AN: Hello again. Good to see you're still reading. Welcome to story three. Hope you enjoy!

As I've said before, I've changed the names so that my friends would allow me to write this. This story is from my perspective, so if something's wrong, that's too bad.

The sun cast a gentle glow on his face that morning. As he began to wake, he noticed that the sun had risen very high; it had to have done that, since his bedroom was in the basement. He looked drearily at the clock, to find that it was near 10:30.

"Darn it Gloves! Why didn't you wake up to your alarm clock?" he whispered furiously at himself. He glanced at his desk to find that his alarm clock had managed to somehow travel from his desk, where he had left it the previous night, to almost the other side of the room. Not only that, but it was turned upside down, and managed to get buried under a blanket.

"Well then, that explains that. Okay Gloves, wake up, you've got a busy day ahead of you." Gloves told himself as he approached the stairs. He climbed that creaky pile of wood, and took a shower. After that, he decided it would be a good idea to get his things ready for that night.

"What will I wear? Hmm. This white shirt looks nice. Yeah, and this pair of black pants too. All righty then, now I need a tie. Ah! This'll work. Okay, now that I've got that ready, I need to eat some lunch."

Gloves set his clothes over the chair he kept in his room, and went upstairs to have some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Realizing his lack of hunger, he had a single sandwich, and continued with his planning for the day. He approached his mother, and asked for some help.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Gloves? What do you want?"

"Well, I wanted to get Lynette flowers, like I told you, but when should I go get them?"

"You need them tonight, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then get them now. I can keep them in some water until you get ready to leave." This sort of dialogue continued for a few more minutes, with Gloves asking for more advice on flowers, and the like. Once he finally decided that he knew what he needed to know, he exited his parents' room and walked slowly to get the keys to his dad's truck, which he would be borrowing for the day.

Gloves climbed into the vehicle, and put the key into the ignition. He double checked to make sure he had the money he needed, and he went to get the flowers. Once at the store, he constantly received help from a florist, as only the most perfect flowers would do. Unfortunately, Gloves was able to find fault with every bouquet he saw, so he forced himself to settle for the one that he felt had the least amount of flaws, which happened to be a pair of a dozen pink roses. This of course, ate up quite a deal more time than he intended. He paid for the flowers and hurried home.

Now, about 2:30, Gloves began to become nervous. After all, the only other time he had attended a dance was with his girlfriend five months prior, his junior prom. He now started to fumble with his speech, and blurted things like:

"Okay mom, so I need to put these, uh, this group of... Doh."

"Flowers, Gloves?" asked his mother.

"Yeah, those. I need to put these, uh, darn it! These THINGS in the water over there, right..."

"Nervous, Gloves?"

"No, why would you say that?"

Gloves now had a bit of time to kill, after all, the dance wasn't until 8:00. Well, to be honest, he had less time than that, as he was going out to eat with a group of friends at 6:00. The arrangements were to pick up Lynette by 5:30; arrive at the meeting place, Squeaky's house, by 5:45, then leave there by 6:00; then all three couples would head out to the restaurant.

Gloves found himself entertaining himself with almost anything. He was so pathetic, even a rubber band could have entertained him, if he gave himself time to play with it. Gloves spent half of his waiting period pacing, and the other half wishing he was pacing.

Finally, around 5:00, he got dressed for the dance. He started by deciding that his white shirt wasn't good enough and showed his mother his alternatives. This issue was resolved after about fifteen minutes. His revised outfit consisted of: a gray dress shirt, a pair of black khakis, and a pair of black dress shoes. He opted to wear no tie with the new shirt.

He was ready to go by the time his clock read 5:20. Well, that's a lie. The ball of fluff, that he calls his hair, remained that, a ball of fluff. He chose to comb it again, and in case it looked bad later on, he brought his comb. Now ready, Gloves grabbed his coat and the flowers, and quickly left the house; after all, according to his clocks, he was late. He took his dad's truck and went again to Lynette's house.

Once there, he carefully got out of the truck and held the flowers in his right hand, behind his back. Gloves rang to doorbell, and after a short wait, Lynette's mother answered the door.

"I'm sorry Gloves, Lynette's not going to be ready for a while, um, at least ten minutes. I just got home, and I still need to do up her hair, and help her with her dress, and..."

"That's all right. I can wait out here, it's not a problem."

"Oh no, it's too cold for that. Come inside. You can wait in either the family room, or the living room."

