The next day Levy had Culinary Arts, which instantly put a damper on the mood for at least a couple hours. The class assignment sounded easy enough: make a simple omelette. Levy managed to burn hers to the pan on one side and wasn't able to flip it, resulting in what looked like blackened scrambled eggs and an unbearable smell. She received a couple looks of pity from her classmates, who had all managed to finish the task in half the time it took her.

After she escaped from class, she quickly went back to her room to shower, then grabbed her Lit books and left the room to meet Gajeel. The tutoring session in the library, which was actually pretty far away from Mavis Hall, unfortunately. She counted it as her dorms only downside. It didn't take long for Levy to tire out, because the Lit textbook itself was pretty heavy, and she had also come prepared with her notebook and a book of poetry.

Plus that, her arms were weak and hurting from an earlier trip to the library where she had checked out more books than anticipated, and had to carry them all the way across campus by herself.

It was really all her fault, but she needed those books! They were totally necessary, no matter what Lucy said about space problems in the dorm.

Levy was glad to see that she arrived before Gajeel. By the time she picked a suitable seat, her arms were ready to give out and it would've been embarrassing when she dropped her books loudly on the table. For the second time today, she received weird looks from the students nearby for her struggles.

She sat down and organized her material in front of her, setting some pens and pencils to the side just in case. Once she was satisfied, she looked around. Gajeel was nowhere in sight and the wait only gave her more time to contemplate what had been said yesterday. He couldn't be all that bad, to be accepted into Magnolia University...right? But still, bad things happen at college all the time.

Gajeel didn't give her long enough to freak herself out. He rounded the corner and gave her a smirk as he pulled out the chair next to hers.

"Hey, short stack." The same nickname was one of the first things out of his mouth. Levy hadn't expected it to become a habit.

His demeanor didn't read as threatening though; a little gruff maybe. Sure he looked tough, but Levy had read enough books to know that the usual saying, 'never judge a book by it's cover' was generally true. Heck, one of her favorite books series had some bad cover art. If she hadn't given it a try, she never would've discovered one of the best stories she'd ever read. She liked to keep the same outlook when it came to people.

"Hey," she smiled up at him shyly. "Well let's get started. Where in the class did you start having trouble?"

"Well...Somewhere around chapter one, I guess," he replied sheepishly as he pulled his book out of his backpack. When Levy laid eyes on it, she involuntarily let out a surprised gasp.

"What the hell have you done to that poor book?!" Gajeel's textbook was in a very sorry state. The cover was still on, but only just. It was hanging on only by a thin amount of material. Levy could see the pages were wrinkled and bent and on the cover and the inside page were crudely drawn caricatures of Professor Conbolt. On instinct she grabbed the book out of his hands and started smoothing out the pages. Any fear of him she might've or should've had vanished. It upset her greatly to see a book in such a state so much that she didn't catch the incredulous look on Gajeel's face.

"It's only a couple weeks into the semester, you should really be taking better care of your books, you know," she scolded, still trying to recover some of the book's former glory.

Gajeel raised a studded eyebrow at her little outburst. A crooked smirk twisted his mouth up.

"Alright, alright. I'll take care of my books, just don't beat me up too bad." he teased, leaning onto the table as he looked at his tutor like he was seeing her in a new light.

Levy was about to continue with a speech on why books should be treated with respect, but she looked up to see Gajeel's smirk and stopped in her tracks. Levy forgot what she was going to say. If you had asked her her name, she might not have been able to answer at that moment. The sight left her dumbfounded with a weird whirly feeling in her stomach.

Levy composed herself mentally, "Well I won't make any promises," she retorted.

Jokingly, she stared at Gajeel trying to put on the most threatening face she could muster up, but failed miserably as her smile took over.

Gajeel roared with laughter at her pitiful attempt at being threatening. Several surrounding people sent dirty looks in their direction, but Gajeel didn't seem to notice. Levy giggled too, feeling her face heat up for some inexplicable reason. She felt a sense of pride in being able to make this person, who had seemed so stoic the last time they'd met, crack up in a fit of laughter.

"Alright! Well we should get some work done..." she said, still feeling the threat of another smile on her lips.

They went over the material covered most recently in class: Fioran poems. Gajeel seemed to have more or less the same problem as Natsu when it came to this. Poems weren't the most straightforward way of saying things, while Natsu and Gajeel...they were as straightforward as it got. Thanks to her experience of basically tutoring Natsu when he invited himself over, she was able to explain things in a way that Gajeel understood.

