Title: Love, Actually: Chapter 1—First Encounters
Genre: Romance, Friendship
Rating: K, for now
Characters: Reagan, Hamilton, Eisenhower, Dan, a few OCs, and a small cameo from Amy.
Summary: In which Reagan goes to her dorm, Hamilton has a vital piece of information, Eisenhower is overly dramatic, and Dan looks like a certain teenage pop sensation that never hit puberty.
Song of the Chapter: Good Life – One Republic
My Lovely Reviewers: Another Artist, therockinCookie, Volcanic Lily, {no name}, Ballet Reader, Jamie's Dream, IJustCan'tChoose, KTRose12, Evanescence456, rainingtearsofchocolate, ABetterNinjaThanDanCahill, Wisdom is All, Sun Daughter, Pumpkin Caramel Latte, and Giraffes4Ever. :D I love you guys.
Author's Note: Well, it's been over two months. Meh. :P This took a while, as it turned out to be quite difficult to fit in into my school schedule. Anyway, it's here!
Please, please review. I really need the constructive criticism, and if I get more reviews, it tells me that more people like this story, so I update it faster. So yeah. :)
By the way, I did A LOT of research for this story. I researched what the dorms look like, the names of the dorms, every single bit. I went on virtual tours. I watched YouTube videos. I read UCLA information sites. But if I get anything wrong, don't hesitate to tell me so that I can fix it.
Hope you enjoy it. :D
Love, Actually
Chapter 1: First Encounters
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-Albert Einstein
"How are you even sure that this is going to work?"
"Of course it will work, Hammer," Eisenhower chuckled. He slung an arm around his less-than-thrilled son. "They're going to the same college, for Pete's sake. And I'll bet you that that Dan doesn't have a girlfriend yet."
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and Hamilton snorted. "Mmhmm."
Eisenhower raised an eyebrow. "Anything you got to say, son?"
Hamilton stared at him for a second, his eyes watery from tears of suppressed laughter. "Mm-mm," he said, vigorously shaking his head. Eisenhower looked at him for a long while, but didn't press the issue any further.
"Reagan, you're going to do fine in college. But don't forget to trick that Dan boy, all right? Or else you won't get that nomination, and it'll go to Hamilton. And I'm sure you won't be happy about that—"
"Eisenhower," Mary-Todd scolded him.
"Eh? All right, all right." He held up his hands in a sign of defeat. "I won't give her any more pressure." He turned to Madison. "Same goes for you. Except about the Dan thing."
Madison snorted. "Uh-huh."
Eisenhower cleared his throat. "Hey, want me to carry the bags up to your dorm? Anything else I can do?"
Reagan shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I can take these up myself."
Madison punched her, whispering, "No. Let Dad take the luggage. I'm tired." Reagan rolled her eyes.
"No, it's fine, Dad," she repeated, but upon seeing Eisenhower's wistful expression, she relented. "Oh, fine."
"Great!" Eisenhower grinned, his demeanor considerably brighter. "I'll go get the luggage. You and Hamilton can go find Amy and Dan or just stay here. I'll come and get you guys after I bring everything in."
"We'll go find them," Reagan quickly decided. Hamilton nodded in agreement.
"All right, then," Eisenhower sighed. "I'll be here, just my lonely self, getting the luggage without any help, since your mother and you guys obviously don't want to help me." He sighed again, more dramatically this time. "Oh, what a world I live in."
He looked up to see their reaction, but they had already left.
::
"Hey, Reagan! Hey, Hamilton! Hey, Madison!" Amy trilled, practically bursting with excitement. "How are you guys doing?"
Amy looked mostly the same, though she had gotten about two inches taller, a few inches shorter than Hamilton. She was wearing shorts with an Abercrombie t-shirt, and her auburn hair was pulled back into a slick ponytail. Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses were perched on the top of her head. Amy didn't look like a designer sunglasses kind of girl, but with all the money she still had left over from winning the Clue Hunt, buying some pricey items was understandable. She looked like an average college girl, minus the heavy textbooks.
Reagan glanced at Hamilton, who was nearly drooling, his eyes wide and his body hunched over. "Good, how about you?" she responded politely when she realized that she was probably going to have to do most of the talking. Madison mumbled a hello as well.
