The Nineties (Completed)

September 1997

Classes were in full swing, Rafael spending too many hours stuck in the law library and Jolie swamped with her own work load. Despite the busyness of school, Jolie was excited to be back on campus. It would be her last fall at Harvard and she found herself walking a little slower between classes, just to enjoy the weather while taking in the campus.

Today's path home included a detour to the law school. Her last class of the day had been cancelled and she was hoping to meet up with Rafael before he started home so they could walk together. Not that it was much of a detour since the law school was technically on the route she'd take home.

She nearly ran into April as she entered the building. "Sorry." Jolie said before realizing who she had stepped back for. April huffed something under her breath, glaring at her before pushing passed her and out the door. "Bitch..." Jolie muttered to herself before continuing to find Rafael.

"Jolie, right?" The voice pulled her attention to a small group of girls standing not far from the door she had just entered.

"Yeah, hey Rita, it's been too long. How are you? How's David?" Jolie smiled, moving closer to the group. She hadn't really seen either of them since Rafael moved in with her. She'd heard about them, but with as busy as school had kept everyone, Rafael's law school friends had been hung out with mostly by him, and even that seemed to be restricted to classes.

"He's good, we're good. You seem to be less good about running into April." Rita smirked.

"It's a long story and I really don't know her..."

"You know enough to know she likes Rafael." Jolie swallowed the lump in her throat, wishing Rita had used the past tense form of like instead of present. "Not that he talks to her. He goes out of his way to avoid her."

"That's harder to do some days." One of the other girls chuckled.

"How so?" Jolie asked.

"Oh," the girl curbed her amusement at Jolie's tone, "just the way our classes our set up. Once you're stuck in a cohort you tend to have to deal with those people a lot. I only laughed because Rafael seems annoyed when he's forced to be around her."

Jolie relaxed slightly, shelving the jealousy that had appeared. She trusted him. "Do you know where his class is?" She asked, turning her attention back to Rita.

"David's meeting me here and Rafael usually stops by with him to say hi before heading out." That hadn't really answered her question, but it also hadn't mattered.

"Jolie?" Rafael's voice sounded from behind her as he and David joined Rita and her friends.

"Hey Raf." She smiled, letting him pull her into his side.

"Don't you have class?"

"It was cancelled. There really needs to be a more efficient way than just taping a note to the door." She grumbled, mostly because she had rushed to the law school to catch Rafael before he left.

"Lucky me." He smirked.

"We were about to grab a late lunch, do you two want to join?" Rita smiled, the other two girls with her encouraging them to join as well.

"Please don't make me eat with these three alone again." David was mostly teasing Rita, but there was some truth to his statement. The other two girls were nothing like her and he had yet to figure out why they were all friends.

"I'm game unless Jolie had other plans."

"I'm starving." Jolie smiled, taking his hand in hers as they followed the group to a small burger place not far from campus.