Eli gave me his number.

Of all the improbable things, in an already improbable world, I’d somehow ended up with that gorgeous boy’s phone number—and his kiss on my cheek, too.

How the hell had that happened?

In truth, I probably owed my friends Adam and Ben an apology, and a thank you. If they hadn’t been on my case so much about how I needed to date more, I might never have said anything to Eli that first morning, waiting for the train.

I didn’t normally go around making conversations with strangers. But Eli had been drop dead gorgeous, with his tousled blond hair and wide blue eyes, his cheeks slightly flushed and his lips parted expectantly. There’d been this air of openness about him, this curiosity. Something tugged at me from the moment I saw him, like a fish hook to the stomach. I didn’t so much decide to speak as I just found myself talking to him, wondering what the hell I was doing.

I’d spent our first conversation in disbelief. Eli looked like an angel, and he smiled so adorably, and something about him was almost painfully sweet. And I could just hear Adam telling me that it was time for me to stop helping other people with their love lives and get one of my own.

I never put myself forward like this. I was always the quiet guy in the corner, watching, not doing. But something about Eli made me want to stay and talk to him forever, before I even knew his name. My heart beat faster the longer we talked, and by the end of the conversation, I could barely breathe. I knew I was going to make a fool of myself if I stayed any longer, so I’d darted away.

And then I’d spent the entire train ride to my dad’s house thinking about him. The entire week, really. I felt foolish, and more than a little jittery. It wasn’t like me, to get swept up in a crush like this, and it made me feel off-balance. I wasn’t sure I liked it, to be honest.

But I couldn’t help wishing I could make him smile again.

So when I’d got off the night shift at the Peachtree Clinic the following week and headed out for my usual Sunday visit to New Jersey, I’d paused outside the donut shop in Penn Station, struck by an idea.

It was probably ridiculous. The guy might not even be there again. But if he wasn’t, well, I could always lie to myself and say I’d gotten the donuts because I was hungry. Maybe if I repeated it enough times, I’d believe it.

My stomach sank when I reached the platform and I didn’t see him. I knew this was stupid. My hand tightened around the donut bag. No matter what I’d said about playing it off, I knew the truth, and I couldn’t even look at the bag without feeling like an idiot.

I’d actually been on my way to a trash can when, by some kind of miracle, I’d seen that blond head and blurted out way too enthusiastic of a hello. But Eli had smiled and it lit up his whole face and sent liquid gold coursing through my veins. That gold was shivery in the best way, and it’s what made me brave enough to give him the donuts—and then want to throw myself onto the tracks right afterwards.

Eli had stared at me like I’d proposed to him, instead of offering him a stale breakfast item, and I realized I’d overstepped. I had the urge to take it back, to make up some excuse about how I’d bought a whole bunch of donuts and eaten all but a few, or at least joke about how I hadn’t poisoned them, but I was pretty sure if I opened my mouth, I’d only make things worse.

So I’d run—again.

That should have been the end of it. I was convinced I wouldn’t see him again—even if he took the train regularly, he’d probably avoid me from now on. Which was fine. I didn’t even know his name, for Pete’s sake. Why should I care so much about this stranger? This beautiful, sweet, funny stranger who had an inexplicable grip on my heart?

My eyes widened when I saw him slouching on the bench that third week. I was usually early enough that I had time to kill before they announced which track the train was on. I’d never once seen the blond kid there, but here he was, his jacket wadded up like a pillow, nestled in the corner behind his head. He looked so defenseless as he slept, and something in my heart pulsed in response. I didn’t understand the hold the guy had on me, but I knew I wanted to take care of him. Wanted to know his story, to know everything about him. Wanted to keep him safe.

I didn’t get a lot of moments like this in life. What were the chances that I kept running into this guy, who made my heart go all tender, soft, and sweet. And how much would I regret it if I let this last chance pass me by?

This is the last time, I’d told myself sternly as I walked back to the donut shop. The last time you’re allowed to approach him. If he doesn’t want to talk to you, doesn’t make some effort to get to know you, you have to let it go.

