A/N: Hope you enjoy this chapter!

February 12, 1988 | Henry

About twenty minutes later after she told him she wanted him to kiss her and to walk her to her door, they finally were stepping out of his Bronco. Neither of them wanted to, but it was already 1:30 A.M., and Elizabeth mentioned at dinner that she had an 8 A.M. class.

She was gathering her things when he hops from the truck, rushing over to the passenger door and opening it for her. "You don't have to do that every time, you know." She instructs, smiling down at him before grabbing the last piece of winter clothing from the floorboard—her scarf. It was much too warm in his truck for all that to be on, especially since they'd heated the thing up in the last twenty minutes.

"I know." Henry says and shrugs, "I'll be honest, it's the one thing my dad has always done right for my mom. It stuck with me."

He's sure she sees her cheeks blush, and he wonders what that's about. "What's she thinking?" He wonders to himself as she hops down, the tips of her honey-blonde hair bouncing underneath her shoulders when her boots hit the pavement. He shuts the door after she's moved out of the way, and taking a deep breath in, he looks down their arms at their hands—they were already close enough they should've been touching. He closes the slight gap and wraps his fingers around her hand, catching himself sucking his bottom lip in and tasting her lipstick there.

Her cheeks hadn't turned their normal color yet prior to him grabbing her hand, but now he's sure that it's a blush—and his heart skips a beat knowing that he's the cause of that. "I had a lot of fun with you tonight." He says as they walk up the sidewalk to the dorm's doorway.

Her purse slides from her shoulder and hangs on her elbow, the arm that's not attached to Henry's hand, and she turns to face him. Underneath this lambent sidelight that was on the verge of flickering, her hair actually shimmered. He watches as her breath escapes her lips, forming that little cloud between them and mingling with his own little breath cloud. In any other circumstance, he would be shivering and trying to get back to warmth as soon as possible, but tonight, with her, he's content and warm as can be.

"I had fun with you, too," she replies softly. Between the shimmery hair and the way that lowlight was making all the light blue color pop in her eyes, Henry wasn't sure how he was standing on his own two feet. She was blowing him away, and all she's doing is standing there.

He hears her chuckle and he's pulled from his trance, then he realizes there must have been a good amount of time passed between them. "Oh," he says and joins her with a laugh, "I guess I should kiss you instead of just staring at you, huh?"

She smiles and bites her lip, and his knees almost buckle. "I'd like that." She admits.

Leaning down a little, he presses his lips to hers once more for the night, wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her to his body. She's warm, too, and he realizes then how cold his hands are.

When they finally pull away, she looks up at him and he swears she's batting her eyelashes on purpose—how can anyone look so cute just while blinking otherwise? "I'll see you around?"

"I'll see you around." He answers.

She reaches for the door handle and pulls it open, and he waits until it shuts behind her to leave his spot and make his way back to his truck. It takes everything in his entire body to not dance, scream, and yell down the sidewalk that he just went out with the most beautiful girl in the world.

February 12, 1988 | Elizabeth

Her alarm blaring almost makes her fall out of the bed. Six in the morning is always early, but it feels extra early this morning since she only, finally, got to sleep at about three.

Sure, she'd gotten inside before two, finding that Amy had thankfully decided to stay elsewhere for the night, but trying to get her mind to calm down for her to actually go to sleep was a whole different story. She had never been one of those girls to be up late thinking about a boy, but this boy seemed to have a hold on her. She hadn't even known him for more than ten hours yet, but it felt like she already knew him like he was distant family with all the talking they'd done.

Her mind had kept going over conversations that they had at dinner and in the truck.

"Did you just dip your French fry into that chocolate milkshake?" She was stunned, holding her own fry in her hand from where she'd frozen while watching him dip.

He gave her this adorable, sheepish expression and shrugged, "It's good." He said, taking another and dipping it in. "Haven't you ever done it?" He asked, popping the concoction into his mouth.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she just wanted to groan. It looked like it would not taste good at all. "No, can't say that I have." She admitted, sticking her own fry into her mouth.

He makes a point to scoot the basket toward her, then eyes the shake, "Try it." He said, and the smile he was wearing was what convinced her to take a fry from the basket and reluctantly dip it in the milkshake.