It was a slow process, but Levy got him to understand the basic thinking processes of a poet. After they had covered the required materials, they both gathered their things. Levy went to pick up her book, but she was having trouble even getting them off of the table. Great. Here comes the embarrassment she wanted to avoid.

Gajeel raised an eyebrow and another smirk spread across his face. "Gehe. Are you having trouble there, Shrimp?"

"Ahah you see," Levy explained blushing, "I took out some books, because I'm not doing so well in my Culinary arts class… I carried so many home that it made my arms hurt."

"Really? I might be able to help you out with the cooking thing..."

"O- oh really?" She couldn't help her surprised expression.

"What you don't think I can cook?"

"No-no it's not that. It's just you don't seem like the type to cook is all."

"Well, you'd be surprised Shrimp. Lily and I have one of the dorms in Warrod hall with a tiny stove. We can work there, if you're okay with that." He seemed to add that on the end quickly, as if expecting Levy to be weirded out by his invite.

"Oh yeah! That sounds like a great idea. Thank you!" This development made her feel better about this morning's omelette incident. With Gajeel's help, maybe she'll be able to pass that stupid class. "Here, why don't we exchange phone numbers."

She pulled out her phone and added a new contact, peeking up to see Gajeel doing the same. They exchanged phones and added the information. Levy put a book emoji by her name to be cute, or so she hoped he'd think it was...

She took her phone back from Gajeel and handed back his, smiling widely. It occurred to her that maybe it looked like she was flirting with him, but honestly her cooking skills were just that bad. (Would flirting with him be that bad anyway? Levy decided that that was a topic to think about at a later time, preferably when he wasn't standing right in front of her.)

Gajeel picked her books off the table and led the way out of the library. They made small talk on the way back, talking about normal get-to-know-you type things. Levy learned that Gajeel was an undecided major, and he was here on football scholarship. He needed to keep his grades up in order to keep his scholarship and stay at Magnolia University.

Levy glanced over at him while he was talking, noticing that Gajeel wasn't traditionally handsome, but he was definitely attractive. Long black hair accentuated tan skin and a pretty muscular build. Plus those cheekbones though...

She had to stop herself from staring for too long. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was weird.

They finally reached Levy's room and she unlocked the door. It swung open to reveal the usual gang lounging around the room. When they saw Gajeel, they all stopped talking and stared.

"Hey everyone! I think you know Gajeel. Gajeel this is my roommate Lucy, and my friends Lisanna, Natsu, and Gray."

Gajeel nodded at them quietly, and they all stared back.

"Well short stuff," he said, "where can I put these down."

"Oh, yes of course!" She lead him to the desk where he set them down surprisingly gently.

"Thank you Gajeel, see you next week," she waved as he made his way back to the door.

"No thank you, Shorty. See ya." With one casual wave of his hand, he was out.

When the door was shut behind him, every head in the room pivoted to stare at Levy. The onslaught of questions was immediate.

"OMG, how was it?"

"Did he talk about his time in Magnolia Penitentiary?"

"Did he threaten you? Are you okay?"

"How many piercings do you think he has? Like there has to be more than what's visible-"

A lot more questions ensued.

Levy cleared her throat and everyone shut up. "He was actually very nice," Levy said, "I don't think he's actually as scary as everyone seems to think."

"Whaaaaaat?" Natsu seemed put out from the lack of gossip. "And I was so certain about that murder charge."

Levy caught Lucy looking at her suspiciously, like she was trying to figure something out. She just stuck her tongue out at the blond and mouthed 'Later'. Lucy nodded and went back to pacifying Natsu into doing his homework for once. Everyone else moved on to a different topic now that they knew Gajeel was not as interesting as they'd thought.

It was only later when everyone else had left that Lucy brought it back up.

"So..he was okay?" She asked from where she was lying on her bed.

Levy looked up from her Culinary book. "Yeah. he's actually very nice. Nothing like I expected from hearing all the rumors."

"And he offered to carry your books home?" Lucy raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing at her lips.

"I mean, yeah…" Levy nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "My arms were tired from checking out all these books." She made a grand gesture to the pile of books Gray had been using as a mini-throne earlier that night.

A full-blown smirk cracked Lucy's face. "I saw the way he looked at you! He definitely likes you."