I took a last look at him before I ducked inside the store, trying to fix him in my mind. Some part of me wasn’t sure he’d be there when I got back. He was a little too perfect to be real.

But there he was, still squished into that corner on the bench when I got back, and I almost didn’t want to wake him up. But after weighing the relative creepiness of waking the guy versus watching him sleep, I decided the former was preferable, so I’d winced and tapped his foot with my own. I braced for a look of annoyance, of disgust or fear. At the first sign of those, I’d walk away.

And then he’d smiled, and asked my name. It felt like seeing the sun after a week of cloudy skies. It felt like coming home.

Eli Winter. I rolled the name around in my mouth. It fit him, I thought. Eli. The beautiful stranger’s name was Eli, and I felt warm all over just knowing that.

And he wasn’t just sweet, it turned out. He was smart, too, and insightful, and he spoke with assurance and I found myself almost wistful, listening to him, because I knew that he might go to Mann University right now, but he’d graduate someday and he’d leave for somewhere more exciting, and I’d be happy that he was getting what he wanted, but sad as I watched him walk out of my life.

Then, of course, I realized I was being totally and completely-beyond-the-pale crazy. Three conversations with Eli and I was already envisioning a future with him? Besides, at most, he was what, 21? 22? I was only four years older than Eli, and that might not seem like a lot when you were talking 96 and 92, but 26 and 22? There was a lot of living that happened in those four years. I was pretty sure I shouldn’t be as interested in Eli as I was.

There was one weird thing, though. Eli was disarmingly honest—but I still got the feeling there was something he was trying not to talk about. A topic he was skirting gently. And when he said he’d slept on that bench… well, it didn’t sit right with me.

My dad used to tell me I took on other people’s problems too much. That I’d rather worry about other people’s lives than my own. Maybe that was true (okay, it probably was), but I couldn’t help it. When I sensed someone was in trouble, my heart went out to them.

So I started worrying. What if something were wrong in Eli’s life? What if he were in some kind of trouble? I knew I should stop jumping to conclusions, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. Why did Eli keep coming into the city every week if he didn’t have a place to stay here? He said he’d come in with a friend, but I’d never seen that friend. What if he needed help?

And before I could stop myself, I started asking, in the most awkward way possible, if everything were okay. And Eli bolted.

My heart sank. However well things had been going up til that moment, I couldn’t ignore how it had ended. Eli had clearly been trying to get away from me. So I had to honor that promise I’d made with myself. No more thinking about him. No more looking forward to seeing him. No more searching for him as I waited for the train.

The mysterious, angelic blond boy who’d lit up my heart was going to have to stay that way—a mystery.

And then he kissed me. And everything changed.

“So, how’s your week been?” my dad asked as we pulled away from the station.

Since we’d moved to South Orange when I was 13, our house had been close enough to the train station to walk, but my dad always picked me up anyway. I didn’t know if it was something he actually wanted to do, or just felt like he should, but it seemed to matter to him, so I didn’t make a fuss about it.

“Good,” I said, a little absent-minded.

Cars and buildings slid past as my dad drove towards St. Kate’s Medical Center. I could have traced the route in my sleep. Train station to hospital, hospital to home. Some things never changed, and those routes were imprinted so deeply they felt like a part of my body, tattoos in invisible ink.

“You sure you can stay over tonight?” my dad asked, just like he did every week.

I almost always said yes, unless I had a reason to be back in the city early on Monday, but he still asked, like if he did it often enough, he might, what, catch me wanting to change my mind? Or was it him who wanted me to change it?

“Yeah, of course.” I patted my bag, bulging with books. “Brought everything with me, so I can go straight to class tomorrow.”

I’d been working on my Master’s of Divinity for years now, taking classes part-time as I worked different jobs at nonprofits. I’d been able to get some scholarships, but grad school was expensive, no matter how you sliced it, so my progress had been slow. Counting this year, I still had two more before I was done.