When she ate it, she tilted her head, "Wait," she said, "This is actually…this is actually good?" She wasn't sure at first if she'd liked it, but the more she chewed and the more the ice cream melted, the better it was.

"Right?" Henry said, way more excited than she'd expected him to be, "It's something about the salty and sweet flavor together that makes it just right."

Thinking about that moment, she pulls her comforter up to her chin and bites her lip, deciding that one of her favorite parts of tonight was listening to Henry yammer on about certain foods.

"Okay, okay," he'd said, pulling into her dorm's parking lot. They were just talking about their favorite foods for the last five minutes of the drive, and almost everything Henry had told her was something homemade. Almost everything she'd told him was from a restaurant. "I just really like to do my own cooking, okay? And maybe that makes me…" he paused and furrowed his brow as he parked his Bronco into a spot near the sidewalk, "I don't know…girly?" He questioned and looked over at her, shrugging his shoulders, "But I love to cook. My mom taught me how and that was just kind of our thing we did together on Saturday mornings especially. And then when she found out I wasn't bad at it, she had me help a lot for dinners."

She smiled listening to him talk about he and his mom in the kitchen, trying to push away the niggling thought that she wished she'd spent more time with her own mom in the kitchen. Maybe she'd know how to cook now instead of ordering food for Thanksgiving whenever she goes home to spend it with Will. "I don't think it makes you girly," she answered, taking her seatbelt off and turning her body to face him, bending her left leg up on the bench seat and leaning her back against the door. "I think it's nice that a man knows how to cook." She admitted, "Especially since I don't really know how."

"You don't know how to cook?" He asked, sounding as though she'd just told him some big secret.

She shook her head, "Nope."

"Did your mom not cook?"

"She did." She answered, "But she died when I was fifteen. And up until that point…" her voice trailed off for a moment and she looked down between them at her gloves she'd laid on the leather, "Well, up until that point, I was a typical teenager who wanted to do anything but spend time in the kitchen with her mom." She said, shrugging and looking up at him.

He'd stayed quiet for a little longer than she'd wanted him to, just long enough to make her feel as though she'd been too vulnerable and shared too much with him. But finally, his hand moved and he patted her knee, "I'm sorry," he said, "You hadn't mentioned that you lost your mom."

She shook her head, "I don't like to bring it up much."

He cleared his throat, "So you live with your dad?"

"Lost him too." She said, feeling a bit more uncomfortable now. She sat up straighter and sighed, "What's your favorite meal to cook?"

When he answered that next question right away instead of pressing her about her parents, she knew she really liked this guy. He didn't pry too much, but he was curious, and he listened when she did speak. She loved that about him.

All those thoughts that were recapping the night's events last night were making her head pound this morning as she slammed her hand down on her alarm clock, groaning and making the dangerous gamble of closing her eyes.

"Can you keep it down over there?" Amy grumbles, and Elizabeth sits straight up, whipping her head around to look across the room.

"Amy?!" She says, "I didn't know you were—"

"I got back at four. Leave me alone." She says, pulling her pillow over her head.

Elizabeth just sits there for a moment, and then the tiredness catches back up to her. "What's the harm in skipping one 8 A.M. class? I'll go to my 12:30 class." She thinks to herself, trying to not panic since she'd never even considered skipping class before. It was just a political science class anyway—nothing overly important for her mathematics major.

She gives in to the idea of more sleep, laying down and pulling her comforter back over her body, quickly falling back into a solid sleep.

February 12, 1988 | Henry

When his only class for the day had gotten canceled, he decided to go down the car wash and clean up his truck. Had it been daylight, he would have been embarrassed for Elizabeth to see it like this. It was almost never this bad, but he just hadn't gotten around to cleaning it, and since it had been snowing a lot this winter, he just didn't see the need. But now that he had this girl he was head over heels for, he knew he wanted to give her his best, and that included his best, cleanest truck.

He waited around until noon, deciding to study until it warmed up a little more, and then drove to the Charlottesville Car Wash.

"Hey Hank," the owner, Mark, walks up to Henry's truck when he puts it in park and opens the door, "Long time no see."

"Yeah," Henry says, shutting the door and giving his truck a look, "As you can tell, it definitely has been a while."

Mark laughs and shakes his head, "All this snow…it hasn't been good for business, you know?"

