*Disclaimer*

Not my characters. They belong to HBO or Charlaine Harris.

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I woke up the next morning with Gran at my door, knocking and calling out to me. I grumbled to myself cause I did not want to be woken up yet, but it was Monday, and Monday meant hanging sheets out on the line. Gran had a strict schedule for her cleaning. It was how she kept our home always ready to receive guests.

So I got up out of my nice, warm, and comfortable bed and dressed in some old jeans and a baggy grey sweatshirt. I quickly braided my hair, and then slipped on some old gym shoes from high school that I used for yard and house work. I promised to myself that I would take a nap later on.

So down the stairs I went with the balled up sheets that I just I stripped off my bed ready for the wash. When I got downstairs, I noticed that Gran was already out back, so I dropped my stuff by the washer, grabbed a granola bar and headed outside to find her already on her second sheet.

"Here Gran, why don't you let me do that, and you can hand me the pins." I said, worried that she might fall off the stool she was standing on.

"Susanna Rose! I am only 62, I can do this just fine." I knew Gran was just joking, so I laughed. "Besides, I actually wanted you to sweep the porch and maybe pull the weeds in the front?"

"Ok! Just holler if you need anything." I said while walking away towards our tool shed. When I had the things I needed, I headed up the stairs of the porch and walked around it to the front. Our porch surrounded the entire house.

"I need music." I mumbled to myself. I set my tools down and quickly ran upstairs to grab my portable radio and headphones. I wouldn't play it too loud incase Gran called me, but it was nice to listen to music. Made the work go faster.

I got back outside, set radio the station, and picked up my tools for cleaning up the front landscaping. There weren't too many weeds, so I knew that this wouldn't take too long.

When I finished, I grabbed the broom and began the job of removing all the pollen and dead leaves off the porch. Fall really was setting in now. I noticed that there were a few cobwebs near the top of the railing on the porch, so I climbed up, with my gardening gloves still on, ready to battle with the scary spiders.

"The itsy bitsy spider...went up the railing to the top…" I sang. Then I shouted in a fast action movie voice, "THE WRATH OF SOOKIE STACKHOUSE!"

I swung my hand to destroy the web, but I guess I swung a little too hard, because all of the sudden I was falling forward, which was quite a fall because there were about 6 stairs to get up on the porch.

I screamed, my eyes tightly shut, not wanting to see when I would fall, and waited for the pain, but right before I was able to land, I felt someone catch me. My eyes burst open.

"Oh! It's you! What the hell! How did you catch me?" My heart was all racey because of the extra adrenaline that was flowing through my body.

Somehow the guy from church yesterday was in my yard and was able to catch me from falling and getting hurt. WEIRD!

"I was walking up and ran over when I saw you start to fall. Are you ok?" He said, his face close to mine, looking at me with very concerned eyes.

"Um, you can put me down now. Thanks for catching me. Bye now." I said, and he set me down, but he didn't make any move to leave. I knew I was being rude, seeing as how he had just saved me and everything, but this guy just was, well weird.

Then Gran walked up and I groaned internally because I knew that this guy would probably be staying for lunch, and I did not want that.

"Oh, Sookie dear! There you are! What happened? I heard you scream! Are you alright?" Gran said, from up on the porch, making her way over to me.

"Yeah Gran, I'm fine. I just was trying to get the cobwebs so I stood on the lower railing and lost my footing. It was kind of dumb of me, now that I think about it." I felt sort of achy from the fall, even though….well Weirdo….caught me. I guess I didn't know his name. "Anyways, um, he caught me." I said gesturing over to the guy standing a few feet away from me.

"OH! You must be Mr. Northman! Thank you so much for catching my Sookie!" She said, clasping her hands together, a huge smile dancing on her face like this was some sort of cartoon and she was about to say 'My hero!' or something."I believe you already met Mr. Northman yesterday at Church?"

"Uh, yeah I met him." I said, still not clear on why he was here. I looked over at him and noticed he was smiling at me. Creep.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, folding my arms across my chest.

His face fell, and he looked slightly embarrassed. He ran a hand through his hair.

"Sookie!" Gran said, shocked at my rudeness. "Mr. Northman was just returning your scarf that you left at Church yesterday! He rang about an hour ago and I told him to come right over, seeing as he's new in town."

"Oh. Thanks." I noticed it had fallen on the ground a few feet away from me, so I quickly went over and picked it up. I noticed his car next, shocked that I hadn't heard or seen it come up our gravel driveway. I didn't think my music was that loud. Come to think of it, I still had the radio going, so I quickly reached down and shut it off.

I moved to go inside, wanting to go clean up from the yard work and then falling, but Gran blocked my way, grabbing my arm to stop me.

