Lightning Bolt Part Three

The next few weeks passed by rather quickly. Arnold found himself looking forward to his creative writing class every Wednesday and Friday. Of course it wasn't because of the class itself. He looked forward to seeing Helga Pataki for one hour and five minutes two days a week. There was just something about the blonde girl that Arnold couldn't shake from his brain.

"Good morning Helga." Arnold greeted as he sat down in the seat next to her's. It was Wednesday and once again Helga was the first one in class. It was the firs? week of October and the temperature had really cooled off during the last week. Today Helga was wearing a plain gray long sleeved shirt and had a pink silky looking scarf wrapped around her neck. With her tattoos covered by her shirt he found himself missing them.

She sighed heavily, seemingly annoyed at the fact he acknowledged her and she was forced to acknowledge him back. "Mornin' Football Head."

"Hey, I got you say morning." Arnold grinned, happy with the accomplishment. Before that all he'd get out of her was the ridiculous she gave him. "We just need to and a good and then all we need to work on now is the name. It's Arnold, in case you forgot."

Helga smirked, turning to face him. "Oh, I didn't forget your name. I just like Football Head better. It suits you." She paused, "Or if you prefer I can all you 'Creeper' for staring at me all though class. I'll let you choose. Creeper or Football Head?"

"Err...Football Head is fine." Arnold felt his cheeks turn red. Was he really that obvious?

Helga laughed, "That's what I thought. And yes, you are that obvious." She smirked, answering the question Arnold never asked.

Arnold smiled, "You have a nice laugh."

"I'm going to stop you there." Helga held up her hand, "Look, it's pretty obvious that you think I'm attractive and I don't know, maybe you want to date me, or screw me, or do whatever with me, but I'm not interested. I'm here to go to school, not to play footsie with some pretty blonde boy."

"You just called me pretty." Arnold smiled at her teasingly.

She rolled her eyes, "Don't read too much into it Football Head."

"I'm not looking to date you." Arnold half lied, the truth was he didn't know what exactly he wanted from her. He just knew he wanted to be around her. "You know, there is this thing that some people do. It's called friendship."

"Friendship?" Helga questioned slowly, "What is this friendship you speak of?" She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I'm sure those have been friendship stares you have been giving me. It turns out you haven't been undressing me with your eyes. I guess you were just, what, putting more clothes on me?"

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't find you attractive, because, well, look at you. But if you aren't interested I won't pursue you. I'm just asking you to maybe be open to the possibility of being friends."

"Why do you want to be friends with me anyway? Is it my charming personality? It's my charming personality isn't it?"

"Honestly, I don't know." Arnold told her truthfully. "I just want to get to know you I guess. I can't really explain why. Look, my birthday is this weekend." Arnold paused, expecting her to ask when it was or happy wish him a happy birthday, or even how old he was going to be. Of course, she didn't. He didn't know why he was surprised. "I'm having a little party at this bar and…"

"I'm not 21." Helga quickly in him off. "Besides, I work all weekend so I wouldn't be able to go even if I wanted to."

"Who said I wanted you to come?" Arnold asked trying to save at least a little bit of his ego; Helga shot him a knowing look. He smiled, "Okay, you got me. Of course I wanted you to come. "Where do you work?"

"It's this little place. You make have heard of it. It's called it's none of your business." She smirked, "Come on, you don't think I'd make this whole friendship thing easy for you did you?"

Arnold grinned, "Are you saying we're friends?"

"Not quite. I'd say we're somewhere between acquaintance and a couple of notches below full blown friendship."

Arnold nodded, chuckling softly, "I'll take it."

"How wonderful, my star student is already here." Simon greeted Helga with a smile. His smile faltered for just a moment when he saw Arnold, before returning. "And Arnold. It's nice to see you both." He took a seat on top of his desk, as he did every class. "How are you two doing with the writing assignment?"

"Er…It's getting there. I guess." Arnold scratched the back of his neck nervously. Simon had assigned a short fiction assignment the previous Wednesday and it was due Friday. It was pretty much finished, but even Arnold knew it was terrible.

"I just edited it and made the finishing touches last night, so I'm all done." Arnold watched as Helga beam proudly.

"I look forward to reading it." Simon smiled before pausing, "Yours too Arnold." He added quickly, but less enthusiastically.

"Thanks." Arnold muttered. It was obvious Helga was his favorite student. It was impossible not to see it. He supposed he didn't really blame him. He knew Simon had written a few books so it was only natural for him to favor a fellow writer. Though he hadn't heard or read much of Helga's work the things he did here were absolutely brilliant. After that second day in class Simon started to read exports of someone's work, he never said the name, just calling the author Anonymous, but Arnold knew it wrote it. Helga would always visibly shrink into her chair and her cheeks would turn pink. Really, it was kind of cute. Okay, she was really cute.

Arnold forced himself not to look at her through the rest of class. This whole staring thing was getting way out of hand. He was finally getting her to come around on the whole friend's thing; the last thing he wanted to do was scare her off.

"Why aren't you in class?" Arnold asked as he threw his backpack on the floor of his dorm room. His roommate was Gerald Johanssen, his best friend since grade school.

"Got cancelled." Gerald answered from his twin bed. He was spread out on the bed and had a magazine with half naked women in it laid out in front of him.

Arnold scrunched his nose, "I am so glad you don't have your hand down your pants right now."

"Come on, you'd know I'd least put a sock on the door or something if I was doing that." Gerald joked, flipping the page of the magazine.

"Do you think Phoebe would like the fact you look at those magazines?"

"She's like two thousand miles away. I wouldn't blame her for looking at these kinds of magazines, but you know, with guys, or whatever. Besides it's not like I'm touching, just looking. So how'd it go? Did you ask that hot girl to your party yet?"

"Her name is Helga." Arnold reminded Gerald yet again what the 'hot girl's' name was. "I did, but she's not twenty one and she said she has to work all weekend."

"Too bad. Well I hear the bar has a pretty hot bartender that works the weekend, so maybe she'll help you take your mind off Helga."

Arnold nodded, "Yeah, maybe."

It was Saturday night and Arnold's twenty second birthday. He was meeting some of his friends at The Red Door, named simply for the bar's red door was a bar that was located few miles off campus. Rumor had it that a really hot bartender worked there on the weekends. Arnold was all for checking out a hot bartender. It was something he had hoped would get Helga out of his brain.

As soon as he entered the bar he knew that was simply impossible. He immediately saw the blonde bartender mixing a drink for a costumer.

He sighed heavily; of course she had to be the hot bartender.

So sorry it has been so long since I updated. Real life can just get in the way, you know? Anyway, as always, if you enjoyed please review.