Henry's digging some cash from his wallet, handing it over to Mark for the man to quickly put it in his pocket. "I can imagine." Henry says.

"What brings you here anyway?" Mark asks, "I mean, it's not supposed to let up." He continues, looking around at all the snow on the ground, "You got a date or something?"

Henry just smiles and looks down as he shoves his wallet back into his front pocket, "Yeah, I mean, kind of." He says and grabs the hose, "We went on a date last night. It was totally spontaneous and—well, I saw my truck this morning and figured I shouldn't take her in it that dirty again."

Mark laughs and leans against the wall as Henry starts spraying the truck down, "She's special, huh?"

"Yeah." Henry answers immediately, even surprising himself how quickly he responded. "I mean—I barely know her, but…" he frowns and stops spraying, turning at Mark and leaning on one leg. "It's weird, and it's crazy, but just hear me out." Henry explains, "She feels like family."

Mark smiles big at Henry, revealing the one tooth that was missing on the top near his two front teeth. "Oh boy, she got you good." He says, folding his arms over his chest and settling into the wall behind him more, "She the one?"

Henry shrugs, "I think she is." He says, "But when I say the date was spontaneous, Mark…" he laughs and shakes his head, "I hadn't met her before last night. Me and John went to the intramural soccer game, and she was there. I couldn't take my eyes off her the entire time. I don't know a thing about soccer, but she scored three of their four goals so I'm guessing she's pretty damn good." Henry says, then shrugs innocently and re-grips the hose, "We went to dinner and we didn't get back in until about two last night."

Mark's eyes widen, "You went to third base all in one night?"

"No!" Henry says, panicking and sighing, shaking his head, "No, no. She's worth more than that." He says. He swallows hard, thinking of how she looked in the passenger seat last night. He easily could've let it go to third if she was willing, but he didn't want to rush things.

Mark just laughs, "You really do have it bad." He says, putting his foot up on the wall and leaning in. Henry starts hosing the truck down as Mark tells him about how he and his wife met, and how it wasn't exactly love at first sight, but they came around and couldn't get rid of each other then.

He enjoyed listening to Mark yammer on, and then move into talking about he and his wife's four kids. Although Henry had only been in Charlottesville for almost two years, Mark felt like a kind of father figure to him. He certainly didn't have his own dad to talk to these things about, so it was nice to have Mark to look up to in a way. He loved his wife, loved his kids, and he worked hard for them every day. That's what Henry wanted to be for his wife and his kids one day.

When he finishes scrubbing and rinsing it off, Mark helped him dry it off. "So what's her name?" He asks, going back to the girl subject.

"Elizabeth." Henry says, looking over at him and smiling. He loved saying her name.

Mark smacks the towel on Henry's arm, "Bring her by some time, yeah? Me and Lisa would even love to have you guys over for dinner. I'd love to meet her, and I know Lisa will want to as soon as I go home and tell her all about Hank's new gal."

Henry laughs, finishing the last spot on the door. "Let us get out on a second date first, okay? And then we can come and have dinner with you and your four crazy kids."

"I can even get a sitter for the night." Mark says jokingly, knowing his own kids are crazy. "Listen, Hank, when you have four kids that range from ages three to ten, you can come back and talk to me. Is it crazy? Yeah. Is it expensive? Yeah. Do they drive me and Lisa psycho? Also yeah. But, Hank, when I tell you I'd have a fifth one in a heartbeat…"

"Get out of here." Henry says, smacking the towel against Mark's shoulder this time, paying him back for getting him, "You don't need a fifth kid."

"If Lisa ever wants another one, I won't be able to say no. They're like…they're little monsters, but they're the best thing that ever happened to me beside Lisa." He says, getting a little more serious and smiling at Henry, "You'll know that one day. I'm sure of it." He says, patting the hood of Henry's Bronco and walking away from it. "I won't keep ya, though. Better go find that girl and tell her how much you love her."

"I'm not gonna scare her away." Henry says, although if he thought it wouldn't terrify her, he'd tell her that in a heartbeat.

Mark laughs, "I give it three weeks."

"Until?"

"Until you're coming back and telling me you're gonna marry her."

Henry just smiles and opens his door, putting one foot in, "We'll see." He says, climbing up in it, "See you, Mark." He says before shutting the door and heading back to campus.

