Negotiate a Peace, Or Negotiate a....Romance? {Charles Lee x Female!Reader}

Chapter 5: We Keep Meeting

(Y/n)'s POV

The next day wasn't too eventful. Peggy was MIA when I woke up, so I spent the Sunday with the boys. I probably would've ended up hanging out with the boys all day anyway, but I would've liked to see Peggy and maybe ask if the Schuyler sisters wanted to tag along. Peggy's been sneaking off lately, and she wouldn't tell me where she was going — as far as I knew, her sisters didn't know either. I made a mental note to try and get some information out of her later.

I pulled on a grey sweater and a pair of jeans, looking at myself in the mirror. I decided to pull my hair into a messy ponytail (just ignore this if you don't have long hair), and then I headed out the door and down to Herc's dorm. Just as I had suspected, the others were there glued to their phones.

I plopped myself onto their couch next to Lafayette and looked at all of them. John had pulled his curly brown locks up too, and I had to say I was a bit jealous that his ponytail looked better than mine. Laf was intensely peering at a crossword on his phone, only stopping to mutter a hello to me. The fabulous Hercules Mulligan was...sleeping still? It was 12 o'clock in the afternoon, but Herc likes his beauty sleep. Alex, on the other hand, looked like he hadn't slept at all. He was staring at the floor like a mindless zombie, and I was pretty sure he was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing yesterday. Alex noticed me looking at him pitifully, his glossy eyes meeting mine.

"My roommate is the devil incarnate," was all he said to me. With that, he went back to looking aimlessly at the floor. If I was being honest, all of them looked like they were dead inside.

"You guys haven't had your coffee yet, have you?" Being met with a weak chorus of no's, I facepalmed and dragged them out, towards the Starbucks.

~

Initially, running into Lee seemed like just pure coincidence. Until it happened more than once.

The first time was at the coffee shop. He was sitting at a table near the counter with a brunet guy who I vaguely recognized but didn't know the name of. Lee saw me and smiled, which promptly resulted in the other guy looking at me and then quickly turning back around. I think brunet guy said something, because I could've sworn Lee turned a bit red. But maybe I was just imagining things. The four boys I was with were pretty useless without their caffeine, so I only smiled back and waved at Lee before getting them their coffees.

The second time was about an hour later at the mall. Once the guys have caffeine in their system, they practically become different people. They had insisted we buy new clothes for the first day of classes tomorrow, notably Hercules. While Herc was holding shirts against me and the others were giving their opinions of whether they would "smash or pass," out of the corner of my eye I saw Lee walk by. He was with the same guy from before, and he practically ran past us to another section of the store. I decided to think nothing of it, and I turned my attention back to the boys.

The third time we met was at the park. The guys and I were sitting under an oak tree and we were trying to figure out where to meet up in between classes, when I noticed Lee laying on a park bench not too far away. I excused myself for a moment, and walked up to him. As I got closer I made sure to drag my feet, so that he wouldn't get scared by not hearing me walk up.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were following me," I joked once I was right behind the bench. Lee shielded his eyes from the sun and lifted his head, smiling as he looked at me.

"I swear this wasn't planned or anything. We just....keep meeting," Lee responded, laying back down and looking up at the sky. "It's a nice day."

"May I?" I asked, walking around and gesturing at the ground in front of the bench. Again Lee turned to me, giving me a quizzical look.

"I can move if you want to sit, you know."

"Nah, you look comfortable. The ground is fine." I seated myself on the grass, crossing my legs under me. Both of us turned to look at the sky, watching the numerous clouds roll across.

"That one looks like a German Shepherd," Lee spoke quietly, raising a hand to point out a cloud to me. When I found which one he was looking at, I let out a laugh. He questioned why I was laughing, and I assured him that the cloud absolutely did not look like a German Shepherd. Lee and I talked for while before I went back to the guys, who were chasing each other around the tree.

The rest of the day was spent doing random things, before we parted ways to get a good night's sleep for the upcoming day. We didn't run into Lee again, but for some reason I couldn't get him off my mind.

>>>

Okay, so this chapter was a bit of a filler. But! I did throw in some allusions to potential new characters to the story.

The next chapter will be longer (I think). Bit of a disclaimer for it though, I'm not in college so it might not be completely accurate. Then again, this is a fanfic, so hopefully y'all won't mind.