N♂RMAL

14 | Official

"Holy shit!"

I blushed terribly. Olivia was one of the loudmouths in Hunter's group of friends. I supposed it was our group of friends now with how they seemed to accept me so easily. Hunter just beamed at her, and I tucked myself into my food.

It's been a couple weeks since our first date, and Hunter had asked me to be his boyfriend last night while we were trying to stargaze in the park. Unfortunately, the city created too much light pollution, and it was too hard to see many stars.

"When the hell did this happen?" she continued to screech. I could feel several pairs of eyes falling onto our table, and my face was heating exponentially. Why did he have to kiss my temple as soon as we sat down? I guess it was the first time he'd be seeing me since last night, since he went out to study after we got back and I woke up earlier than him for class.

"Officially?" Hunter asked. I could only imagine Liv's head bobbling up and down like a bobble head, eyes wide and mouth gaping. "Last night."

Some of the guys cheered for the two of us, and I heard one a few of the girls were cooing at us. I poked at my salad and tried to get my face to cool down. Luckily, Hayley—one of the shier ones of the groups—diverted the attention away from us.

"I declared today."

More cheers went around the table, and I shot her a grateful look. She smiled shyly at me as people asked her what she declared as. She had declared as a psych major, and people instantly started asking her if rumors of the psych department were true. She laughed at them all and debunked almost all of them.

"Wait, wait, wait," one guy suddenly cut in, "I heard one of the professors brings a hammer to class though."

I pointed my fork at him, my interest caught. "That one's true."

The table turned to look at me, expecting an explanation.

"He's my intro psych professor. He started bringing it in because he had busted his knuckle hitting a desk and didn't want to risk it happening again."

"Why was he punching a desk?"

I shrugged. "Something about being really passionate about things and wanting to emphasize his points."

Another one of the guys gave Hayley a sympathetic look. "Good luck."

More laughter rang out around the table. Dinner went well after that. It was just a lot of laughter and jokes as always. Most of the jokes were surrounding the presidential election next year, mainly taking jabs at the republican candidates. I snickered at some of the banter that was being tossed around.

"Wait!" Jon, one of the loudest guys that sat at the table, shouted. "What is everyone doing Saturday?"

"What's Saturday?" I asked.

"Halloween, noob."

I rolled my eyes at his response as people called out their replies. It seemed like a majority of the group were going out partying. Partying didn't seem like too much fun. I had seen the drunks around campus before. That stuff did not look fun.

"What about the lovebirds?"

Hunter laughed at the name and tossed a piece of his pizza crust at Jon. Jon was also one of the more obnoxious ones of the entire group.

"I promised Carson a night of scary movies and pizza."

"Ooh," Josie interjected, "that sounds fun."

"Come on, Josie," Will—her boyfriend—groaned. "You already promised you'd show up at the party."

The two started bickering, and the whole table was getting hyped for Halloween. When I was finished with my dinner soon after the Halloween discussion and was sufficiently amused by the night's conversations, I dismissed myself from the table. Everyone said their goodbyes to me, and Hunter gave me a beaming smile.

"I'll be back in the room later. I have study group to meet up with."

"Okay," I smiled.

After placing my tray in the dish return, I walked out and made my way to the dorms. It was getting colder, and I was glad that Hunter and I were going to be spending it in our dorm room that night, snuggled up with some good horror movies.

I was excited for Halloween now.