When he gets to his dorm, he looks over and assess the inside situation of his truck. He digs underneath the seat, checking to be sure there wasn't any trash under there, but instead he finds something soft and fuzzy. He bends down and looks, finding a pair of gloves under there. Elizabeth's gloves from last night, he realizes, and grabs them. Immediately deciding this would be a great opportunity to try to see her, he drives over to Elizabeth's dorm and parks in the same spot he was in last night.

He takes the gloves and goes up to the door, realizing he didn't actually go in last night and would have no idea which room was hers. Not like he could just be wandering around the all-women's dorm rooms. He stands just inside the doorway for a moment, looking up to see that there were multiple floors. "Damn." He thinks to himself, wondering why he didn't at least get her room number or anything. Come to think of it, he hadn't gotten any contact information for her, not even her phone number for her room. The only thing he knew about her was that she had an 8 AM class this morning, that her name is Elizabeth Adams, and that she plays soccer on the intramural team. "Soccer." He thinks, going back outside and heading to the soccer fields, hoping they were practicing.

Unfortunately, when he arrives, no one else is there—it's just an empty field and empty bleachers covered with a little bit of last night's snow. "John will surely know when they're playing next." He thinks to himself, thumbing the gloves in his pocket on his way back to the truck.

When he gets to John's room, he knocks on the door and John almost immediately answers. He had books in his arm, something Henry rarely saw, and then he sees Michelle walking behind him. "Oh," he says, "I—"

"We were just going to the library to study." John says.

"Wait," he says, looking at Michelle, "When does your team play again?"

She frowns a little, looking him up and down, "Wednesday."

He sighs, thinking about how far Wednesday was from Friday. "You know Elizabeth Adams, right?" He asks, then internally kicks himself. Of course she knows her, they play on the same team. When Michelle simply nods, looking irritated that he was talking to her, he perks up, "You know where I can find her at this time of day?"

"Do I look like her assistant?" She asks, copping even more of an attitude with him.

"I just thought—"

"Let's go, John." She says, and John looks at Henry and scoffs as they walk by.

Henry just watches the two of them walk away, then looks at his watch and sees that it's already two o'clock. He decides to try to just take his mind of Elizabeth for now and go get some lunch, hoping that, somehow, he would catch her on this huge campus with hundreds of people always swarming around. He would have to get to work soon, anyway, so he wouldn't really have time to talk with her even if he did find her.

February 12, 1988 | Elizabeth

Sitting in the library, she's supposed to be studying for her chemistry test Monday, but all she's been doing for the past twenty minutes is tapping her pencil against her cheek and staring at her notes. She looks at the clock, then back at her notes, then at the clock again to find only two minutes had passed since the last time she looked. She has wondered so many times why she didn't think to get his number, or why he didn't ask for hers. She wondered what he was doing, who he was doing it with, and even sometimes what he was thinking. "Ugh." She thinks, getting annoyed with herself. She'd never been this obsessed over a guy before, but…this one was different.

It was almost dinner time, and she really did not want to eat the meatloaf that the cafeteria announced it was serving tonight, so she decides to leave the library after very little studying and take her bright red Minata out, bring her notes, and go to the little coffee shop downtown that also served sandwiches and soup. She loved to study there sometimes but hasn't been since midterms last semester, so she decided that maybe the surroundings would help her study. And a hot ham and Swiss sandwich couldn't hurt, either.

When she arrives, she sets her tote bag down in her favorite booth before making her way to the counter. She's looking up at the sign as she walks up to the cash register, making sure that they still serve the ham and Swiss on rye, and just as she finds it on the board she hears a familiar voice.

"What are you doing here?"

She looks down immediately, having to check whether she was imagining his voice or not, "Henry!" She says, letting out a laugh. "You work here?"

He puts his thumbs in the ties on his apron, pulling it from his body and then laughing, "They gave me this smock and told me to come to the cash register." He teases, "Yeah, I've worked here since the beginning of the semester. My summer job money was running out."

She smiles, "This was my favorite coffee shop up until midterms when I stopped going." She says.

"Why'd you stop going?"

She shrugs, "I was running out of summer money." She says and bites her lip.

