It was easy to miss her. Amongst the group, she blended into the line of figures like uniformed soldiers wearing lab coats and goggles. But take a closer look and she falls into perfect focus while everyone else around her goes blurry, practically nonexistent. She was a hidden gem of beauty in a crowd of nerdy awkward smiles and stiffly posed pubescent boys. JJ supposed that had to have been why he hadn't noticed her sooner. Who would think to look for a girl like her with a bunch of geeks? 
"I wonder how things went with her last night if you still barely even remember her after having a full-on conversation."
"I'm pleading the fifth on that one, bro." JJ sighed before closing the book and tossing it back where he'd found it.
"You sat behind her in Econ for a whole semester and you're telling me that you never even knew her name?" John B stared in complete and utter disbelief at his best friend. 
"Don't even hold that one against me, man. You know I didn't pay attention to anything that happened in that class." He scowled a little bit as he said it, before he added, "Plus, I did know her name, because I know Charlie. I've just never noticed her before and put a face to the name."
With that, JJ gazed out the window with his brows knit in deep thought, which had become subjugated to Collins Jacobson. Her yearbook photo smile was engrained into his mind and he couldn't shake his curiosity over how he hadn't noticed her sooner. He knew Charlie, he could recall several encounters with the older brother and would even go as far as referring to him as a friend due to his companionship with his cousin, Ricky. They'd smoked together during breaks in his shift at Heyward's and exchanged joking remarks because Charlie could be a smartass sometimes and JJ liked to challenge that. But despite this, never once did Collins ever come up in those memories. 
"I guess she is pretty quiet." John B stated, which was the only logical explanation for Collins's unfamiliarity to JJ. "I probably wouldn't know her either if it weren't for Charlie. You seriously don't remember talking to her that night?"
"Honestly, the whole Topper almost drowning your ass and me pulling a gun on him kind of overshadowed everything else that happened that night." JJ said pointedly, then once he focused really hard and searched his memory for any recollection of the angelic face he'd just seen in their yearbook, only then did he find a faint memory involving her that night. It all looked blurry when he tried to picture it in his head, like faceless figures illuminated by an orange fire light. Yet pieces came together like a scattered mess in his brain regarding a girl who could've been Collins, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure. "I don't think I fucked things up too bad. We might've talked about surfing?"
"You think you'll ever talk to her again?" John B asked him with a suggestive smirk on his lips. "Because if you're gonna push me and Kie, it only makes sense if I shove you and CJ. It's like, against nature's will if I don't."
JJ swatted John B on the shoulder before rolling his eyes and sinking into his seat. "Why do you even care so much? Clearly, I've only acknowledged this girl once in my life. That doesn't really constitute as a reason to try and hook me up with her."
It was a valid point which JJ was making. John B knew this, but he'd decided to blatantly ignore it and keep pushing anyways because it was always fun playing matchmaker, especially if it kept JJ off his back about making a move on Kie. Not to mention that Collins was a good candidate to try and pull the reins back on his best friend. Collins was a girl that you could settle down with. She wasn't crazy like most of the girls JJ seemed to be into; her calm and down to earth personality could compliment JJ's eccentricity. They could be a match made in heaven. 
"Collins is cool, alright? Clearly you like what you see, I'm just throwing it out there that it might not be a bad idea to shoot your shot on this one." John B shrugged his shoulders casually, trying not to let his eager seep out of him too much.