Hello hello, party people! I know it's been awhile, just like it has been every update but I'm just so darn busy all the time, and especially now. The Tech Week for a musical I'm doing this season starts on Monday and everyone is scrambling around all over the place trying to get things done :) It's absolutely crazy and I hope y'all can bear with me until the show is over and…forever after that. Oh well. Please enjoy this extremely short lil thing. It's just more filler…(I know, I know. I need to get to an actual plot. But for now, I'm just enjoying coasting.) Please review! I'm completely serious when I say that your encouragement and even criticism inspires me to write. It just brightens my day. And…you never know…more updates (yes, I said updateS, as in plural ;) may come your way much, much sooner than you'd think…

I gaped. Nice shoes? My brain felt as though it had been cracked open and dropped into a pan to sizzle. Fried. What the hell was wrong with me? Better yet, what was with this guy? 'Nice shoes?' Real smooth…

…and then I happened to look down.

Oh.

We had the exact same pair. I had thought he was trying to be sarcastic, and I had grown defensive immediately. I mean, sure, my Chucks had seen better days, but we had been through a lot; My first day of high school, my first kiss, my first punching-of-the-rat-who-tried-to-kiss-me, right in the ol' bread basket. Good times.

He had already pulled away, and was standing around uncomfortably though somehow managing to look purposeful in his stance. It was like…like he didn't want to be there, so out in the open, but if he had to he was going to do it, gosh darn it. I don't know. But whatever the scare factor, he had overcome it to talk to me. Which, as you can imagine, pleased me to a great extent. I didn't mind when people found talking to me uncomfortable; in fact, I preferred it. Because the ones who stay, the ones who still want to have a chat even if you're close to bopping them one in the nose or chasing away yourself, those are the people who are most worth talking to. I admired those who took the challenge. I wasn't going to make it easy.

And besides, Elias didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon. It was relatively early for a Saturday and his sisters were still here, so why not stay and chat while?

Elias thumped his sweaty self down on the grass, evidently enjoying what coolness it offered despite it being out in the harsh sun. He squinted out over the small park, the sun in his eyes. He didn't bother to turn away, though, and stayed facing me. He wasn't talking, though, and I wasn't about to try and kick start a conversation with One-word-answer Eberhardt here.

By this time, Maeve and James Blond had chilled out to the point where the ticklefight was only a faded memory, and had gone back to "working." I noticed right about then that Maeve was left-handed, whereas Blondie wrote with his right, so their non-working hands were resting dangerously close to one another. I guess Blondie must've felt me staring, and he looked up.

"Hey," he said, sunlight pooling in his deep blue eyes. "You're in my Algebra class." It wasn't a tone of realization. He had known. We had spoken before, but normally it was things like, "When does this class end?" and "Do you have a piece of paper I could borrow?", nothing serious. It was more like he was opening himself to me. I wondered why he hadn't before. Not that it really mattered. God knows I did enough shutting out of people myself.

"Gosh, really?" I widened my eyes. "I've never seen you before in my life!" That got a laugh out of him. He extended his hand to me.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I'm working on being more…" His blue eyes grew bigger. "…open." I took his hand and shook it.

"Forget it," I said, "I was just teasing."

"Yeah, I've been noticing a trend." He grinned. "Is it like a hobby of yours?" I laughed a little. He wasn't far from the truth.

"You could say that," I replied. "I'm Max."

"Gazzy."

Here Maeve interjected.

"No, no. You have to say the whole thing." Her eyes sparkled devilishly.

"I don't," Gazzy sniffed. "Have any idea what you're talking about." Maeve gave him a shove that almost toppled him over.

"C'mon. Say it."

Gazzy (maybe? I didn't know!) sighed a great sigh of defeat.

"Fine." He glared at Maeve, who smiled sweetly back. "You suck," he muttered before turning back to me. "Hello, Max, very nice to meet you, yada yada yada, my name is Gabriel Augustus Lucien Bosco-Neval—" Here he took a breath—"But everyone calls me Gazzy." I felt laughter start to rise in my throat, which only intensified when I took a glance over at Maeve. She had burst into laughter at around the third syllable of Gazzy's name and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon, rolling around in the grass in fits of giggles. It was only when Gazzy kicked her (albeit gently) in the side that she wheezed to a halt in her amusement. That is, until he muttered: "Junior."

Well, that set everybody off.

R&R :)

M