My dad snorted. That was another constant—he didn’t judge me for my career choice, but he never understood why I’d felt called in this direction. He and my mom had always seemed like such staunch Catholics growing up, but after the accident, whatever faith he’d had seemed to vanish, and by the time I’d graduated high school, we hadn’t been to mass in years.

I didn’t miss it, exactly. I certainly couldn’t square the things I believed to be true with the dogma I’d been taught. Being bisexual definitely had something to do with that, but there were other teachings I had issues with too.

Still, there had been some things I did miss. The commitment to social justice, to alleviating suffering. I knew I wasn’t Catholic anymore, but where my dad had written religion off, I’d found myself unable to stop asking questions, wondering what the point of all of this was.

It still felt a little surreal that I was going to school to become a minister. I was only 26, and I wasn’t sure what I had to offer to people who’d been around on this earth way longer than I had. But asking those big questions, and sitting beside people who were asking them too—that was when I felt most alive, and most like I had a purpose.

“I still don’t know how you can even have classes in that,” my dad said as he turned a corner. “What is there to study, if you can believe whatever you want?”

He said it with a twinkle in his eye—he loved poking fun at me for being a Unitarian Universalist, and I had to admit, there were times I even sort of agreed with him.

“You know, it’s funny you should mention that,” I said with a grin. “I’m actually taking a course this semester called ‘How to Confound All Your Friends and Relatives With Your Life Choices.’”

“Well, you’ll get an A in that for sure.”

My dad smiled. He might not understand it, but he knew I was doing what was important to me. And even when I felt lost and unsure of my future—as I had for the past year or so—I knew he had my back. We pulled up to a stop light and he handed me a can of seltzer. He always brought me one for the car.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem.” He seemed to understand that I meant it for more than just the can. “Now tell me about this good week of yours. You’re starting a new semester soon, I know. What else is new?”

I caught him up on school and work, though I left out the sleepless nights I’d been having recently about whether I was really cut out for all of this. That sense of anxiety had been growing for a while, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Maybe not yet, maybe not ever.

I was starting a new internship next week, though, which I was hoping might help me turn a corner, and I was going to see Adam and Ben play their first show together in a few days, which I was looking forward to even more. I thought I did a good job filling the car with conversation, but as we pulled into the hospital parking lot and I wound down, my dad gave me a knowing smile.

“And?” he said expectantly.

“And what?”

“And what’s the other good thing that happened this week that you keep smiling about?”

I shot him a disgruntled look. “I’m not smiling about anything.”

“Well, you’re not now, but that’s just because I’m onto you. You can lie all you want to me, but I know the way you look when you’re excited about something, and nothing you’ve said so far would give you that particular smile.”

“It’s—I’m not—it’s not a big deal,” I said, flustered.

“Ah, so it’s an ‘excited-but-it’s-still-a-secret’ smile. Okay, well, I can handle that.” My dad tapped the side of his nose. “Say no more. But bear in mind that your Aunt Cathy is coming over for dinner tonight, and you know what your mother’s sisters are like. Better get that smile under control by then.”

He was still laughing as he got out of the car.

I groaned. Most of my mom’s family lived out of state, but Cathy only lived in Philadelphia, and her kids, my cousins, were up in Hartford, Connecticut. Any time she visited them for the weekend, she stopped for dinner with us on her way back. And my dad was right—no one on my mom’s side of the family seemed to grasp the concept of minding your own business.

I was just going to have to put Eli out of my mind. Until I figured out what to do about him, anyway. I wanted to call him, obviously. Or text. Calling would probably be weird, right? He’d said call me, but no one called anymore. He was younger than me anyway—calling was probably a dad move.

I just didn’t want to fuck it up. The whole thing was so unlikely and it felt like one of those giant, delicate sugar sculptures you see on cooking shows sometimes. Beautiful to look at—but one wrong touch could send the whole thing crashing down.

I was probably making a bigger deal out of this than I should, anyway. For all I knew, Eli gave his number out to ten people a day. But some small part of my heart, the part that had lit up when I’d first seen Eli, didn’t believe that. And that part insisted that no matter the risk, I had to try.

