Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 21:28:39 -0400
From: jaden.scott@adelphia.net
Subject: Lover's Lane Chapter 8

This story is a work of fiction.  It depicts a romance between two
consenting adult males and may contain some descriptions of sexual acts,
again between two consenting adult males.  If you are not of legal age to
read this kind of story, please leave now.  If you reside in an area where
reading stories that include sexual situations between two consenting adult
males is illegal, please leave now.  This story is for entertainment
purposes only.  Any similarity to any person(s) living or dead is simply a
coincidence.  The author retains all rights to this story.  It cannot be
reproduced in any form without expressed written permission from the author
(me).  Please contact the author for any requests. Copyright 2005.

Feedback (and criticism) is ALWAYS appreciated and welcome.  Please respond
to this story at:  jaden.scott@adelphia.net

I look forward to hearing from all of you and I will respond if you write
to me.

Thanks to all of you who have written so far with your encouraging words.
I have appreciated every one of them.  Jaden


**CONTINUITY ALERT**

Well, I made another continuity error.  In chapter 3, I named Jaden's
landlord "Mrs. Wilson", but in chapter 7, I named her "Mrs. Van Lehn".
Ooops.  Maybe I should have let someone help me with the editing. :) At
least I can admit my mistakes when I make them.  If I ever get the chance
to publish this thing, I'll make sure all of the corrections are made.
Anyway, for the remainder of the story, the landlord will be Mrs. Van Lehn.
So--did any of you catch the error??  If not, you better start paying
attention!!!

One last thing, then onto the story.  Please watch for changes in
POINT-OF-VIEW.  They will be coming more frequently, so I want everyone to
be prepared and pay attention.  Jaden

LOVER'S LANE

by Jaden

>From the end of Chapter Seven:

"George, I can't believe you pulled a stunt like that--not leaving and
waiting for Lane to come back.  You are SOOOOO lucky that it ended up
turning out so well.  Next time, though, if I say to leave, we are LEAVING.
You got that??"

George looked at me for a few seconds and then leaned in and licked my
face.  After what he did today, combined with all of the other ways he
proved over and over that he was a very smart dog, I knew that he
understood what I said.  Satisfied, we walked down the stairs and entered
our apartment.  I had a class to get to!!!!

CHAPTER EIGHT:  LANE UNPLUGGED

**PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS NEXT SECTION IS BEING TOLD FROM LANE'S POINT OF
VIEW.  I WILL CLEARLY INDICATE WHEN WE SWITCH BACK TO JADEN'S POINT OF
VIEW**

I stood by the picnic table for a few moments and watched as Jaden and
George walked away.  I felt proud of myself once again for taking a chance
and talking to him this morning.  I had to admit that it seemed to be
working out really well--I mean, Jaden could have turned out to be a huge
asshole.  Luckily, my intuition had proven correct--I had a feeling that he
would turn out to be a nice guy and I wasn't disappointed.  To top it off,
he had agreed to be my work-out partner!!  I was going to get to see him
almost every day.  Getting to spend more time with Jaden was going to be a
good thing, I decided.

I thought back on all of this morning's events.  I looked at my
watch--gosh, it's only 10:30AM and yet my world seems drastically different
from the one I woke up to this morning.  My mystery guy is a part of my
life now.  Well, I guess I can stop referring to him as my 'mystery guy'.
He has a name--and a beautiful one too---Jaden.  Jaden.  I really loved his
name.  It seemed to fit him perfectly.

If I was being completely honest with myself, a part of me had wondered if
approaching him was a good idea.  I knew that I was attracted to him, at
least physically anyway.  Getting to know him and his personality was like
playing with fire.  And, so far, he was turning out to be a great guy.  I
wasn't sure if I wanted that.  Since I had broken up with Zach, I had shied
away from attempting any sort of relationship.  In fact, I hadn't even
considered the possibility for quite some time.  My "relationship" with
Zach had really done a number on me.  While I didn't have any feelings left
for Zach anymore, the memory of how badly I had been hurt was still strong
enough to keep me very protective of my heart.  Of course, I knew that I
would have to put myself back out there eventually.  I didn't want to be
alone for the rest of my life.  I've heard that your first love is the
hardest to get over--I was living proof that sentiment was correct.

Shit--now I was starting to second guess my decision to go talk to him.
Why did he have to turn out to be such a great guy??  If I hadn't spoken to
him, he would have remained that great piece of eye candy that I had fun
looking at while I worked out at the gym.  AT the very least, couldn't I
have found a work-out partner who was a great guy but someone I wasn't
physically attracted too??  Jaden was a deadly combination--he was good
looking, he was a nice guy, and I suspected he had a host of other
intangible qualities that I would learn to really like as I got to know
him.  AARRRGGGHHH, my fantasy guy AND my worst nightmare all contained in
one package.  I wasn't sure if I was ready for this--could I let go of the
hurt and pain I had held onto for so long and let my attraction to Jaden
blossom and grow into something more??

Whoa, whoa, whoa--I was getting too far ahead of myself with my thinking.
First of all, I don't even know if Jaden is straight or gay.  And, assuming
he was gay, I don't know if he would even be attracted to me.  Until I know
for sure, I have to assume that he is already in a relationship, possibly a
serious relationship.  Guys like Jaden--good looking (OK--HOT!),
intelligent, with a great personality--don't stay single for very long.  I
starting laughing at myself--I'm thinking WAY too much about this guy.
what is it about Jaden that has got me so worked up??