She rolled her eyes, but felt her cheeks heat up regardless. "I just met him, Luce…"

"Oh la la, you guys would be so cute! He's super tall and you're super short, you're a bookworm and he's a football player! It's like the plot of this YA book I've been reading-"

Once Lucy was on a roll, it was hard to stop her. By the end of the night, she had Levy and Gajeel's entire future planned out, including the names of their to-be children. (SHE'D had gone with the names Lucy and Liam to Levy's horror)

She buried her head under the pillow to drown out her best friend's imaginary tale. She took out her phone and opened up the newly added contact for the first time. A smile spread across her face as she noticed that he had added a football and a sunglasses emoji after his name.

No, he definitely wasn't a bad person.

Gajeel POV

Gajeel caught the football right before it could make contact with his forehead. He swiftly sent it back to the other side of the room where he knew Lily was waiting to catch it. It was sent back to him like clockwork.

This was just how he and his best friend spent idle time in the dorm.

He sighed, robotically moving to catch the ball again. Ever since his tutoring appointment earlier today, he couldn't keep his mind from wandering. It'd been awhile since he talked to someone new that wasn't completely terrified of him. This blue-haired bookworm had taken his appearance in stride and scolded him- scolded him for fuck's sake- without batting an eyelash. Before he could stop himself, another sigh escaped his lips.

He felt Lily's gaze tear from his book and over to him. Lily caught the ball anyway, still staring at Gajeel. He waited in silence, knowing the storm was coming.

Finally, the silence was broken. "So, what's got you sighing? Does it happen to have anything to do with the tutoring session you went to?"

Without fail, Lily was able to read him like a book. Gajeel caught the ball again, but didn't send it back.

"Yeah, I guess. School is pretty hard, ya know. It sucks to have to be tutored." He threw the ball.

"Yeah, but school being hard is regular. That wasn't a regular Gajeel sigh."

Gajeel rolled his eyes and made a face. "I don't like the fact that you can tell the difference between my sighs. It's really fucking weird."

Lily threw the ball and looked back to his book. "I've known you for a long time, so sue me. So what really has you sighing?"

Gajeel sighed once more, sending the ball into another graceful arc in the air. "You, right at this moment." He shot his friend a look, only barely ducking out of the way as the ball was whipped straight at his face. "Dude!"

"Seriously though," Lily said, sitting up from his bed. "I know something is up. You're gonna tell me sooner or later."

He huffed. "Fine, you win!" Gajeel sat up as well, avoiding the smug smile he knew Lily had on his stupid face. "It does have to do with the tutoring session. Not the material, but the tutor…"

The smug smile disappeared. "What? Is he a dick? You can go to Coach and ask for another one, he'd understand."

He scoffed. "No I'm just...kinda intimidated by her." Gajeel mumbled the last part, unwilling to admit this fact.

"Waaaait a second. Are you telling me that you, Gajeel Redfox, best defensive lineman on the Magnolia University football team, are intimidated by a girl?!"

"Fuck you, girls can be plenty scary!" He chucked the ball at Lily, hoping to do some damage. "She's not really intimidating in my kind of way. She's just smart. Like, crazy smart!"

"Hmmm, really? Tell me more about this girl?"

Gajeel gave him a weird look but continued, basically repeating facts from the conversation they'd had on the way to Levy's dorm. "Her name is Levy and she's an anthropology major. She knows like 5 different languages, while I've barely mastered one for fuck's sake. Pretty sure she's read every book in existence too…"

"Yeah...Anything else?"

"She's...really attractive." Gajeel covered his face with a hand in embarrassment. He remembered walking next to Levy today, all five feet two inches of her. He liked her curly blue hair and hazel eyes, and especially the gentle curves of her slender figure.

When he looked over at Lily, the smug smile was back. Gajeel lamented that he didn't have the football to slam into his face.

Lily only laughed and laid back down to read his book. "I think my work here is done."

Gajeel only groaned in response, curling in on himself in more embarrassment. This was the first time on campus that he was beginning to open up to someone. Usually he was avoided because of his scary looks, but he just wasn't good at talking to new people.

He couldn't screw this up.

"So, when am I gonna meet her?" Lily asked, a smile in his voice.

"Well, I'm helping out with her Culinary Arts class, so she'll be coming here next week."

"Wow, you move quick."

He chucked his pillow across the room, but Lily only laughed harder.

A/N: Please leave a review and tell us what you think! Much appreciated.