ended up being spaghetti. Piece of cake. She could do this no problem. After she did her whole pep talk routine and gathered all the ingredients she needed, the time flew by. It was already nearing 7:00, the time she told everyone to be over, and the garlic knots were still in the oven and she had pasta sauce on her face. Currently she was FaceTiming her mom making sure she was getting the last details of the meal correct. Her mother was the most patient person in the world (a trait Astrid did not inherit) until is came to cooking, then she was a high strung as they came. This is probably why Astrid is just now trying to learn how to cook.

"No, honey." A very impatient Ingrid said, "You have to keep them in the oven a little longer. They need to be brown on the top-"

"Ok, ok I'm putting them back in. What about the pasta sauce? Do I put the meat in there now or later?"

"Dear, you were suppose to do that about 10 minutes ago when I told you. Astrid, baby, why are you all of a sudden deciding to cook tonight? Do you have special boy coming over?" Suspicion and curiosity came from her phone.

Silently thanking whoever was above that her face wasn't on screen right now to show the mad flush of pink she said, "unless you consider Heather and Eret a 'special boy' then yes, I have one coming over. And why is that your business, anyway?" Her and her mom both know that last comment was from the frustration of the whole cooking ordeal.

"I was just curious. You've been in college for a year and so far no special boys, I just thought maybe this was for-"

"No, sorry to disappoint ya mom, no special boys." It wasn't exactly a lie, Astrid didn't know what Henry will be to her, but special wasn't out of the question. "Just wanted to do something nice for my friends. And they're going to be here any minute, I've gotta watch this pasta sauce off my face. Love you, mom!"

"Love you too, sweetie. Tell Heather and Eret I said hello." Her mother said and blew a kiss through the phone.

As she hung up she was slowly getting more and more nervous, which wasn't like her at all. Astrid doesn't do 'nervous', she was always prepared for everything. She thought back to how the conversation went between them earlier...

"O-oh, umm nothing I don't think. I didn't really have plans." His slightly nasally and anxious voice said.

"My friends and I usually have dinner every Sunday night, you're welcome to join if you want." Astrid offered with a slight hope he'd agree.

"I wouldn't want to barge in on your plans." His shoved his hands into his pockets.

Astrid felt deflated. Of course he wouldn't agree, she met him just that morning. He probably thought she was crazy.

"But, I could do dinner, yeah that sounds great. It's a date-no! Not a date, not a date, just friends. A friendly date, with you and me and your friends-that is most definitely not a date . And, uh, yeah... um what time should I come over?" Flushing a deep shade of red, he looked down to bury the embarrassment as best he could.

A not so subtle smile stretched across her lips. "Okay! Yeah! That's sounds great! Dinner is at 7:00. I'll see you then?"

"Yeah! I'll see you then! Great." A mirrored smile across his lips.

"Great." The kept eye contact and the same smile as he stepped back and tripped over the welcome mat.

"Dah, I'll-I'll see you later, Astrid." He fumbled with the doorknob as he regained his balance.

"See you soon, Hiccup."

A shrill ding from her phone shook her out of her thoughts. She grabbed it off the counter, it was a text message from Heather that read: "We're stopping for ice cream and wine, we'll be there a few after 7:00."

The time was 6:55, Hiccup will be here any minute. Quickly she rinsed the rest of the pasta sauce off her face, French braided her hair and touched up her subtle make up. She also managed to somehow ruin the shirt she was wearing during the whole pasta sauce explosion earlier. Running through her clothes nothing seemed right, either to casual or too dressy. Settling on a striped dark blue T-shirt and ripped jeans she heard a knock at the front door. Glancing at the clock it was 7:00, he was right on time.

Pausing before she opened the door to take a break and say a silent prayer everything went smoothly tonight she was greeted with the same crooked smile from earlier.

"Hope I'm not too early." His voice sounded calm with a slight hint of being anxious.

"You're right on time, my friends are actually the ones who aren't for punctuality apparently." She reassured with a small smile. Astrid opened the door and waved him inside and Hiccup paused right inside the door, almost like he was thinking about his next step.

"Dinner is almost ready, you can take a seat anywhere and make yourself comfortable." She said trying to be a good hostess, she hadn't had to do this in so long. "Do you want something to drink? I have water, iced tea, sports drinks. Heather and Eret are bringing wine over, also."

"I'd love an iced tea. Is Heather and Eret the friends that are coming?" His voice sounded cautions, like he was expecting her to say yes but plus 50 more of her closest friends.

"Yeah, just those two. We 3 have been friends since high school."

