Hi, all! Sorry about this update being kinda later than usual... school's starting up again on Tuesday and I had to go to orientation this week and I only have two words: senior year. That is all I will use to describe the stress of that situation and beyond this year. So, sorry if updates are like this for awhile; I have to settle into my new schedule and everything before I get back to my usual schedule of updating once every 7-10 days.

This chapter's longer than normal; hopefully this compensates for the longer wait.

The next day, Hiccup skipped going to the library in favor of watching Astrid and Scott at lacrosse practice. She hadn't seen a practice in a few weeks now and she kind of owed Scott an easier way home after driving her from her new hangout every day of the week. The auburn-haired girl didn't mind in the slightest; she may not have played a sport herself, but she didn't mind having something to entertain other than her homework or the latest book from the How to Train Your Dragon series she'd been checking out one by one lately.

The only problem came from watching different sides of the field that the school used for practice. The boys' team played on one side and the girls' team on the other. Her basic system would be to watch her brother until he started being too much of a braggart for his own good. Then, she'd switch her gaze to Astrid practicing with the other girls on the team. Let's just say Astrid handled scoring better than Scott did… his head was a little too big for him, if you asked Hiccup.

She sat alone on the bleachers until the girls' coach called for a break and Astrid jogged over to her. Hiccup had become her personal refreshment stand whenever she happened to be at the practices.

"Water, Astrid?" Hiccup called.

"Sure." The blonde replied. She stopped at the base of the bleachers, panting and resting her hands on her knees.

Hiccup complied by taking a water bottle from her backpack and tossing it to her friend, who caught it practically without looking. "So, are we still going bowling this weekend?"

Her friend chuckled "Don't we go every weekend?"

Hiccup shrugged "Just making sure you can Cam aren't busy or anything."

"We're free. Tell Felix if he needs to know too." Hiccup nodded again. Astrid stayed silent for a minute, catching her breath "You know, I was thinking… You should invite Jack." She suggested before taking a sip out of her water bottle.

"Why?"

Astrid ceased drinking and sighed with relief "You said you wanted to get better acquainted with him, didn't you?" Hiccup shrugged and nodded at the question "What better way to do that than have him come and hang out with us?"

"I guess…" The brunette girl sighed "I'll invite him when I go to the library tomorrow." She paused "Do you think he'll even want to come?"

"Of course. Why, you don't think so?" The blonde crossed her arms.

"Not really."

"Sure, why not?" Jack replied without a second thought, trying his best to sound like he didn't care either way.

Hiccup blinked "Really…?"

"Yeah." The boy with white hair smiled "I'd love to hang out with you guys… in a place where we can talk without getting in trouble." He muttered as he saw a few other people in the library shooting a look that was begging them to shut up.

Hiccup giggled and lowered her voice "That would be nice. We all meet up at the bowling alley down the road, The Bog Bowler." Jack nodded, recalling where the place was "Tomorrow night at seven, okay?" He nodded again "Great." The corners of her mouth created a smile before she shifted the weight in her backpack and walked over to her usual table, the center table in the row closest to the bookshelves.

Jack felt a smile creep its way onto his features too as she went about her own business. It probably felt greater than it should that she actually wanted to hang out with him outside of the dungeon he called a workplace and she began to make part of her schedule.

Hanging out with her could sounded great in Jack's head. But the only question that stuck out to him. What did this even mean? Did inviting him mean that she just wanted to get to know him or… something else?

After getting home from work (on time, for once), Jack snagged some leftovers from the fridge to eat before climbing the stairs and making his way into Anna's room. When he walked in, she had her nose buried in one of her tooth books, tacky-looking purple glasses hanging low on her nose and standing out against her dark complexion. Emma was sitting at the foot of the bed, reading her own book quite intently. It seemed some of the elder's nerdiness started to rub off on the younger. Only when their brother cleared his throat did either notice him.

"Jack," Anna merely glanced up from her page "what's going on?"

"I thought I should tell you that I may have made some progress with Henrika." He claimed.

Simultaneously, both girls saved their place in their books and closed them, Jack gaining their full attention instantaneously.

"What happened?" Emma enthusiastically asked, resting her chin in her propped up hands.

"Tell us!" Anna demanded.

