Louis was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face in the outdoor kitchen, he didn’t even mind that Fleur immediately beelined to him so that she could pinch his cheeks while she bestowed on him the warmest smile.

"Louis, what a pleasant surprise! Did you lose your way?"

There was a group of Omegas behind her who warmly smiled and waved at Louis, who in turn, nodded to acknowledge their welcome.

"No? This is the outdoor kitchen, right?" He stepped back to evade her delicate fingers.

"It is! And I’m the president of the cooking club so you’re welcome to keep us company." Fleur said cheerily, unfazed that he backed away from her.

"That’s awesome! I’m also the president of the cooking club!" Louis pointed at himself excitedly, wondering why he hadn’t known of this yet. "We don’t have this facility back at the academy so I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I learned of it..."

The Omegas had been listening in on the conversation so they swarmed over at this point, "Really? You’re the president?"

"Where’s the rest of your club members?"

"I didn’t know that Alpha Academy had a cooking club..."

Fleur just abandoned him to the mercy of the cooking club girls, leaning over a counter as she seemed to be on the lookout for someone.

*A/N: i did a brief Google search on images of outdoor kitchen designs and i wasn’t disappointed, they’re all so beautiful. you’re free to check it out yourself to have a mental image of the facility.*

Fortunately, other members of his club started to troop in, Cedric being one of the first to show up. Which was a good thing because the Alpha effortlessly drew attention to himself without trying.

Louis was able to get close to Fleur again, he had a lot of questions. "How will the competitions be carried out?" He asked curiously, unable to picture it himself.

Fleur turned from the milling crowd to give him an absent little smile, "Oh, was there some misinformation? We’re not really participating in the competitions, we’re more of an attraction than anything else."

Louis deflated at her words, he had been looking forward to being able to participate in the sports competitions so this was devastating news. "So what are we going to be doing?"

"A cookout!" She announced, her flaxen hair bouncing as she grandly swept out her hands. "We’ll just cook whatever we want for the fun of it and the rest of the students get to try it if they want."

Louis brightened up once more, sure this was no competition but it was just as good as one. "Do we get to bake?"

"Of course! Most of the girls are better at baking so there’ll be lots of confectionaries for the students to pick from."

Fleur just kept saying all the right things but she still looked to be distracted and Louis couldn’t help but notice it. "Are you looking for someone?"

Behind them, the two cooking clubs from the different colleges had merged together, the outdoor kitchen was big enough to accommodate them all, and the girls had taken it upon themselves to give their male counterparts a little tour of the grand kitchen.

"Why yes," Fleur said airily, "Dodie should be coming anytime soon but she must have gotten distracted again." She tagged on in a fond voice like she didn’t really mind.

Louis frowned, "I thought she was in the Horse racing club?" He asked. As a matter of fact, he was absolutely certain that she was, after all, Henri had gone off to find her.

"She is," Another Omega joined the conversation, "But she doesn’t let Fleur lift heavy things or handle knives..." She leaned closer to Louis to say the rest of her sentence, "Because Fleur is quite clumsy."

"I heard that, Jolie," Fleur said but it didn’t sound like a warning, her voice was too sweet for that.

"Dodie will show up for sure, you don’t have to be on the lookout for her." Jolie reminded her, turning to Louis when Fleur didn’t take her eyes from the crowd. "I heard from the boys that you’re a magician when it comes to baking, you’ve got to share some of your recipes with me." She said in a rush, linking their arms to pull him along. "I could also give you a tour of the kitchen because I doubt the president has." She said meaningfully, tossing a look at Fleur who didn’t even hear her.

Jolie just shook her head, "Maybe if she didn’t have her head in the clouds all day, she’d be less clumsy." She whispered conspiratorially to Louis but there was no missing the fondness in her voice.

Louis honestly thought that Dodie would be the clumsy one, and although he could see how Fleur could be clumsy from how ditzy she was, it was a little worrisome that Dodie would be the one to help her out.

Jolie didn’t seem very concerned about the idea though, and it also sounded like this was routine with them but he still felt like there should be more panic about letting Dodie in the kitchen. Dodie was just the female version of Audie, and Louis’ blood ran cold at the mere thought of having Audie in a kitchen.

Talk about the devil - The next group to show up was led by Valentin, and unexpectedly, Audie was right behind him, but what was surprising was the third person with them.

Valentin and Audie were the last duo that Louis expected Alexander to stick to. He doubted that Claude would let the Alpha Prince within five feet of Henri but he sooner expected Alexander to experience the sports competition all alone than for him to keep these two company. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Jolie fell silent right in the middle of her sentence when she saw him, her eyes wide in shock. At first, Louis was concerned, but then he realized that he might have gotten desensitized to just how important Alexander was from spending so much time around him and Henri but obviously, other people would be affected. Other people, excluding Fleur.

She finally left her search for Dodie when the three walked up, going straight for Valentin with the biggest smile on her face as she reached out to pinch his cheeks. She conveniently skipped over Audie and then went straight to Alexander to pinch his cheeks as well.

Louis couldn’t help but respect her, she clearly had no sense of self-preservation but she was brave nonetheless. He excused himself from Jolie who still had a difficult time closing her mouth to pry Fleur off Alexander who merely looked amused by the whole ordeal.

Fleur let Louis pull her back, instantly remembering that she was supposed to be waiting for someone. "Did either of you see Dodie?" She asked enthusiastically.

Audie’s already sour expression from being the only one to be ignored by Fleur soured even further. "Dodie’s coming here?"

Valentin repeated the same question but in a very different tone, "Dodie’s coming here?!"

Alexander frowned slightly, "Who’s Dodie?"

Fleur pronounced them all useless to her cause and just absently drifted off to return back to her station where she was searching the crowd for Dodie, leaving the three newcomers with Louis.

Louis answered Alexander’s question, the Alpha had been on the quiet side ever since the messy issue with Henri’s heat passed. He was still wary of the Alpha, he was like a sleeping tiger but he could tolerate him more now.

"Dodie is Audie’s older sister," He answered shortly, "Why are you all here?"

"We were just passing by and we saw Fleur," Valentin supplied the information he asked for. "Is this the outdoor kitchen you were talking about?"

Louis brightened at the mention of the kitchen, "Yes, we’re going to be having a cookout, you can come over anytime if you’re hungry."

Only Valentin looked pleased by this, Audie was already over being here after hearing that his older sister would be coming, and Alexander had a neutral expression on like he didn’t really care what happened either way.

"We’ll leave to check on the others and look around the Institute but we’ll wait till Dodie gets here..."

"We don’t have to do that," Audie cut in with a frown.

Just as he protested, Fleur squealed happily.

"It’s a bit too late," Louis said with a wince as he caught sight of Dodie striding up to the outdoor kitchen with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face.

"Somebody stop her!" Jolie ordered quickly when Fleur’s next move was to climb over the counter to get to Dodie instead of going around.

Louis had found out that she was the deputy president, she was also great at handling her eccentric president.

They did manage to stop Fleur but there was no stopping Dodie who easily scaled the high half walls of the outdoor kitchen, going over the counter and landing gracefully on her feet in time to catch Fleur who jumped on her.

Jolie walked over to them with an easy smile on her face, unfazed by the theatrics that had just happened a few feet away from her. "Will you all be staying? We’ve got seats for spectators," She informed with a polite smile.

Louis didn’t think that was a great idea, considering that Alexander singlehandedly held the attention of all the Omegas present. Not to mention, both Johann siblings would be present - that alone was the perfect recipe for freshly brewed disaster.