“Come on, man,” Adam said, spinning the tiny straw in his glass of ginger ale around in a circle. “Just bite the bullet and call him now.”

It was late, well after the end of the after-party for the concert he and Ben had just played. It was the first time the two of them had played on stage together since college, and given that Ben was a hugely famous ex-pop star and Adam was a semi-famous singer-songwriter, and given that they’d both just come out and started dating, it was kind of a big deal. The show had been packed. The after party, too. But it was just the three of us now, sitting in a booth at Maggie’s, the bar our friend Gray owned.

“I can’t call him now,” I pointed out. “It’s one in the morning. On a Wednesday. That would be insane.”

“Okay, text him then,” Adam said.

“Because a 1 a.m. text is so much more reasonable,” Ben said drily.

“Hey, I thought you were on my side on this.” Adam glared at Ben. “We can’t let Nick walk out of here without doing something, or you know he’ll just put it off until he convinces himself it’s too late to do anything about it ever.”

“Excuse me, I will not,” I said, indignant. “I’m gonna text him. I just wanna get it right, you know?”

“Nick, I hate to break it to you, but if you’re texting to say, ‘Hey, you wanna get a drink sometime?’ there’s not really much to get right,” Ben said, giving me what I think he thought was an encouraging smile.

“See, you say that like I’m not totally capable of fucking up even the simplest of tasks.” I shook my head. “It’s just—ugh, this sounds stupid, but this thing with Eli just feels… special, somehow.”

“I don’t think that sounds stupid.” Ben smiled over at Adam, who flushed, but smiled back. “When you know, you know.”

I wanted to backtrack immediately, saying I hadn’t meant it like that. Yeah, things had moved quickly for Adam and Ben—well, once they’d realized they were in love with each other, anyway—but they were soulmates. I wasn’t trying to imply that about Eli.

But then, what did I know? What did meeting your soulmate even feel like? Was it always trumpets and angels? Or was it just sometimes a beautiful boy smiling on a train platform, his eyes wide and open and full of hope, the kind of hope that made you suddenly believe in things like soulmates after a lifetime of thinking they probably weren’t real?

I rolled my eyes—at myself, to be clear—and sighed.

“I will text. I promise. I just need to figure out what to say.”

“How about, ‘Hello, it’s me, would you like to maybe have coffee next weekend?’” Ben suggested.

“Or, how about, ‘Hello, it’s me, would you like to maybe have coffee and also sex next weekend?’” Adam added, clearly enjoying himself way too much.

“Okay, thank you both for your truly wonderful suggestions, but I actually can’t say that, because I won’t be there next weekend. I have to go to this conference thing down the shore.”

I suppressed a sigh over that. Part of my master’s program involved a year long internship with a congregation, and the minister I’d be working with at Mountview Unitarian had asked if I would mind working with their youth group this year.

It wasn’t like I could say no, and I knew the whole point of internships was to stretch yourself, and take on roles you might not get exposed to otherwise. But I’d never been my best with big groups of people, and the wallflower I’d been in high school was more than a little terrified of working with a group of teenagers. I hoped the con wouldn’t be as awkward as I feared—but it wasn’t a very strong hope.

“Fine, so tell him you want to fuck him after next weekend,” Adam said. “Or better yet, before.”

“Yeah!” Ben said. “Ask what he’s doing tomorrow, and then when he says, ‘nothing,’ tell him he could be doing you instead.”

“Really stellar advice, guys. What would I do without you?”

“Uh, never text this guy and die a lonely old man,” Adam said. “Which is what we’re trying to avoid. Now, come on. Text him.”

I glared—and pulled my phone out. Maybe they were right. Maybe I just needed to do this and stop worrying so much.

NICK: Hey, it’s Nick. Uh, from the train, in case you’ve given your number to a lot of random Nicks this week. Anyway, sorry for the late-night text, it’s been a crazy week. Just wanted to say hi—and I figured I might as well text now, on the off chance that you’re killing time on a bench in Penn Station and could use the entertainment

“Jesus, I said text him, not write him a novel,” Adam said, craning his neck to get a better look at what I’d written.