"Okay, thanks." responded Gloves as he entered into what he imagined was the living room. He sat on the couch for all of ten seconds, long enough for Lynette's mother to disappear up the stairs. From there, he set the flowers on the little coffee table, and stood near their back window to let his mind wander.

He looked at the leaves that floated on the light breeze of the autumn air. He thought of how wonderful it might be to live an simpler life, one filled with less stress. He could hear above him the hustling of Lynette and her mother and thought to himself, "Slow down you two, there's no rush. If we're late, we're late. That's too bad for Squeaky and Sly Guy."

The leaves set gently to the ground, and Gloves began to feel a sense of peace. He almost felt that his life was simple. He was going to a dance with his girlfriend, and there was nothing he had to worry about. He was going to enjoy himself. Just before that peace was able to grow to that sort of inner peace that can draw a person to tears, he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, two pairs of them.

Gloves looked to the stairs and his eyes widened with amazement. "Hello there, Lynette. My gosh, I don't know how you do it."

"Do what?" asked Lynette.

"You somehow manage to look more stunning each time." Gloves replied. He somehow managed to forget to save that compliment until after Lynette's mom was out of ear shot. Lynette turned to say something to her mother, and Gloves picked the flowers up from the table. When she turned back again, he presented her with the bouquet of roses.

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Lynette.

"I know, aren't they pretty?" added Lynette's mom. Apparently, she had seen them when Gloves entered the house.

Lynette looked to Gloves and said, "Thank you."

"I hoped you'd like them," said Gloves clumsily as he searched for words.

After a few pictures, and problems with the camera, they were on their way. They first rushed to Squeaky's house, as planned. It was about 6:00 by the time they got there, but they found they weren't the only ones running late. Burns and Pinky hadn't arrived yet. The four (Squeaky, Sly Guy, Lynette, and Gloves) sat in the living room, and spoke about random things. Around 6:30, the late people finally arrived.

"So, what kept you all so long?" inquired Gloves.

"I just got home, and I had to get ready right away." replied Pinky.

"Yeah, well, you were at the same meeting as me, and I was able to get ready in time." commented Lynette. It appeared there was going to be an argument, not of any high caliber, but one of those annoying ones that last only a minute, until Gloves and Sly Guy opened their mouths. I need not write everything they said, I just need to note that is was enough to lighten the mood. More pictures were taken here, a few of them pranks, of course. They departed for Tony Roma's restaurant around 6:40.

This restaurant, like all the other decent ones in town, was packed with people, and this group of teens needed to wait an hour until they were able to get a table. I'll not get into the dialogue here, mainly due to the "gutter humor" in which Sly Guy and Gloves managed to continuously "one up" each other (for the whole time they were there!!) (For those with higher curiosities, the jokes went from the common, stupid, perverted jokes, to making any word that anyone in the group said into a perverted statement.) It started around 6:45 when they got there, and didn't stop, even when they were given seats. The meal ended around 8:30, or so, and the group left for the high school, for the dance.

The dance was pretty typical of any high school dance held here. The commons area, or cafeteria if you prefer that, was lit up, dimly, and there were refreshments placed all around. The gym was where the dance was held. It was packed tightly, but only near the two entrances. The back and sides of the gym were mainly kept clear, not because people weren't allowed to go there, but because nobody seemed to want to go there.

Well, the first part of the dance was a rather frustrating time for Gloves. He was constantly told by Lynette "I need to help Pinky get pictures for yearbook". If it wasn't that, it was him following Lynette around, wondering if they were ever going to attempt to dance. As it was, Gloves wasn't a good dancer, but he had fun making a fool of himself, and that's what counts, right?

He was getting increasingly angry with Lynette, all the way until Lilith came to him while Lynette was gone, and asked, "Gloves, what's wrong?"

"It's Lynette." replied Gloves.

"What's wrong?" inquired Lilith as Lei Lei came over to join the conversation.

"I've been following her around mindlessly for the past hour. I've tried to dance with her, but all she seems to want to do is follow Pinky around and help her take pictures for the yearbook. I'm getting quite fed up with this!" Gloves exclaimed, swinging his arm to his side. "All I've been doing is following her around all night. Now she wants me to wait here, while she's off somewhere, for some amount of time. I'm starting to think about just telling her I'm done, and I'm going home! I mean, I'm only here because I want to dance with her, and if that's not going to happen, why should I stay?" Gloves paused a moment. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone off on you like that..."