"That's nice you all kept in touch, I don't really speak to anyone from high school anymore. Well, except for one person." He commented, still glancing around the living room and his eyes landed on her record player and rather big selection of records in the corner. "No way, these are all yours?" He asked, sounding pretty surprised by the amount she had.

Astrid smiled to herself walking to the kitchen to take out the garlic knots from the oven. "Well some are my dads that I uh, took without asking but yeah, I've always kinda collected them." She smiled to herself, her dad always instilled the importance of good music in her mind from an early age. It was the one of the many things her and her dad had in common.

Hiccup looked through the bookshelf full of records, she had all genres from different time periods. Her collection was quite through. "Do you mind if I put something on?" He mused.

"Go right on ahead." She chuckled, delighted someone else found her hobby as interesting as she did. She noticed how he took a deep look at her selection, putting consideration into his choice of music. Hiccup stood and without fumbling placed the record on the player, moved the needle over and King Harvest's 'Dancing in the Moonlight' sounded from the speakers.

"It's a classic." He reassured her when he noticed she was looking at him the whole time with a sheepish look.

"Its a great choice." Astrid walked over and handed him his drink. His fingers brushed over hers when he took it from her hands and her skin tingled where he touched. A flush went to her cheeks when she looked up to find his piercing green eyes looking down at her. At that moment her front door flung open and a rather loud "The fun has arrived!" came from her rather exuberant female friend.

Astrid noticed she and Hiccup were standing rather close to each other, she stepped back and looked up at her friends who were stopped in the doorway looking at the two of them. "Hey, you guys remember my neighbor I told you about at lunch?" She gestured to Hiccup, who looked extremely small all of a sudden. "Henry, this is Eret and Heather. Guys, this is Henry."

Both of the paused right inside the doorway before grins broke out on their faces. "It's nice to meet you!" Heather came forward with a polite smile and I introduced herself and Eret. Eret came behind her and shook his hand with a similar greeting as Heather. He did the same reintroduction of himself as he did with her and told them to call him Hiccup. They were always ones for conversation and making new friends and Hiccup seemed to relax a little after the warm welcome.

"A, did you cook? What did we do to deserve this pleasure? We were expecting takeout." Eret sounded skeptical, and Astrid saw straight through his comment.

"Hey, it's not bad I promise. I've been practicing! I even called my mom for the recipe." She defended herself.

She heard Heather mutter to Hiccup, "she's really not a very good cook, but she tries her hardest."

Astrid shot a sideways glare at Heather and muttered "like I said, I'm learning" as she crossed her arms. Her friend stifled down a laugh and put her hands up in defense.

"I'm sure it's not that bad, it smells great!" Hiccup reassured Astrid with a smile. She couldn't help but smile herself, he looked genuine too which made her feel a lot better.

"Well, I'm starving. Let's hope this doesn't kill us!" Eret said rubbing his hands together ams Astrid connected her fist with his upper arm. Eret shot a exasperated look at her and she busted with laughter. "Yeah, yeah laugh at my pain." He muttered while grabbing plates.

"Sorry, but when you make comments like that you're pretty much asking for it." She explained, moving the bowl of pasta to the table for them to serve themselves. The four of them all sat down to begin eating when she noticed Eret stand and walk over to the record player and proceed to turn it off to connect his Pandora to the Bluetooth speaker with a Top 40 station instead. Hiccup and she both looked at each other and shared the same look of slight disappointment. Astrid knew they didn't have the same taste in music, she should have warned him that it wasn't anything personal.

"So-Hiccup, what're you studying?" Heather quizzed while swirling pasta on her fork.

"Engineering and Graphic Design, I'm double majoring. And then a minor in Fine Art." Hiccup said, digging into his dinner. When he took his first bite a pleasant but playful look crossed his features. "This isn't half bad, you guys had me worried there for a second. I definitely didn't want to die today but I didn't want to be rude and not eat this wonderfully prepared meal." The look Hiccup gave her brought her heart to her throat.

Eret filled the room with laughter, "you might just fit in, it seems like you have Astrid figured out. We have to remain cautious if this one here." He said genuinely while avoiding another fist to his shoulder. "Are you an incoming freshman? I don't think I've seen you around campus."

"No, actually I'm a junior. I went to a school back home in Georgia for my freshmen, then transferred here but I studied abroad in Europe for my sophomore year for my Fine Arts degree." He informed the group.

The group all did a collective 'no way'. "That's really impressive. Where all did you visit to study?" Astrid asked.

