Chapter2

Laura woke up Sunday morning with a sparkle in her eye and pep in her step. She was starting out the year at Yale with a good roommate, cute boy toy, and being a staffer on the Yale Daily. To say that she was a little high on life was an understatement and she couldn’t wait to see what else would be store.

“Good morning you look chipper.” Ellie quirked an eyebrow sipping her cup of mocha.

“It is a glorious day outside!” Laura beamed opening of the curtain and looking at the window.

“Your late night date went that good?” Ellie chuckled and shook her head.

“What? Yes, he was amazing! I think I’m in love.” Laura grabbed a cup of coffee and sat on their sofa.

“Wow. I know we’re at Yale but I go a little slower if I was you.” She commented at her glowing roommate.

“I’m the master of sleuth!” Laura winked not paying attention to the conversation.

“Sleuth? I’m pretty I said slow.” Ellie gave her a questioning look and changed subjects. “So what did you think about that party?”

“It was on the wild side that’s for sure and no one of consequence was there except Henry James.” Laura answered.

“Henry James? The name sounds familiar, but I don’t think I met him last night.” She remarked.

“He’s the president’s son, our RA, and a host of other things. Completely gorgeous and a gentleman!” Laura replied dreamily.

“Hm…sounds nice.” Ellie said uninterested in Laura’s new man, but a sneaking suspicion that Laura was the snitch.

“Did you have fun at the party last night?” Laura asked putting away her mug.

“Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I met some cool people and a cute guy too. Who do you think ratted out to the campus police?”

“I don’t know, but that’s really lame of them whoever it was.” Laura answered making sure she was not looking at Ellie. Being a bad liar had its downfalls and being able to look someone in the eye was one of them.

“Totally, Michelle had to stay over last night she was completely wasted.” Ellie mentioned knowing that she wasn’t going to anything out of Laura.

“That’s cool. What are your plans for today?” 

“I’m too sure. Maybe check out the campus a bit more and figure out where my first class is located for tomorrow. How about you?”

“I still need to buy a book for class so my going to head to the bookstore and then write my article for the freshmen staff position. It is due tomorrow afternoon and I’m hoping to drop it off tonight.” Laura commented.

“Oh yeah, what is your article going to be about?” Ellie inquired.

“You’ll know when it is published tomorrow.” Laura winked and headed into her room to get changed.

 

***

            Laura had changed into one of favorite tee shirts and jeans that were accented by a scarf and hat. She never was into jewelry but her heart locket always stayed safely around her neck. The locket had been a present from her father when she turned sixteen, but had been his great grandmothers’.

“Hey you look chic.” Michelle stated surprised as Laura came out of her room.

“Thanks. If you guys want to get together for dinner later let me know I left my cell number on the fridge.” Laura said.

“Will do. See yeah later.” Ellie replied and Laura headed out the door.

“There is something about her and I can’t put my finger on it.” Michelle commented.

“Really. I think she’s pretty cool and you are just paranoid.” Ellie said.

Laura shook her head as she thought about Michelle and her snide remarks. As she walking down the hall, she nearly knocked over Henry who standing outside his doorway talking to a girl. “I’m sorry!” She said without looking at who it was.

“Fate keeps having you run into me. I think it is a sign from the heavens that you are meant to go out with me for lunch.” Henry smiled charmingly and leaned against the wall.

“Really? Hm…I’ll have to think about that one because I believe we create our own fate.” Laura replied smirking folding her arms.

“I’m not surprised, but I’m willing to debate you on at Panera.” He smiled not giving up.

“Alright I’m convinced, but only because I like a good debate. Oh, but first I need to go to the bookstore and pick up a textbook.” She nudged him lightly and they began to walk towards the other end of campus.

“So have written your article yet for the paper?” Henry asked.

“No but I plan on doing it tonight before I go to bed.” Laura replied as they passed the library.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll put in a good word for tonight with Jennifer. She may seem rough around the edges, but she’s a great editor.” Henry commented.

“What time do your classes start tomorrow?” Laura questioned feeling awkward with the small talk something that wasn’t her forte.

“Ten not too early and I’m done at three. I am completely free to spend all my time with helping a young reporter get into the game.” Henry winked as he opened the door to the bookstore.

“Thanks for the offer. I’m you’ll be a good resource around here if anything exciting happens.” Laura remarked and Henry just grinned at her.

“So tell me about your family? What it is like to be the president of Yale’s son.” Laura asked as they headed out of the bookstore ten minutes later.

