(song: "Got Me Feelin' Like" -  Trevor Moran)

Penn State University Park Campus was not where Natalie had intended to go to college.

The university was Gardner Yates dream. When Natalie met Gardner Yates for the first time, she was fifteen. At the time, she had lofty dreams of being a singer, he wanted to go into pre-med.  Gardner was the only student who knew exactly where he wanted to go to college and what he wanted to do in life. It made him seem mature.

He'd been the most desirable guy in her high-school, but he refused to date. Gardner reasoned that this was because he wanted a sweet, modest and chaste girl of classical black-and-white television character.

Natalie had tried her best to fulfill that image by trying to keep up with his grade-point average and took the same college pre-med courses as him.

Obsessive? Yeah, she figured it probably did seem that way, but it wasn't like she just watched Gardner from afar.

No, it was worse than that; she was friend-zoned by him.

"We should study together this weekend too," Gardner offered.

Natalie and Gardner were sitting together at the local cafe with a small stack of books and two laptops. Since they started college Gardner took his studies very seriously. So seriously he seemed to forget everything else in life—like Natalie's birthday. . .

"Sure!" She elevated her voice to sound happier about the situation than she really was.

Gardner reached across the table to place his hand on-top of hers and squeeze her fingers with affection. "Thanks, Natalie. I feel like I can always count on you."

Small gestures like this were all it took to reel Natalie back into her feelings for him. It was like baiting a fish. Gardner continued to talk with her, but he didn't release her hand. Her mind ran with it, wondering how many people saw them and might have guessed they were a couple.

She internally sighed with happiness. He was her bliss.

After they finished their study-session—or pseudo-date according to Natalie's thought process—she stood outside of the cafe with Gardner. She was giving him all the signals she knew from various magazines, internet surveys and advice from Virginia. She bit her lips, kept eye contact and leaned in. If he couldn't figure out that she wanted him to kiss her then he was an idiot.

"I really like spending time with you, Natalie. It's so cool how we both went to the same high-school and ended up at the same university. Almost feels like we were predestined." Gardner said softly.

This was it. Her moment.

Gardner bent towards her and with his head lowered she could see what was just past his shoulder across the street. Kaden stood there waving frantically at her with the largest grin plastered on his face. Kaden pointed towards Gardner and mouthed, "Is that the guy?"

Seeing him caused Natalie to release an exasperated sound of pure horror.

Of course Gardner had no idea that her sound was made due to the unexpected appearance of her tattoo-twin and not his attempt to kiss her. Gardner quickly lifted his head and and straightened his back. With embarrassment the threw out a quick, "See you later." Then he left.

The expression of horror on Natalie's face turned to anger towards Kaden. He ruined her moment—again!

Kaden crossed the street with his hands buried deep into his pea-coat pockets and a stick of Christmas peppermint candy hanging from the corner of his mouth like a pipe. He stood directly in-front of Natalie totally oblivious to her quiet rage.

"Hey Nat! He was the guy wasn't he? I only saw his back, but the expression you had pretty much let me know he was the guy. Maybe I should have introduced myself to him." Kaden bobbed his head to study Gardner's figure that was far from them.

Natalie threw out her hand and pressed her index finger hard against the center of Kaden's chest to poke him roughly. "I did that favor for you, so you better hold up our deal on your end. Part of that means never, ever approaching that guy. Understand me?"

Kaden lifted his arms like he was being held at gun-point. "Understood, ma'am. You can relax, okay? Besides I don't even need to mess with things between the two of you. He's not into you, Natalie."

Natalie narrowed her eyes at him. "How would you know?"

Kaden twirled the candy around his lips until they turned red. "Because I am a guy and I know how guys think. He just walked away from you with no hug, no kiss—nada, zip, nothing. That good-bye was colder than the weather is right now."

"He isn't a typical guy. The normal rules don't apply to him," she quickly dismissed. She began to head down the side-walk. She wasn't even going in the right direction, but she wanted to send Kaden a clue that she didn't want to talk.

"Where are you heading to?" Kaden either didn't get the hint or didn't care.

Natalie focused on something in the distance really hard so she wouldn't have eye contact with Kaden as he kept diving in front of her. "I don't see how where I'm going is any of your business."

"Well, seeing as we're ink-buddies already I thought we could become real buddies." Kaden walked with a little bit of a bounce to his step. Chipper and happy-go-lucky as ever.

Natalie stopped her steps. "What? Why?"

Kaden showed all five of his fingers and counted off the reasons one-by-one. "First, because we might have more things in common than just our tattoo. Secondly, we might actually get along. Thirdly, we go to the same university. Fourthly, I can help you get that up-tight stick out of your butt. Fifth and finally, because why not?"

Natalie found his reasons to be fairly sound until he mentioned the stick up her butt. Anything he said before or after that statement was disregarded. "I am not uptight, stop saying that!"

"Okay, well prove it. Let's hang out. Come with me to improv." Kaden waggled one brow and then the other and then had them do the wave. It merited a small smile from Natalie.

"Improv?" She asked a little interested.

Kaden posed and took a dramatic bow. "You are looking at a person who is a trained performance dancer and drama student. We have a  little private improv group a friend of mine started to help us practice. Come watch, join in if you want. It's therapeutic really."

Natalie studied Kaden's face and tried to picture him dancing on stage. It definitely wasn't what she expected. He was in the arts and that world was so very far from anything she was involved with. The alternative to spending time with Kaden was going back to her dorm room and studying until her face melted off from the heat of her desk lamp.

"Okay." She said confidently. "Let's go. . ."