"Okay, okay, calm down." Jack sat on the small empty space on Anna's bed "Looks like I'm spending time with her tomorrow night."

"So, you're taking her on a date?" Anna asked excitedly.

"No, I'm not." Jack rubbed the back of his neck "It's too soon for that, anyway. She goes bowling with her friends a lot, I guess, and she asked me if I wanted to tag along with them."

"At least it's a good sign." His older sister pointed out.

"How is this a good thing?"

"It means she doesn't totally hate you." Emma giggled.

Jack deadpanned "I could have figured that out on my own."

"Have you told your friends yet?" Anna questioned.

Her brother turned back to her "No, why do you-?"

"Tell them what?" Jack was interrupted by their mother, Mary, who was now standing in the doorway pairing her work clothes with a confused expression.

"Oh, mom, uh…" He stammered.

"What's going on?" She entered the room "You three don't just get excited for no reason."

The siblings glanced from one to another with uncertainty until Emma shouted out "Jack's going on a date tomorrow!" Said boy tossed the girl a death glare.

"What? You are?" Mary sounded almost too excited… great… "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's not really a date." Jack calmly clarified "This girl I met at work and have been talking to for a few weeks now invited me to hang out with her and her friends tomorrow night. They're going to that bowling alley near the library."

"Sounds like fun." His mother tucked a loose strand of brown hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to it." The white-haired boy commented.

Mary stood silent for a moment, glancing between her children "Well, do you like her?" She suddenly asked.

Jack shrugged, a little bit of heat forming under the hoodie he'd yet to throw off "A little… maybe…"

"He's been coming to us for advice." Anna explained "And I told him to keep me updated on it because the last thing he needs is to screw it up."

Mary chuckled "At least you're helping him." She returned her gaze to her son "So, tell me about her."

Jack groaned at the command. He'd just gone through this awhile ago, didn't he? But it was pointless to wiggle out of this. So he started to, yet again, describe Hiccup to her and get her up to date on what's happening between them… which wasn't much, but still.

All Jack knew was that every single female in the whole house was now more excited about this development than he was. Sure, he was happy he was interested in her. Hiccup's a really cool person, from what he's seen of her. But he was more confused than anything. He'd never had a crush, if you could even call this one, before. He'd never dated because he never saw a point until now.

All of a sudden he wanted things that he had no idea how to handle properly and keep it from blowing up in his face. And, in a way, that scared him. He really liked Hiccup. He didn't want to make her hate him because he made a mistake or anything. Because Anna was right. He would probably screw it up without even realizing it, being so… Jack. He needed all the help he could get with this.

The next day, Jack arrived at The Bog Bowler a little later than he'd originally hoped. Turns out he didn't exactly remember where this place was after all… oops. He'd driven past it before but never stopped to see the inside. The bowling alley was a quaint place, to sum it up basically. It was a large brick building with a row of windows on both sides of a duo of wooden doors. The place was attached to a small bar called "Bertha's." Apparently, the two places had the same owners.

He stepped inside and found the place pretty standard for a bowling alley. Hardwood floors, lanes taking half of the building's space and the whole back wall. Part of the floor was elevated, separating an eating area from the bowling lanes. It was pretty well occupied, with people playing at quite a few lanes or eating the food that the place served.

Jack strode up to the counter to get some bowling shoes and stopped in front of the employee manning it, a stout man with a chestnut brown beard. He gave Jack a sweet smile and welcomed him."

"I've never seen you here before." The man noticed "First time bowling?"

"Nah." Jack answered "Just first time bowling here."

Jack told the man his shoe size and he scurried over to the shelves to find him the right fit. He brought a pair that had definitely seen better days to the counter.

"So, uh, how much?" Jack pulled out his wallet.

"Six fifty." The employee replied.

"He's with us, Mulch!" Jack turned to see Astrid standing at a table with Cam, Felix and Hiccup. He turned back to the employee, who was now smiling a little wider at him.

"Then they're on the house." Mulch stated to Jack, who looked from the table to the clerk in confusion. "Go on, go be with your friends."

"Uh… alright…" Jack took his shoes and met the others at one of the tables on the elevated platform, taking an empty seat next to Hiccup. "Hey." The rest of the group greeted him "So, uh… how come I don't have to pay for these?" He gestured to the shoes.