“Well, it’s pretty boring or normal I suppose. I have one brother and he is my twin. This is nice because all the parties would be awful without having someone to have fun with.” Henry answered.

“That is so cool! I would love to be a twin. Then we could solve mysteries together and get into all sorts of trouble.” Laura beamed.

“Don’t you already do that?” Henry laughed as they walked down the brick pathway that took them Main Street.

“Hey! You are supposed to be all nice and sweet talking so that I’ll go out with you.” Laura teased.

“I didn’t know you the sweet talk type of girl.” He replied huskily leaning in close to her.

“Hey, look it’s a trolley!” Laura squealed spontaneously, grabbing his and ran to jump on it.

 ***

After Laura left that morning, Ellie decided that she needed to look around the campus to find where her classes would be for the semester. Since her best friend, Michelle, was there with her, she knew they were going to have an entertaining time together.

"Ok, so here's the plan," Ellie said, "we'll look around campus for these classes. After I find the classrooms, go eat lunch with Laura maybe, and then..."

"Wait!" Michelle interrupted, "why is she wanting to eat with us all the time? Can we just pretend we forgot to ask her? It's not that big of a deal if we leave her out this one time."

"Michelle, she's my roommate, the least I can do is invite her with us. Like you said, it's not a big deal. So live with it. She hasn't done anything to you. So get over it. Besides, she might even say no."

"Fine. Whatever. I'll let it go for the moment."

"Good. Now back to the plan. After we eat lunch, then I'll take you home. You have school tomorrow too. I wouldn't want you to be late."

"Right...you're thinking of me? Sike! I think you're trying to get rid of me." the girls laughed as they began their journey around the campus.

 

"Hey, this is Laura. I'm not here right now, but if you leave your name and number I'll get right back to you."

"Hey, this is your roommate. Michelle and I were letting you know we're goin out to eat some lunch and wanted to see if you wanted to join us. I see you're not answering your phone, so I'll just see you back at the room later tonight. Talk to you later. Bye." Ellie and Michelle took about a good hour and a half trying to find all the classrooms needed for the first semester. When they were done, Ellie attempted to get a hold of Laura, but there was no answer, so she left a voice mail.

When the two friends arrived at the lunch spot and sat down and ordered the food, Michelle brought up what happened last night. "Who was that guy you danced with last night?"

"Which guy? There were many I danced with." Ellie said.

"The tall one with dark hair. He seemed quite mysterious."

"Oh, Alex? I don't really know him. He seemed a little creepy actually."

"Who cares? He was fine."

"Girl, please. He wasn't all that. He can dance, I'll give him that. But him being creepy thing is a problem."

"You haven't even given him a chance yet."

"Michelle, I. Don't. Know. Him. I just met him last night. This campus is pretty big, in case you couldn't tell. So, I might not see him again anyways."

"Ok, but if you do see him again and he asks you out, will you go out with him?"

"I don't know. You're acting like this is a big deal. It's not that serious. Stop being nosy in my love life. Please."

"Ok, ok. I'm just trying to be a good friend, but I'll stop. Can you take me home now? I don't want to be here anymore."

"Michelle, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but..."

"It's fine. I just want to be home now. Ok?"

Ellie felt bad for hurting her friend's feelings, but she took them back on campus to get Michelle's things and then took her back home.

"Hey, I'll call you later this week. Ok?" Ellie said once she dropped Michelle back to her house.

"That's fine. Hope your first week is a blast." Michelle expressed with no emotion in her voice.

When Ellie got back onto campus, it was already a little after 4 o'clock. She was so tired all she wanted to do was sleep for the rest of the day. When she walked into her dorm room, she was surprised to see

the guy from the party sitting on her chair.

"Hi." He stood up.

"Alex? How'd you get into my room?"

"I know your ra. He let me in. I hope that's alright. I wanted to surprise you." Alex walked up to her and smiled.

"Um...no, that's NOT alright. No offense, but I don't know you for you to be surprising me like that. For all I know, you could be a freaking stalker or you could've stolen my stuff. I need to talk to my ra. That's a problem." She started to walk off in search of her ra.

"No, stop. I just wanted to see you again."

"I don't know you. How'd you find out where I lived?" Ellie questioned with her hands on her hips.

"I know people. Look, I see you're a little tight about this whole situation, so how about I take you out on a date tonight? Let's say about 8 o'clock?"

"Well..."