"No, that's all right. She shouldn't be doing that to you anyway." responded Lilith.

"Don't worry, we'll handle it." said Lei Lei.

"Please don't. I can tell her..." pleaded Gloves.

After a short wait, Gloves left his waiting spot to go get a drink of water. When he returned, to speak with Lilith and Lei Lei, it was Lynette who greeted him warmly. The homecoming court was announced, and soon after, a slow dance was played. More depressed than anything else, Gloves followed Lynette to the "dance floor" where he fully expected to follow her around, watching other couples dance. To his great amazement, she took his had, and suggested they dance!

For a while, few words passed between them. They looked into each other's eyes, and held one another close, for this dance. For Gloves, the whole world seemed to disappear. All he could take in, was the feeling of warmth he got from her touch, and the sweet smell in her hair. To put his feelings into perspective, have you ever felt like life was just the pits, like it could never get better, like you've lost the game of life somehow? Well, he felt just the opposite. Words even came into his head briefly. "I win, I win."

Reality smacked him in the face, as a few of his friends, or Lynette's friends, he couldn't really tell, called out, "OOOH! Look at those two! So cute!" and other things of that sort. One of them even took a picture of them dancing when the next slow dance came.

Of course, there were also faster paced songs, and now feeling fully rejuvenated, Gloves attempted to look like he was dancing, but came off more like he was having spinal problems, as well as balance problems. It started with just Lynette and Gloves dancing, but eventually, the group grew into almost their entire group friends.

After a few quicker paced dances, Gloves began to feel dizzy. He'd experienced this before, and knew he was probably dehydrated. He went to the side, to sat for a while, and insisted that Lynette not waste her time on waiting for him to feel better.

"Seriously, I'll be fine, just go have fun."

"No, it's okay, I'll stay with you." replied Lynette as she sat next to him. Well that's not entirely true, Gloves slumped into his place in the bleachers, and Lynette sat one row back, talking with some friends. After a few minutes, Gloves rested his head on her knees, and closed his eyes slowly.

He opened them a few seconds later and looked up into Lynette's eyes and said, "You're too good to me." He felt dumb pretty quickly for saying it, but it's all the he could think of to say thanks. Lynette simply smiled as Gloves slowly raised his head. Soon after that, they played another slow song, to which they danced.

Around 11:30, the group that went to dinner (Squeaky and Sly Guy, Pinky and Burns, and Lynette and Gloves) all left the dance for Pinky's house. When they all arrived there, they sat in the living room, and watched television, while attempting to chat. Gloves and Lynette sat of a sofa; Pinky sat on the coffee table, with Burns next to her; and Squeaky of on the large recliner, with Sly Guy by her feet.

They first watched the band performance, from the previous night. By the end of that performance, Lynette and Gloves had managed to find their way to the center of the couch. Gloves held Lynette close, with his left arm around her, and his right arm, over her. Their hands looked more like a knot of fingers, in front of Lynette. After the band performance, they changed the channel to watch American Gladiators.

Through the whole show, Gloves felt rather warm, and quite comfortable. Once again the chant came to him "I win... I win..." He even felt so comfortable, that he eventually began to fall asleep, though he never did. As he looked over at the other two couples, he couldn't help but feel like "Nya, nya! My girlfriend wants to sit this close to me, and your girlfriends don't!" He even felt like he could see a bit of resentment in their eyes, but more than likely, that was probably just fatigue from the exhausting evening. After American Gladiators, Lynette and Gloves left Pinky's house.

As Gloves drove Lynette home, he noted how he couldn't stop shivering. The two of them did discuss this fact, as well as the rest of the night on the way to Lynette's house. When he pulled into Lynette's driveway, Gloves turned off the engine, and got out quickly to open the door for Lynette. The two of the walked slowly across the driveway, and stopped about half way.

"This was a really fun night, we gotta do this again." said Gloves taking Lynette's hand.

"Yeah," replied Lynette as they gave each other a hug. They gazed into each other's eyes for a moment, and then, the good-night-kiss. They hugged again, and Lynette went inside, without saying anything, she just smiled and waved to him. Gloves waved back, and watched her enter her house.

When Gloves started up the truck, he couldn't help but sit and smile. When he eventually got himself home, he attempted to chat with this mom, but he was in too much of a daze to talk for long.

He soon went to bed, and couldn't help but smile and say to himself, "I don't know what the score is, but I know I'm winning."