"Our parents own the place." Cam nonchalantly answered, kicking her feet up on the last empty seat "So, once a week, we can bring a few friends in for free sets and food. Shoes too."

"Yeah." Felix added "It's become our weekly tradition."

Jack started to switch out his shoes "Alright, just making sure I won't get arrested for not paying for bowling shoes." He chuckled.

"You sure that's all you'd be arrested for there?" Cam remarked.

Jack's chuckle grew to a laugh "I'm sure." He tied the laces of his shoes and sat back up to meet everyone else's gaze "So, what are we doing up here instead of down there?" He tiled his head to the lanes.

"Mom's making our dinner." Astrid replied "Whenever we show up, she likes to get us our order herself."

"Sometimes she gives us something she's trying out too. Nothing gets on the menu without our approval." Hiccup brought up "We're kind of her taste test guinea pigs."

"So I might get a free sample tonight?" Jack leaned against the table top on his elbows.

"You get free food, anyway." Cam proclaimed "Just some of it might be something we've never seen before and could either be really disgusting or a gift from the cooking gods."

Jack started sniggering again "I like you, uh…" Suddenly, he forgot which twin was which.

"Cam." The messier blonde reminded "Astrid always has her hair braided or something."

"At least I take care of my hair…" Astrid muttered.

"I do too!" Cam declared.

Astrid scanned her figure "Did you brush it this morning?"

Her twin turned away from her "No…"

"My point exactly." Astrid remarked.

At pretty much the perfect time, a large tray of pizza, a stack of paper plates and a huge basket of fries were placed in the center of the table.

A woman that definitely had some meat on her bones was the server. Jack also noted that her light brown hair was pulled back in a bun, that her clothes were covered by a grease-stained apron and that she had uh… a quite large breast to her. "There you go, kids." She made her way to Hiccup and set down a small basket of fried chicken strips in front of her "I'm trying a new batter, Henrika. Try it out."

To this, Hiccup nodded "Thank you."

"No problem, anything for you, dear." Bertha finally noticed Jack beside Hiccup "Who's this? A new friend?"

"Uh, yeah." Hiccup started "This is Jack." He gave the woman a wave and a smile.

"Nice to meet you, Jack." She greeted "I'm Bertha; I own the place. I'm sure the girls and Felix filled you in on what you need to know." Jack nodded "Good." She started to walk away from the table, untying her apron as she went "Just holler if you need anything else, kids!"

"We will!" Astrid called back.

The braided twin turned back to see everyone else taking slices of the pizza and putting them on the paper plates they were supplied with. Well, everyone but Hiccup, who snagged some of the fries and started to nibble on the chicken strips.

"Don't like pizza?" Jack asked.

"I do." Hiccup admitted "But I can't eat it with my braces…"

"You could always scrape the cheese off, Hiccup." Felix pointed out "Then it won't be a problem, right?"

Hiccup shook her head "It's not the same that way."

"Fair enough." Cam added.

Hiccup watched four sets of hands sweep up over half of the pizza like it was their last meal. Jack and Astrid each took three slices, Cam claimed two and Felix settled for one and a big helping of the fries.

They began eating in silence until Cam brought up "So, I think I owe you Hiccup. I passed the quiz in history today."

Hiccup smiled "You don't owe me anything, really."

"I just want to thank you for pulling me out of the gutter with my mom. I'm in the tournament now, set in stone."

"That's great!" Felix congratulated "I'll definitely come see you."

"I kind of have to be there, so count me in." Astrid commented "Hiccup?"

"If I can get a ride." She shrugged "But it's still a few months away; I don't know what everyone else is doing then."

"One of us can take you." Felix offered.

"You sure?" The only brunette at the table asked.

"Yeah. How many times have you gotten rides from any of us before?" The blond boy continued "It's no problem." He smiled.

After a little more conversation, Hiccup noticed that Jack had remained quiet since they got their food. He was eating his third slice of pizza crust first when she looked over at him.

She opened her mouth to speak before Cam blurted out "You eat pizza that way too?"

Jack's eyes widened at the remark "Yeah… you don't think it's weird, do you?"