"I promise I'm a really nice guy once you get to know me."

"I guess I can give you a try. But you better not try to pull anything over on me. Now will you please leave, so that I can get ready for this date."

After Alex left, Ellie went and laid on her bed thinking about everything that had just happened.

"I'm so confused," she thought to herself, "why was he in my room? We don't even know each other. The ra shouldn't have let him in here.

Tomorrow I am finding that ra and letting him have it. As for tonight, I guess I'll get this over with."

***

 

            Laura in her dorm room around five that afternoon was in an odd mood. Her lunch with Henry had been enjoyable and almost too good to be true. Something felt out of place though and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Laura replayed their conversation over in mind, but never found anything unusual about them.  Henry complemented her and was truly interested in her, but she did notice he never asked her any personal questions. “Forget it Laura and be happy a decent guy is interested in you.” She mumbled to herself going into her dorm room.

“Hey, sorry about lunch! I saw Henry and we had lunch together.” Laura said to Ellie who was sitting on the love seat.

“No worries it’s cool. How was lunch?” Ellie asked still a little aggravated with the whole Alex thing.

“It was good. Is something wrong?” Laura questioned sensing Ellie’s frustrating.

“Well not really. I agreed to have a date with this guy named Alex who seems to be stalking me.” Ellie was debating whether to tell her about the whole incident.

“You already have someone stalking you?” Laura replied shocked.

“I’m not for sure or anything, but…” Ellie decided not to tell her about Alex being in their room.

“Why don’t we double date? I could see if Henry is available.” Laura suggested.

“Would you? That would be awesome!” Ellie replied half tempted to give her a hug.

"Yeah, besides I'm sure Henry won't mind. Where'd you meet this Alex dude anyways?" Laura asked as she sat down across from her roommate.

"It was last night at the party. We danced together once and now he knows where I live. Which reminds me, Henry is our ra, correct?"

"Yeah, why? What does he have to do with anything?" Still not sure if she should tell her roommate what all happened, Ellie made up an excuse, "Oh, I just need to meet him. After all, I need to know who the person is who's in charge of us for the next few months. I'll be right back. Oh! And the date is at 8. So, if you're the type that takes super long, you might want to start getting ready now."

Ellie walked to her ra's dorm and knocked obnoxiously loud on purpose. She was still mad about this person letting a stranger into her room.

"Who the h...Whoa! What are you doing here?" Ellie asked surprised to see Alex open her supposedly ra's door.

"Excuse me? I live here."

"Since when? Is this how you found me? Cause you're my ra? And then you lie to my roommate? Who are you for real? Tell me the truth or I will slice you." She threatened.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down. You must be Ellie. I'm Henry James. You must've met my twin brother, Alex James."

"Twin? Like I'm gonna fall for that. Why didn't he tell me he had a twin then?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe he was trying to surprise you. SURPRISE!"

"This isn't funny. If you're really who you say you are, then why did you let your brother into my room without me knowing about it?"

"I didn't let him in. I was out at lunch with Laura. Maybe he came into my room and took the master key and let himself in."

"Ugh! You're weird just like your brother. I can't take this. Look, Laura is gonna ask you to double date with me and your twin. You're gonna say yes, so that we can settle this once and for all. You got that?"

"Yeah sure."

"Good. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Good bye." Ellie stormed back to her room.

"It was nice meeting you!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever!"

"Is everything fine now?" Laura asked from the bathroom as she was doing her hair.

"Um...something like that. Random question, did you know Henry is a twin?"

"Yeah, he told me that. Why?"

"Because he looks exactly like Alex."

"That's cool."

"I guess. It's just weird because Alex didn't mention that to me at all, yet he mentioned he wanted to see me again. It's a little strange."

"Well, don't worry about it. I doubt he'll try anything tonight, considering his brother and I will be right there."

"You're right. I'm probably thinking way too much into it. I need to get ready instead."

It was 8 o'clock exactly when the girls' heard a knock at their door. Laura and Ellie opened it together and was very shocked to see a set of very identical charming twins wearing jeans and a nice button down shirt at their door holding a bouquet of flowers.

"Hi, ladies." The boys said together in unison, "can you tell us apart?"

The girls looked at each other then back at the guys and said in unison, "Nope."

"Well, I'm Alex."

"And I'm Henry."

The guys gave the flowers to the girls and waited patiently until they put them away. Then they took their right girl by the arm like gentlemen and walked them throughout the dorm building to the limo.