"Oh, hey, Ames," Hamilton chimed in, his cheeks turning red. He cleared his throat and seemed to regain his composure. "Looks like you've been having a good time."
"Yeah, it's been great." Amy beamed. "I've been spending a lot of quality time with Dan and stuff, hanging out, relaxing."
"Good, good," he laughed.
Dan trailed behind her, halfway obscured by her body. Reagan noticed that he had hit some weird male hormonal growth spurt, making him a full head taller than her. His hair was cut in a manner suspiciously similar to Justin Bieber's, and Reagan wrinkled her nose.
Gross.
Then she remembered that she was supposed to pretend that she was falling in love with him.
"Hey, Dan," she brightly greeted him. Dan nodded back with a downward chin jerk.
Amy whispered something into Dan's ear, probably to reprimand him, and Dan just looked at her. Amy tilted her head toward Reagan urgently, and he sighed. "Hey, Reagan," he replied in the most monotonous voice anyone could possibly muster. Reagan raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. "Oh, and hey Madison."
Madison snorted. "Hey, Dan," she sneered.
Hamilton laughed awkwardly. "What's up, Dan?" Dan managed a smile, and Hamilton thrust out his beefy knuckles. Dan tapped them with his own considerably smaller knuckles. Hamilton turned to Reagan and Dan. "You two go . . . somewhere. I'm going to catch up with Ames." He nodded almost imperceptibly at Reagan, who did the same.
"'Kay," Reagan agreed, feigning enthusiasm. Hamilton smiled.
"What about me?" Madison complained, furrowing her brow.
Hamilton shrugged. "Stay here and be quiet." Madison cursed loudly and called Hamilton a dirty name, but reluctantly stayed with her mouth shut.
Dan cast a look at his older sister, who smiled back angelically. "Go have fun!" Amy said. Snorting, he strolled towards a large oak tree, and Reagan followed him.
Dan rolled his eyes, leaning against the trunk of the tree. "I'm sorry about Amy. She tends to become a little . . . overenthusiastic whenever a Cahill interacts with me, mainly because she wants me to become friends with every single branch."
"I'm sorry about Hamilton," Reagan returned. "He can be a little . . . odd."
"Like I didn't know that," Dan retorted, but gave Reagan a lopsided grin. Reagan laughed for five seconds before the chuckles began to peter out.
The silence hung in the air like wet clothes drying on a clothesline in the sunshine.
It was like one of those conversations where you were meeting a friend for the first time in a long while. The conversation was slowly moving out of the "hey-how's-it-going" phase, and it was getting awkward. Really awkward.
Their talk was probably going to turn to weather next. And Reagan definitely did not want to talk about weather.
She tried to say something back—a compliment, maybe—but nothing was coming out. A throaty grunt escaped from her lips, a sound that most would relate to a pig, and she wanted to die.
"Okay," Dan said, helpfully trying to move the conversation along. It wasn't working.
"Sowhatareyoumajoringin?" The question came out all in a rush.
Dan raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"
Reagan took a deep breath and tried to look him straight in the eye, but it proved futile. She settled with pretending to be incredibly interested in her fiddling thumbs. "What are you majoring in?"
"Oh. Business," he responded, nodding. Reagan bobbed her head back.
The uncomfortable silence crept back into the conversation.
She felt her cheeks grow warmer. If she wanted to receive a nomination, she had to do better than this! So Reagan cleared her throat and continued in a considerably warmer tone, "Oh, that's awesome! I'm majoring in Biology," even though she didn't think that it was awesome, and she wondered how Dan even made it to college, much less UCLA.
"Cool," Dan returned. He ran his hand through his dusty blonde hair, not knowing how to respond another way. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then he finally said, "I'll be going now."
"Of course," Reagan blurted out. "That's great. Um, see you later!" She gave him a quick smile and dashed back to her brother.
Dan stared at the rapidly diminishing figure of Reagan. "All right," he muttered, slightly bemused, and he went on his way.
::
"How did it go, sis?" Hamilton asked as Reagan ran back. She noticed that Madison and Amy were conversing, and Hamilton's cheeks stained red. What a wimp, she thought, but turned back to the matter at hand.
She looked up at him miserably. "Let's just say that he's probably worried about my sanity now."
