Chapter Text
"Is this seat taken?"
Frank looks up, a pretty blonde with thick-rimmed glasses is peering down at him. Most of the seats in the lecture hall are filled and he's close to the front, sitting at the very end of the row. The seat next to him is completely unoccupied.
"No, please," he said, gesturing to the seat.
She sits and he spends the rest of the class watching her out of the corner of his eye.
She takes diligent, color coded notes, her eyebrows crinkling together in concentration. Her eyes move with her head as she bobs her attention between the lecturer whose name Frank does not know or care to look up and the notebook in front of her. The first class of Frank's life and he can't pay attention because of this beautiful girl next to him.
When class ends, he speaks to her immediately.
"I'm Frank, by the way," he says, twisting to look at her.
She smiles, looking almost surprised by his introduction. "Mel," she says. "Short for Melissa, but no one really calls me that. Just, like, my parents. Or, my dad, because my mom is dead and—" She freezes, eyes going wide. "Sorry, that was a lot to dump on you."
It was, admittedly, a lot. But Frank is not deterred. "No, that's okay. Sorry about your mom."
Mel smiled warmly. "It's okay. It's been a few years. Um, are you also a freshman?"
"Yeah," he breathed out, standing and starting to stuff his laptop back in his bag. He was grateful she changed the subject because he didn't know how. "Biology, on a pre-med track."
"Me too!" she said excitedly, grinning at him. His heart skipped a beat. "Are you also going to Dr. Al-Hashimi's chem lecture at eleven?"
He perked up instantly. "Yeah, I am! I was gonna grab some breakfast before, though, since we have an hour and a half. Do you want to come?"
Mel looked at him strangely again, like she was surprised by the offer. Her cheeks were tinged pink and she looked down, smiling. "That would be really nice," she said.
Frank couldn't hold back his grin. He led her out of the room and in the direction of the student union to get some food. He would pay for her, of course, because he was a gentleman and she was a beautiful woman—he wasn't raised in a barn.
But beyond her very distractingly attractive features, he quickly discovered that she was very intelligent, funny, and interesting.
Frank didn't have any friends at college yet, it was only his first day of classes, but he knew almost instantly that Mel would be a close friend. Probably forever, if he was lucky. She probably didn't have the same level of interest he did in her, but that was okay. He could live with just being friends.