ALLY:

Austin took a sip of his black coffee and asked me,

"How bad was it?"

"I'll show it to you."

My new neighbor was staring at me with clear-cut (Pun undoubtedly intended. Get it, clear-cut meant obvious, and he had a great haircut.) admiration and affection. I was starting to like him, not just for that totally alluring beachy blonde quiff hairstyle, but because he was generally a sweet, friendly guy. I reached into my purse with all the papers I had to grade and I found the one that Danny wrote and I pulled it out.

"Read it and you'll find out how bad it is."

He whispered loudly,

"And I quote, I didn't read Oliver Twist because I didn't give enough of a fuck to read it. Reading sucks fifty hard, herpes infested hippopotamus dicks. I would rather have a rhinoceros on cocaine stomp on my balls and die a slow painful death than read that stupid crap. I honestly don't give a damn if I fail this fucking class, I just don't want to read an f-gotarded book."

He turned to me.

"Are you sure you want me to read the last part? It's just so sexist and degrading to women."

I laughed.

"While I find the last part really demeaning, I have to admit, it kind of made me laugh it was so offensive."

Austin studied the paper as if it were a threatening note.

"Who's the little fucker who wrote this?"

I said,

"This eighth grader who's in my seventh period in class. I had him last year and I didn't get along with him at all, and I don't get along with him now."

Austin took another sip of his coffee.

"I can see why."

"He doesn't respect me, in fact, hell, I have a bunch of kids who are rude and disrespectful to me. They sleep, talk, text, curse, use their phones and chew gum in glass. Well, the gum chewing, I'm a little bit more lenient about as long as I don't see it, and that includes blowing bubbles in my classroom. Because, it drives me crazy when people chew and you can see what they're chewing."

"How do you deal with it?"

I said,

"Well, the school consequences are a verbal reminder, then a warning, then I send them to the principal's office, I either call or email parents, and then I give detention. If a student gets three detentions in a month, they get suspended."

"Wow, you're strict."

I took a sip of my coffee.

"I am. I kind of have to be if I'm a teacher, especially with kids who are making the transition from middle school to high school. I love my job, but at times it can be all the gray hairs that I'm getting."

Austin smiled.

"I don't see any gray hairs, just gorgeous light brown soft curls complemented by subtle yet beautiful blonde highlights."

I giggled. Austin was so cute and funny.

"Aww, you're really sweet."

"Do you dye your hair?"

I said,

"I got highlights about five years ago, and then I got them four more times, but my hairdresser said it was bad for my hair to keep dying it, so I stopped because it was so damaging, and we live in Miami so I guess I got natural ones."

He said,

"Well, you're beautiful in my eyes."

"Aww, thank you. Why don't you tell me about your job as a correctional officer for kids in juvie?"

Austin giggled.

"Well, occasionally we get a new inmate, and the inmates have to tell their name, their age and why they're being detained. I work with kids who steal, run from home, do drugs, drink and commit acts of violence."

I asked him,

"What's the most stressful part of your job?"

"Sometimes they take it out on each other or on me at times. But we're not just punishing the kids, we're trying to help them. Even if they can be mentally unstable or have dangerous substance addiction."

"Do they have back stories?"

Austin took another sip of his black coffee.

"Yeah. A lot of them are foster kids, or kids who have just grown up in dysfunctional homes, which is kinda understandable, but still, that doesn't give them the right to commit crimes."

"Just because my life is kind of hard doesn't mean I would ever commit crimes."

He asked me,

"What do you mean?"

I said,

"I'm single, I have two jobs, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of finances right now and my father was recently hospitalized for a heart attack."

Austin told me,

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is he OK?"

I said,

"Yeah, he's fine. His wife told me he was doing much better, but I still worry for his safety. Because heart attacks can paralyze people or even kill them."

He said,

"If you need anyone to talk to, I'm an open door. Literally and metaphorically. Can I get your number by the way?"

I smiled.

"Thanks. If I can have yours!"

He sniggered at me.

"I can agree to that."

I handed him my phone and he handed me his. I punched my number into his phone and he punched his number into mine.

"Can I take your caller ID? I wanna see your gorgeous face every time you call me."

I blushed.

"OK."

I smiled and he took a photo of me.

"Beautiful."

"Can I take your caller ID picture? I wanna see your sexy face every time you call me."

"Sure."

He smiled. He was definitely one of the most gorgeous men I'd ever seen. In the photo, he was grinning. I felt like I was a photographer documenting a picture of a handsome male model. We left Peet's and we held hands while walking together and him holding my hand with his baby soft hands made me tingle.

"I had a great time with you,"

I said. He smiled at me and kissed my hand.

"Me too. We should hang out again sometime."

I just sat down to do more of the tediousness known as grading papers. I turned more iTunes on and started to grade more. Good news was, I wasn't giving many Ds or Fs, a fair amount of Bs and Cs, and mostly I was giving As. I really liked my new neighbor Austin Moon. Well, I had just met him, and I already could feel the attraction to him blossoming like a flower in the spring.

What wasn't there to like in him? He was generally nice, driven, caring and he was super hot. He also had a good job. To be fair, you didn't need a college degree or even a bachelor's degree to be a correctional officer, but I admired how he used his bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice and not just a regular high school diploma. The day he asked me,

"Ally, will you go out with me?"

would be the seven most beautiful words. I felt my phone ding- I got a friend request on Facebook from Austin Moon. He was a mutual friend of Cadence Moon and Trish, and her boyfriend Jace, who I was friends with. Yup, it was the Austin Moon, my new neighbor who'd I just gotten to know. I immediately recognized his profile picture- he had that new haircut and he was still sitting in the chair with the Supercuts cape and white neck stripe on (in fact it was the after picture of the before and after picture he'd shown me), and on the counter were the scissors, a comb, the feather razor, the spray bottle and the can of hairspray and the hair dryer, and he was smiling, showing his porcelain teeth and I could see his hairstylist's hands on his shoulders.

After confirming his request, I looked at his cover photo. His cover photo was a picture of him with his whole family in an old picture from about a decade ago- they were on top of Twin Peaks in San Francisco, and from left to right were his mom, him (he was about fourteen at the time), his brother, who was about seventeen at the time, his dad and his sister, who was about five at the time. I loved (yes, she did the reaction love) his profile picture and his cover picture. My profile picture was just me wearing my glasses and doing a thumbs up and my cover photo was a photo of a peaceful background. He liked my profile picture.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Wow, it seems like Austin & Ally like each other! I wonder when they're going to tell each other that they like each other. Stay tuned!