He smiles back at her, trying to ignore the fact that his face was turning red, "What can I get you?"

"I'll have a hot ham and Swiss on rye and a cup of coffee—black."

"Black?" He asks, widening his eyes as he punches the numbers into the register. "It's like…late."

She laughs, "I'm immune to caffeine." She admits, "All through senior year me and my friend Yousif would stay up late studying and we chugged black coffee to pull a few all-nighters." She didn't want to mention that her friend Yousif is also next in line for the throne in Bahrain, feeling like it sounded kind of stuck up to say she was best friends with the prince of a country. He wasn't just her friend, though, he was her co-captain on the debate team and someone she deeply missed having those delirious, late-night conversations with.

He raises his brow and the register dings, and while he's putting cash in, she's staring at him in confusion. "I didn't give you any money." Elizabeth says, still holding her wallet in her hand.

Henry shakes his head, "I got it." He says as he's putting his wallet back in his pocket.

She tilts her head, "You didn't have to do that."

"I would've taken you out on a date tonight had I been smart enough to get your phone number." He says, then chuckles a little as he slides a notepad and pen to her, "Which reminds me…"

She looks down at it and smiles, putting her wallet back in her purse. "I was kicking myself all day that neither of us asked for our numbers." She says, penning her number down on the pad. She rips the sheet off and leans over the counter, tucking it in his apron pocket on his chest and giving it a little pat, "For safe keeping." She coos, giving him an innocent smile before straightening back up. Henry was just standing there and staring at her, and she finally laughed, "Blink, Henry." She reminds.

He bites his lip and pulls his eyes away from her long enough to look down, then looks right back at her again, "Oh!" He says, digging in his other front pocket and pulling out a pair of gloves.

"My gloves!" She exclaims, taking them from him immediately. "I thought I'd left them at the restaurant. Where were they?"

"The floorboard of my truck."

She looks at them and bites her lip, laughing quietly, "Oh." She says. Something about the way he said that made her mind go to much dirtier things than what they'd done last night. Clothing strewn around a floorboard usually involves something a little more heated than just a kiss, but regardless, that's all they did. "Thank you so much. My hands have been freezing all day."

"I tried to bring them to your dorm earlier," he says, leaning on the counter on his elbows. "But I also didn't know which room was yours."

"312." She answers, then bites her lip, "Promise you won't tell anyone how quickly I offered you my room number?"

He extends his pinky, and it makes her laugh, "Promise." He says before she wraps her own pinky around his.

"Thanks," she says, and the plate being pushed out in the window catches her eye. "That's my food." She says.

Henry turns around and walks over there, and just as he picks her plate up, he picks another plate up, too, with what looked to be a BLT on it. "Mind if I join you?" He asks.

She had to catch her breath when she felt her heart skip a beat, and she simply nods, "Aren't you working though?"

"I'm taking my lunch." Henry calls into the back before some girl wanders her way out, chewing gum mindlessly. "All set." He says, carrying their plates over to the table.

February 12, 1988 | Henry

"Okay," Henry says, taking the last sip of his water before setting it down and glancing at his watch, "Last question before I have to go back to work." They'd been doing fun rapid-fire questions to get to know each other better almost the entire dinner upon Elizabeth's suggestion. After they'd laughed about neither one of them thinking to get the other's number or anything else, they decided they should know more about each other—more than what they'd told each other last night, which was already a good bit. "Who's your favorite band?"

"Guns N' Roses." She answers quickly, "But my favorite singer, by far, is Peter Frampton. I've had his posters in my various bedrooms ever since I was fourteen." She admits.

He laughs, "I didn't pin you as a Guns N' Roses girl." He says, but making the note in his head that she likes Peter Frampton a lot.

"What about yours?"

He thinks for a minute, then laughs, "It sounds ridiculous and like I'm saying it just because you said it, but Guns N' Roses." He admits, shrugging his shoulders, "I've loved them even before they got really popular." He says, "I lied. One more question. What's your favorite Peter Frampton song?"

"Baby I Love Your Way," She answers, biting her lip, "I've worn that record out from all the starting and re-starting that song alone."

He smiles, nodding before he stands up and kisses her lips gently, but quickly, and looks at her, "Good luck studying." He whispers before going back behind the counter just in time for a little dinner rush.