I started walking back to my house.  As I did, I thought back to the few
conversations we had this morning.  He had seemed so...nervous during our
initial conversation.  In fact he had seemed nervous at various times
during all of our conversations.  He had done a decent job of hiding his
nervousness, but I was still able to pick up on it.  It seemed he would go
through phases--he would be nervous, then he would be relaxed.  Nervous,
then relaxed.  When he realized he was loosening up, he would draw back
into his shell again.  I swear I could almost see the mental battle that
was going on inside of his head.  When he was loosened up, he would make
some pretty funny comments.  I really liked that side of Jaden.

Actually, now that I was thinking about it, I started to wonder why he was
so shy and nervous in the first place.  Based on his good looks alone (he
was absolutely gorgeous--quite possibly the hottest guy I had ever laid
eyes on), I assumed that he had a pretty easy time growing up.  My
experience in school--especially high school--taught me that the good
looking people, the athletic people, and the rich people were the most
popular and, therefore, the most idolized of all the students.  If that
were true at Jaden's high school, he must have RULED there.  He looked
extremely athletic--I imagine that he was the quarterback of his football
team, the captain of his basketball team--basically the star athlete in
every sport he tried.  One thing I was sure was a constant in the universe
was the way that GIRLS behaved.  I was absolutely positve that the all of
the girls at his school threw themselves at him.  With all he seemingly had
going for him, I would have expected him to be much more confident and
outgoing.  When I praised him for his writing abilities earlier, he was
genuinely shocked and embarassed by what I said.  He wasn't just being
humble--he honestly didn't know how good of a writer he was.

I also remembered that he basically ignored all of the girls in the gym.  I
saw quite a few of them try to flirt with him.  Hell, I think a couple of
them would have done him right there on the gym floor.  I had thought of a
few reasons why he didn't give any of them the time of day, like he was in
a relationship, or he was gay.  The fact that Jaden ignored all of the
girls, combined with the fact that he wasn't aware of how talented a writer
he was, made me start to wonder if Jaden even knew how good looking he
really was.  I would have to get to know him much better before I could be
100% sure, however, my gut instinct told me I was on the right track.

He was also very sensitive.  I had made a sarcastic remark about him
calling me a 'gym-jock' and a 'wise-ass'.  I was just joking with him, but
he had really believed I was mad at him.  I had to reassure him that I was
just playing around.  I would have to remember to bite my tongue in our
future conversations.  It wasn't going to be easy because I was so used to
being a smart-ass, especially with my friends and family.

As I analyzed all of our interactions, I was becoming much more curious
about Jaden.  Ironically, he really was turning out to be my 'mystery man'.
I couldn't figure him out and I found that I really wanted to.  There was
something in his eyes--a sadness and a sense of vunerability--that was very
appealing to me.  I thought back to my "relationship" with Zach.  One of
the reasons why I was so attracted to him was that he was so much smaller
that me.  I had felt protective of him.  In just a short amount of time, I
was starting to have similar feelings about Jaden--not feeling protective
of him on a physical level (he was much closer to my size than Zach ever
was), but feeling protective of him on an emotional level.  It seemed that
Jaden needed someone to be there for him and take care of him.  Until he
permanently came out of his shell, I was going to have to treat him more
gently than I normally would with a new friend.  I definitely didn't want
to scare him off or push him away.

I smiled to myself as I remembered the last part of our most recent
conversation.  Jaden had really become animated as we started taunting each
other about running tomorrow.  I had to admit that I did have some ulterior
motives for suggesting that the loser of the bet make dinner for the
winner.  At the time I suggested the wager, it had seemed like a 'win-win'
situation, at least for me.  Win or lose, I figured that I would be getting
to spend more time with him--maybe even alone time.  However, now that I
had time to think things through, I wasn't as confident as I was earlier
about the bet--my feelings about Jaden were flipping back and forth so
much.  There was a part of me that wanted to spend as much time as possible
with him.  An equal size part of me wanted to keep my distance from him, at
least for now.  I wonder if anyone else out there has these type of
contradictory feelings.  (author's note: I can think of at least one
person!!--How about you??).

I wasn't sure what was going to happen between Jaden and me.  At this
point, the only thing I knew for sure is that I had no one but myself to
blame if it turned out badly.  After all, I was the one who approached him
and started this whole thing.


TO BE CONTINUED

Well, this turned out to be an extremely short chapter, but I had alot of
it written so I decided to finish editing it and post it now.  This section
of the story was ALMOST included at the end of chapter 7.  I was anxious to
get something posted the other day, so I decided to save this part and make
it a separate chapter.  How Lane is feeling about Jaden is every bit as
important as how Jaden is feeling about Lane.  Up until now, we really
haven't gotten a chance to see how Lane reacted to actually SPEAKING to
Jaden.  Jaden had always been someone that Lane watched from far away.  Now
that they are interacting with each other, we need to see how that affects
Lane's feelings.

Please stay with me---I know it has been slow going, but I really want to
establish a solid foundation for our characters.  It wouldn't make any
sense if they suddenly hopped into bed with each other.  They will get
there, but each of them has issues to work out before they are ready for a
deeper relationship.

Be on the lookout for chapter 9.  Wow, 9 chapters.  That's exciting!!!

FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK---this is lifeblood for us writers, so please
drop me a quick line.

Remember, I have a new e-mail address.  Use: jaden.scott@adelphia.net
Thanks, Jaden.