Hamilton laughed, but quickly turned it into a whooping cough. "Don't worry, sis. He may still think you're okay, deep, deep down. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep—"
Reagan punched him in the stomach. And ended up crushing her hand.
Searing hot pain shot through her arm, and she glared at him. Hamilton only laughed. "I play football, sis. Deal with my rock-hard abs."
"What abs?"
He rolled his eyes.
"But what do I do?" She looked at him with pleading eyes. "And don't just give me horrible advice to sabotage me in the nominations."
"I won't." Hamilton nodded. "I think it'll be very amusing, watching you try to flirt with my best buddy."
It suddenly occurred to her that she would have to do exactly that.
"Gross! Gross gross gross gross gross!" she whined, contorting her face to one of disgust. Reagan wrinkled her nose. "Help me, Hamilton."
"Ah, I will," Hamilton grinned.
Just then, Eisenhower arrived with the luggage, Mary-Todd trailing behind him. "Eh, Reagan, where's your dorm again?"
"Hedrick Hall, floor 4, room 408," Reagan supplied, remembering from her email.
"And Madison?" Mary-Todd inquired.
"Sproul Hall, floor 2, room 218," Madison supplied.
"You have everything, right?" Eisenhower confirmed, looking forlornly at his daughters and the luggage surrounding them.
Reagan scanned her belongings. One duffel bag resting on top of a rolling suitcase, another duffel bag on top of another suitcase. "Yup," she confirmed at the same time her twin said, "Yeah." She looked up, only to see her father's eyes slightly shining. "Aw, man, Dad." She smiled waveringly and gave him a hug with her sister. The pair turned to her mother, who was on the verge of hysterics, and embraced her as well.
They turned to look at Hamilton.
The reality dawned on him, and he widened his eyes in horror. "No, Reagan, Madison, you know I don't do—"
Reagan and Madison pounced on him and hung tight.
"—hugs," he muttered, awkwardly patting them on the back twice before shaking them off of him. They looked at each other and smiled. "Let's get on with it," he muttered, grabbing some of the luggage, Eisenhower grabbing the rest.
"You know we love you," Reagan grinned.
"Whatever."
::
"Here," Reagan announced when they reached the door to her dorm. They had decided to go to hers first, since the building was closer. Reagan opened it with her key, and it swung open, revealing a bunk bed, a loft bed, two closets, some drawers, and three desks, among other things. Two of the desks were on one end of the room, and the third was under the loft bed. "Wow," she said in awe. "It's really awesome." Madison nodded in agreement.
Hamilton appraised the room carefully. After looking at every single nook and cranny of the dorm, he muttered, "It's a'ight."
"It's fantastic," Reagan shot back, grinning. "Better claim the loft bed before anyone else does." She grabbed her duffel bags and threw them on her bed. She walked around the dorm slowly. "It's small, but it's comfy. I can deal."
There were a few moments of silence before Eisenhower coughed. "Well, we have to go to Sproul, then I have to get back to Milwaukee and Hammer's going back to Notre Dame. Take care, all right?" He gave her an awkward group hug with Mary-Todd and Madison, and Hamilton just stood there, nodding.
Reagan rolled her eyes. "I'll miss you too, Hamilton."
"Aw, shut up."
Eisenhower closed the door behind him when he, Mary-Todd, and Hamilton exited, and Reagan sighed, letting out a shaky breath. No. She wouldn't cry. She willed herself to hold back the tears, but they fell down anyway. "Oh, goodness, Reagan, you're such a sissy," she said aloud, chuckling despite herself.
The tears ceased, and she let out a single laugh. There were things to be unpacked. Letting out a deep breath, she took down the first duffel bag and carried it over to the nearest closet, beginning to hanging up each article of clothing, one by one.
The door opened a crack, and Reagan turned to see a girl struggling to get in with both of her hands full. Reagan rose and went over to open the door for her.
The girl sighed with relief and threw her things down on the floor. "Hi," Reagan greeted tentatively. "I'm Reagan."
"I'm Danielle Adkins," she grinned, showing her dimples. Her shiny, brown hair and hazel eyes instantly made Reagan jealous. "Nice to meet you." She walked around the room approvingly. "I can take the top bunk, right?"
"It's all yours."
"Cool," she grinned, and began unpacking.