"How'd you two manage this in a short amount of time?" Laura asked once they were all on their way to dinner.

"We're good at pulling things off," Henry flirted.

"I'm sure you are," she flirted back.

"Give me a break," Ellie rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath.

"So, what are we doin tonight? Don't forget we have classes in the morning. So, don't keep us out late."

"Well, we're goin to dinner and then later hit the club for a while." Alex responded ignoring his date's sharpness.

"Ok, that actually sounds good surprisingly."

"Hey! Will you please give me some credit tonight? I'm really not as bad as you think. Just give me a chance." Alex whispered in Ellie's ear.She thought about it for a while and decided she was being a little too hard on someone she didn't know. She promised herself she'd calm it down for the rest of the evening.

Dinner went much better than Ellie had expected. The girls found out that Henry is more into journalism and politics; whereas, Alex is more into athletics. Henry is the oldest by three minutes, but Alex is half an inch taller. Henry writes with his right hand, while Alex writes with his left. Needless to say, the conversation at the table wasn't dull at all. The guys had the girls laughing non-stop. Ellie enjoyed herself, but she was waiting more for the club.

When the group finally arrived at the club, it was already packed. They had decided to split up for a while, so that they could enjoy their dates.

"So, are you enjoying yourself, tonight?" Alex shouted over the music once the group split up.

"Actually, yeah I am. I didn't think I would, but I truly am."

"Good. See, I'm not that bad."

"You're right. I didn't give you enough credit. That's my bad."

"Well, I'd like you to get to know me without a double date. Let's say next Saturday around 7?"

"You know what? I'd like that. Now, can we dance? I'm dying to get my groove on."Ellie dragged her date on the dance floor and danced with him. The crowd had their eyes on the couple because they danced so well together. Some guys tried to cut in between Alex and Ellie, but Alex wouldn't allow it.

"You're an amazing dancer. Where'd you learn to dance?" Ellie asked after she and Alex danced a good hour and a half and were outside waiting for their limo to arrive back at the club. Ellie enjoyed her night, but she was ready to go back to her bed. After the first thirty minutes, Henry told Alex and Ellie that they were heading back to campus early just to get ready for classes tomorrow. Ellie was enjoying herself too much to leave that early. Now, she was ready to hit the hay.

"Believe it or not, I didn't take classes. I just watched other people and picked up moves from them."

"You're so good. Maybe you can teach me some moves one of these day." She flirted.

"Maybe I can come up with a little something," He answered as he opened the limo door for her.

They finally arrived back on campus a little after 1 in the morning, and they were both tired.

"Thanks for a great time tonight," Ellie expressed.

"No problem. I'm just glad you said yes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to head back to my room and get some sleep in before classes. Have a good night," he gave her a peck on the cheek before leaving."Good night. See you soon," she said before closing her door for the night

 

 

Author's Note

This is the first draft of the story. Please be patient with me, but honest with your reviews.

Reviews

[Baby Ricochet]

Where's the club and what does it look like? I've been to all kinds of clubs so I don't know which memory to access. Military, Retro, Goth, Gay, straight, Fetish. ( I was married to a club chick) You need to be more descriptive. You don't have to go all Stienbeck but give us a picture. What's her favorite t shirt look like? I don't even know what these people look like. Heather I hope I'm not insulting you but if I am you may feel free to tell me to keep my quasi illiterate opinions to myself. What do I know, I"m a jarhead who writes weird poems.

[Heather Maria]

No, I asked for your opinion and you gave it. I couldn't really see you reading this to begin with just by your the topics you write about in your poems. To each their own.

To address the details. You are the very first to say I need to be more detailed. Most readers don't care if the what type of t-shirt the character is wearing unless it is to be a 'reoccuring detail' that makes the character who they are. At that point in the story it isn't...what is a reoccuring detail for Laura is the fact she changes her outfit style almost on a regular basis. Most people get that they were in a club and going with dates who are guys so obviously they aren't gay.

As I have went through creative writing classes I have been taught to not "spoon feed" the reader with details, because I tend to get caught up in them. As far as what they look like, I believe that was stated in first chapter and honestly I don't know many books that give every detail about their character.

I also am co-writing this story with a really good friend and that may be some of the lack of detail. I'm the detail one and that's her weakness. However, I'll see what I can do once we get into the editing stage. Which I don't edit my stories until their finished because my brain doesn't work that way.

[Praveen Kumar A.X.]

Nice :) The story is totally cool.