"Eh, here and there. Mostly France, they have all the big fancy Art schools. But I traveled all over. London, Scotland, Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland. Just kinda everywhere, I guess." Hiccup stammered, a little uneasy that all the attention was on him now. Astrid decided to change the subject seeing his discomfort and he sent her a silent look of appreciation and she sent him a smile in return. Conversation flowed very smoothly between the four of them after that, if someone had been watching from the outside they never would have guessed they all just met an hour ago. The rest of the night flew by, they all finished the dinner and gave their compliments to the chef. Astrid has to refrain herself from saying 'I told you so' on multiple occasions.

Deciding no one wanted to leave quite yet they decided on a game of Clue, and Hiccup was incredible. They ended up playing 3 rounds and Hiccup one them all.

"Astrid usually wins every time, she's kinda the competitive one out of the group." Heather informed Hiccup while Astrid was too busy trying to decide between if the murder weapon was a knife or the gun.

"I'm concentrating." She said through clinched teeth. A few more moves and she had her guess. "Okay, I'm going to solve the murder. It was committed by Professor Plum in the observatory with the knife."

"You sure, Astrid?" Hiccup looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Pretty sure, Hiccup." Not making eye contact. She wasn't 100% sure her guess was correct but she couldn't let her guard down. She reached over and opened the folder that held the answer. Once she looked she threw the cards down in the middle of the board. "I don't get it, how do you do that?" She was no where near correct.

"I don't know, beginners luck?" Hiccup scratched his neck with a playful smile on his gorgeous lips. Not that she noticed them or anything...

"I do have to ask though, mind if I use the restroom?"

"Sure, it's the first door on the left." She told him and he went. Once the door was closed she was pulled closely in to Heathers side with much more force than she thought her friend had.

"Okay, when you said you had a new neighbor you didn't say how gorgeous he was!" Heather exclaimed in hushed tone so he wouldn't hear. Astrid reminded herself to not mention the feeling she had about Hiccup to Heather in the near future to avoid making this whole thing more awkward for her.

"I guess I didn't notice." But even she could hear the lie in her tone of voice.

"Whatever. You don't miss that. And I think he thinks you're pretty, he can't take his eyes off of you."

"Cmon, Heather. Yes he can and he probably doesn't, I'm just trying to make a new friend. Nothing more." She seriously tried to sound serious, but she could tell Heather wasn't buying it.

"Mmm yeah like a friendly friend." Heather wiggled her eyebrows at her friend and Astrid just rolled her eyes.

"No, I think she's onto something there. He was looking pretty intently." Eret piped up, his tone playful but something else hidden in his features. Astrid shook her head at both of them. The door to the bathroom opened and Hiccup rejoined them in the main room.

"Well, Astrid, this has been the most fun I've had in a while. Thank you for inviting me over to join you guys." He gave a charming smile.

Heather piped up, "oh my, look at the time. Eret and I should be going, we've both got busy days tomorrow."

"What?" Eret asked but his voice was muffled with another garlic knot he just put in his mouth.

"Yeah, we're meeting for a run? Remember?" But before he had a chance to answer, Heather was practically pulling him out the door. "See you Astrid, it was very nice to meet you Hiccup! Hopefully we'll see you around!"

"Bye guys!" Totally embarrassed, she saw straight threw what her friend was doing and what she was hinting at. She turned to Hiccup and hoped he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"They're really nice, I'm really glad you invited me over. Ive been needing to make new friends. I have the one from high school and then my cousin, but he gets annoying after a while. Do you know Steven Jorgensen-"

"Wait." She interrupted. "Snotlout's your cousin?!" Her mouth hung open in disbelief.

"So you're the one who gave him that nickname?" He questioned. "I think you and I are going to get along quite nicely." Hiccup stated. He caught her gaze and they held it for a second while an unspoken communication passed through them. "I'm afraid I must be going as well, but I really did have a great time." She tried to not show her disappointment to his statement when a nervous look crossed his face. "Would you mind if-um, can I have, I mean,

can we exchange numbers? Ya know, as much as I'm sure you enjoy being trampled by huge black labs with no self control, I think maybe a phone call will be better in the future." He gave out a breathy laugh.

Astrid bit her lip to hide her smile as best she could, "Yeah, of course. Here, I'll put it into your phone." He fumbled in his picked and handed her his phone and she quickly saved her number.

"Ok, yeah, I'll just text you sometime then?" His whole face seemed to brighten and he ran a hand through his hair, a quirk she was starting to really like about him.

"Yeah, maybe we can meet for coffee or something." She suggested, returning the smile. She walked him to the door and they said their good nights. As she closed the door she couldn't help but feel like her year might be better than she originally planned.