"Dude, I do it too!" She exclaimed. Jack cracked a smile at that.

After that little ice-breaker, Jack seemed to come around more and more to the group. They all shared stories and laughed at jokes that someone made as the conversation went on. Over that talk, Hiccup learned that Jack was a junior at his school and that he had at least one sister… sometimes when he brought her up, she seemed older than him and other times younger. He must have had more than one for that to happen…

Overall, Hiccup thought that dinner was pretty tame… until Jack and Cam got into a contest to see who could stuff more French fries in their mouth. Cam wound up winning by one fry, much to Jack's disappointment, and Hiccup and the others laughed at how stupid they looked with the shreds of fried potato sticking out of their mouths.

When practically every morsel of food had been consumed, all the teens were contently chatting when Bertha came back to check on them and bring the tray back into the kitchen. She handed Astrid three scorecards and told them to take any lane they wanted. That was when they decided to start their first set on an open bowling lane and set up their scorecard, Felix dubbing himself the score-keeper as usual because the Hofferson twins (one more so than the other) had a bad habit of cheating when they kept score.

Being the always-important score-keeper, Felix went up first and snagged a spare with no problem. Then, Astrid wound up with a seven-ten split and found herself one pin short of a spare. With a slip of her foot, Hiccup managed to earn eight points and Cam quickly followed up with a strike, which she proceeded to cheer about and dared Jack to "beat that." Needless to say that their little rivalry carried on for quite a bit of the game, the two of them constantly out-scoring the other with their best throws.

Everyone else stayed out of the little competition until Hiccup finally got her footing on the lane and scored all spares and strikes from then until the mid-way point of the game. Finally, she had her usual game back. Cam started instigating that she could beat both Jack and her without thinking about it and Hiccup accepted the challenge. The game ended with Cam's score being the highest, closely followed by Hiccup and Jack earning a very close third place.

Something about this development surprised Hiccup because, while Cam did her overly common victory dance with the scorecard, Jack just smiled and congratulated her on winning. It might have been strange to think, but Hiccup pegged Jack as a bit of a sore loser for some reason. It was refreshing to see that her assumption was wrong entirely.

It only told her that Jack might be a lot of fun to have around every weekend. He was easy to talk to, an open book and she had to admit that he had a pretty good form while bowling… and he did look good from certain angles. And he seemed to get along with everyone else pretty well and she would be lying if she said that she didn't enjoy his company. She did catch him giving Felix a few weird looks, though… why she didn't know. Maybe he was confused by the fact that the blond hung out with a trio of girls every weekend. She just shrugged it off, though. It wasn't that important, right?

The second set ended with Cam and Felix tying for first place, Astrid in second and Hiccup in third. Jack having lost the competitive stress that came from the battle with Cam must have pattered out or something. After all, she won their round and that was that… for now. Their final set finished with Jack getting his game back and scoring first place. Cam, having come in second this time, accused him of cheating and he waved it off with a smile made up of teeth as white as the snow that would be falling again within the next few months.

All in all, the evening went by as naturally as any other one the group has had since they struck this deal with Bertha about a year ago. It was just that, this time, Jack added to the fun. But every now and then she caught the boy's bright blue eyes on her. She didn't know why, maybe just coincidence. But his chilly blue irises felt… warm, if that made any sense. She couldn't find a way to describe it…

Felix was the first one to go home, when they group heard the familiar sound of his mother's car making it's iconic honk that sounded kind of like a default ringtone on a cell phone. Jack left soon after that and thanked them for inviting him out before heading out the door.

Once she was sure he was gone, Hiccup turned to the twins and asked "So… was there any other reason you wanted me to invite Jack?"

"I had no part in that scheme." Cam clarified, putting up her hands defensively.

Astrid shrugged "Just a theory I have."

Not a moment sooner, the girls heard the faint sound of rock music blasting outside, followed by a honk.

"That's my ride." Hiccup sighed as she stood "So, would you guys mind if he becomes a regular with us?"

Astrid shrugged. "I don't see why not; I liked him."

"I want him back next week." Cam ordered "I demand a re-match, he so cheated that last set."

Hiccup giggled "I'll ask him if he can come next week." She walked up to the counter and returned the shows to Mulch before waving back at the girls and heading out the door.