Not long after, the final girl of their dorm strolled in. Her tired-looking father, holding all of her luggage, trailed behind her. With a relieved sigh, he dropped her suitcases to the floor. "Bye, Dad," the girl whispered, and they exchanged hugs before her dad left.
She took one glance at the room, nodding approvingly. "I'm Kelsey Park," she informed them. She wrinkled her nose and rubbed something on her cheek. "Goodness, I hate pimples," she muttered, but Reagan could only see flawless, pale skin.
"I guess you're getting the bottom bunk," Danielle chimed in, smirking. "If that's all right."
Kelsey shrugged noncommittally. "I don't care," she snorted, and unzipped the first of her five suitcases.
Suddenly, Reagan's iPhone started to ring loudly, startling everyone in the dorm. "Can you take that outside?" Kelsey asked. "I get really annoyed when people talk on the phone loudly."
Reagan peered down at the caller ID. Hammer, it read. "It's kind of personal, anyway, so yeah." She went outside and closed the door behind her.
"Hello?"
"Reagan?"
"Yeah?"
"Dad said that I had to talk to you before we get to the airport so that I can get to USC. Apparently I need to give you . . . advice."
Reagan snorted. "Okay. I'm pretty sure I can handle this all on my own. Dan's, quite frankly, an idiot, and idiots are gullible. Simple as that."
"Well, single gullible people are."
Reagan narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
Hamilton chuckled. "Nothing, nothing."
She groaned. "Hamilton. Seriously. What is it?"
"Well, it's kind of hard to pretend-date a guy, wh-when . . ."
"Spit it out!"
"He…Dan…" Hamilton began, his words getting cut off with his raucous laughter. He was in hysterics for a good thirty seconds, then took a deep breath. "Dan already has a girlfriend," Hamilton finished. Then he began to laugh again for the longest time.
::
"Dad," she said into the phone once Hamilton had given the phone to him. "There's a minor problem that you forgot to inform me about. Dan kind of already has a girlfriend."
"Mmf. Jsst a sscnd." Eisenhower paused for a moment to swallow the lump of Angus Burger in his mouth. "I already knew that, Reagan."
She gripped her cell phone tighter. "And why didn't you bother to tell me?"
"It's all part of the fun!" He chuckled merrily, like an overly-buff Santa Claus. "You didn't think that I'd give you the easy assignment of just getting him to reveal the secrets without any catch, did you?" Reagan gave no response, because that was exactly what she was thinking. "Well, looks like your old man is thinking ahead now."
"When did you start to do that?"
"Yesterday."
"Oh my goodness. You—"
"Listen, Reagan," Eisenhower interrupted, his voice considerably softer. "I never said it was easy. That was the whole point of the mission, right? To prove yourself. I was already 100% sure that I was going to nominate Hamilton, so you have to switch my whole perspective. And that takes effort."
Reagan thought for a moment, then said, "It's not fair. You're not giving Hamilton a mission, are you?"
Eisenhower sighed. "Look. The moment we found out that your mother was pregnant with Hamilton, we knew that that baby was going to be the one with the nomination. I know from prior experience that when siblings fight for one thing, it always ends up hurting everyone. That's why your mother and I decided that the eldest would receive the nomination.
"Now, you want to get nominated. I was debating whether or not I should give you a nomination, too. It was a hard decision whether or not to give you a chance. But now you have one, and I advise to you use it."
Reagan nodded, even though she knew that her father couldn't see her. "Of course, Dad. I understand."
"Good." There was a pause, then, "Oh, looks like we're at the airport. Bye, Reagan. Have a great semester. I have some time before boarding, so call me if you need anything."
She grinned. "Of course, Dad. Love you. Bye." She hung up.
Reagan returned to the dorm, where Danielle and Kelsey were already unpacking. "Everything all right?" Kelsey asked.
"Yup." She went over to her other duffel bag and unzipped it, dumping its contents on the floor. She picked up a maroon sweatshirt and was just about to hang it in the closet when the realization hit her. Dan had a girlfriend. Dan, the boy she was supposed to woo in one semester, was already happily in love, and she couldn't do anything about it.
She promptly dropped the sweatshirt and sighed. "I am so screwed."
Next Chapter: In which awkward conversations ensue, Dan has a horny roommate who tries to flirt with Reagan, and Madison is absolutely no help at all.
Stay tuned! :D
~Cascading Rainbows