"Sookie. Mr. Northman came all the way here to just drop of that silly old scarf of yours. The least you could do is talk to him properly." She was whispering, but I could hear that there was no room for arguing.

But argue I did, seeing as how I was Stubborn Sookie, as Gran liked to call me sometimes.

"Gran, I just wanted to go clean up a bit. That's all." I whispered back, glancing back at Mr. Northman.

"Fine, but hurry along." She said, and I practically ran inside, trying to get away from this awkward situation.

And I still didn't even know his name.

I heard laughter from the living room when I exited my bedroom, all freshened up. I almost went back into my room to waste a few more minutes, but I heard Gran calling me.

I headed downstairs and stopped in the doorway of the living room, crossing my arms over my chest again.

He looked over at me, smiling, and stood up, as if waiting for me to sit down as well.

"Sookie, come in here please. I'm going to go get started on some lunch. You two talk for a bit. Sookie, Mr, Northman tells the funniest stories."

"Please, call me Eric." Well, at least I knew his name now. I wasn't sure why heart stopped when he said his name, but I figured I would think about it tomorrow, just like my favorite heroine.

"Yes, well, Eric tells the funniest stories."

I took a deep breath while Gran excused herself to the kitchen. I walked into the room and sat down in the chair across from the couch. I folded my arms across my chest, refusing to look at him.

"Uh, I noticed that you live with you Gran. Have you lived here long?"

"Yes."

"Do you mind me asking why?"

"I do."

"Ok…" We sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Here, let me take your coat. I'll go hang it up in the front closet." So Eric took off his coat and handed it over to me. I reached the closet and when I lifted it up to put it on a hanger, I noticed it smelled really good. So I smelled it again.

I heard someone coming down the hallway, and quickly stopped my weird behavior, hanging up the coat quickly. I turned and saw it was Eric.

"I, uh, left something in my pocket." He said, and moved closer to get it, invading my personal space. The hallway wasn't very wide, so I had my back to the closet, and he was standing in front of me, leaning past to get whatever it was he needed. He was so close to me, it was uncomfortable, but there was no way to get out of there seeing that he was blocking the path.

"Excuse me!" I said, pushing against his arm that was nearest to my face. He took a step back, and seemed flustered. I felt a strange surge of electricity when I bumped him. I figured it was just static, but his eyes bore into mine, making me feel like he felt it as well. He has really blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, I was just getting something out of my coat, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He ran his hand through his hair again and I figured it must be a nervous tick he had. I felt slightly bad. I wasn't trying to be bitchy. It just kept happening.

"It's fine. Let's just go back into the living room." I said, leading the way, not checking to see if he was following me. But I heard his steps behind me and I braced myself for some more weirdness with Eric.

We sat down the same way we had before and I just sort of looked around. This was so awkward, but he wasn't saying anything, so I decided to just ask him something random.

"How old are you?" Well, I meant to ask about his family, but I guess that was what I really wanted to know.

"I'm 32. I just turned 32 actually about 2 weeks ago." He said, looking happy to actually be talking.

"Sorry, that was rude, I shouldn't of just asked you that, like I did. I'm 21 by the way. Incase you were wondering, which you probably were because I asked you and of course then you would be thinking about how old I am. My birthday's in the summer." I rambled on until I noticed that Eric looked very amused by something.

And of course that ruffled my feathers, so I just went back to sitting there, arms crossed

until Gran called us in for lunch.

He was OLD! I mean, WEIRD, WEIRD, WEIRD!

"Sookie, Mr...I mean, Eric! Soup's warm!" She called from the kitchen. I stood up and Eric was right behind me like a lost puppy. I had a strange feeling overcome me that this was the man I was going to marry. My remembered my Gran telling me that she had felt the same way when she met my grandfather. My heart sped up.

We sat down to eat, but really only Gran and I ate, Eric said he was on a special diet. Sooner than I would have liked, Eric got up to leave and I had to jump in the shower to get ready for work.

When I was on my way upstairs, I couldn't help but overhear Eric and Gran talking about me.

"She'll come around. She's such a sweet girl, but terribly shy. Don't take it personally."

"It's alright Mrs. Stackhouse. I understand. I just really hope to get to know her better." He said. I heard the front door open. "Good Day."

"Sookie, that man is such a gentlemen! I don't know why you acted the way you did. He was just trying to get to know you better!" Gran yelled up to me, as I made my way getting ready for my shower.

I got undressed and thought about the weird encounter. I couldn't get over the fact that I had felt like this was the man I was going to marry. MARRY? I only had met him the day before. Why would I think such a weird thought. I wished I had better social skills. I wished I wasn't so awkward.

I had to get going, so again, told myself I would think about it tomorrow.