Did you catch Monday's featured ad sharing Underthehoodter's story, First Encounters? The story takes you back to those early days when the world was a different place and romance was something new and scary and amazing... and you need to read the story find out more! If you weren't intrigued before, how about after reading this excerpt? 

This moment is that first conversation, that first interaction... that WHAM! You all remember it, right? When you felt the stomach churn and the other... parts that locked on to another person and made you a complete idiot when you tried to talk to them? Yeah, that's in the story, and Underthehoodster captured it perfectly, imo. Read on! LOL 

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When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else, I spoke up again. “So you’re reading Dune...great book, huh?”

He just nodded.

“I just ordered the new sequel from the sci-fi club. Have you read the whole series?”

“Just the Frank Herbert ones,” he answered, glancing up at me again with just the slightest flash of momentary interest.

This was not getting any easier, but it felt desperately important to me to make real contact with this kid. Maybe I was even thinking unconsciously that I wanted to be his first friend at the new school-- like I was staking a claim or something!

“So, I was wondering if you wanted to come over and join us for lunch...”

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said, still keeping his face buried in his book. “I guess I don’t feel much like eating today...”

“First day jitters,” I said. “I just came here last year, so I know how it feels.”

At that, he did glance up for more than a few seconds, squinting in such a cutely boyish way as he lifted his face towards the noon day sun. But he didn’t say anything. His book was still open to the page he had been reading. I began to wonder if Gene had been right. Maybe I shouldn’t push him. After all, I was pretty shy when I first showed up at St. Boniface, a small school where many of the kids had known each other since kindergarten. I remembered that it had taken some heavy persuasion on the part of Morgan to get me to join in a game of Horse on my first day. I’d always be grateful to him for that kind gesture.

“We’d all like to say hi,” I explained awkwardly. “Here at St. Boniface, it’s kinda like we’re a family, you know?” I said, realizing that I sounded like the school’s recruitment brochure. “Well, a slightly dysfunctional family sometimes,” I added facetiously, “But we won’t bite...” I promised.

I was rewarded with the slightest of bashful smiles. But then he looked back at his book again and I was about to give up, my heart sinking rapidly into my sneakers. I could sense some inner struggle going on inside him, even though I was basically looking only at the top of his head. I decided that this had indeed been a bad, or at the very least, premature attempt to lure a very shy boy out of his shell on his first day in a new school, in what must have seemed to him like a very far away and different place than what he was used to.

I started to back up, getting ready to mutter some sort of apology, when he suddenly closed the book. I held my breath, waiting to see what he would do next. He put it neatly into his backpack and picked himself up, and I breathed a little easier. I resisted the urge to help him, to grab his arm--his bare arm. I wanted to touch him, feel his smooth skin, the warmth of his body and it was just weird! I was confused, nervous, and excited all at the same time. When he was up and his backpack was slung over his shoulder, he just looked at me with those big blue eyes. I felt a shiver go through me and my heart had not eased up from its insistent pounding. I just gestured with my arm and headed back for the table. I could hear Jesse trudging along behind me.

 

 

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