He was probably right—that was crazy long for a first text. But there was nothing I could do about it now. I started to slide my phone back into my pocket—it’s not like I was going to hear from Eli before morning—but then it buzzed. I looked down in surprise.

ELI: Well hi Nick from the train

ELI: I’m actually NOT in Penn Station

ELI: Shocking, I know

ELI: But I appreciate the entertainment nonetheless

I smiled.

NICK: Well, glad I texted then

ELI: Me too

“Oh my God, this is physically painful,” Adam grumbled. “Tell him you want to See. Him. Again.”

“I will, I will, just let me work up to it,” I said, trying and failing to shield the screen of my phone from Adam’s view.

NICK: How’s your week going?

ELI: Oh you know

ELI: Fine

ELI: School and stuff. New semester and all that, getting back into the swing of things is always a bit stressful.

ELI: But I’m currently watching old episodes of Murder, She Wrote on my phone instead of sleeping or working, so I’m clearly handling the stress perfectly

ELI: Sorry, is that a lame answer?

ELI: I can come up with something better, if that doesn’t seem cool enough

“Wait, he’s in school?” Ben asked, leaning over to stare at my phone from the other side.

“College,” I said quickly. “Nothing creepy or anything.”

“Speak for yourself,” Adam said. “Cradle-robber.”

“Anyway, if you’ll let me actually respond to him…” I said, giving them each a look before texting again.

NICK: Definitely not lame. I’m in school too. Never seen Murder, She Wrote, though. My go to is Cheers reruns

ELI: Omg, well, MSW is amazing and you need to rectify that situation immediately

ELI: But Cheers is good too, I SUPPOSE

I laughed as I pictured him saying that. God, even over text, it felt like I was in the same room with him. I could just see the way he was probably smiling right now.

NICK: So um, I’m out of town this weekend, but is there any chance you’d be free next week to maybe get coffee (with or without donuts) and talk sometime when we DON’T have to run off and catch a train?

ELI: Whoa whoa whoa

ELI: Talk for more than 10 minutes?

ELI: I don’t know, man, that’s kinda a lot of commitment for me

ELI: :)

ELI: But yeah, that sounds great. And perfect too—I have a thing this weekend also

NICK: When’s a good time for you? Are you going to be back in the city again soon? Or I could come out to meet you

ELI: Oh no, it’s fine, I can come in. Trust me when I say it’s too boring out here for words

ELI: But I’m totally free the weekend after this one, so anytime then works

NICK: Great—wanna say Saturday but confirm when it gets closer?

ELI: Perfect!

ELI: I… donut… know how I’ll survive until then

ELI: Sorry, in addition to having the world’s most boring life, I’m also terrible and love puns

“Shit, dude, I think he’s in love with you,” Ben said.

“Yeah, Jesus.” Adam whistled. “Outing yourself as a fan of bad puns before the first date? He’s serious about you.”

“You’re both fired,” I grumbled. But I couldn’t help smiling. Lame pun or not, that had to be a good sign, right?

NICK: Donut apologize, I liked it

NICK: (Did I do it right?)

ELI: I mean it was kind of low-hanging fruit, but… we’ll get you TRAINED soon enough

ELI: And on that note, I think I should probably go to bed now before I make you regret your choices

ELI: Night, Nick. Glad you texted

NICK: Me too

I tried to stifle the tendril of nervousness curling through my body as I drove down the Garden State Parkway that Friday afternoon. I’d met up with Gwen, Mountview’s minister, on Thursday to talk through goals for the coming year, and to get some last-minute details on what to expect at the con. It basically sounded like a weekend of youth-led social justice workshops, with some Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dungeons and Dragons, glitter, and a complete lack of sleep thrown in.

I was pretty sure it was the kind of thing I would have loved when I was in high school, and Gwen swore that they were all great kids who went out of their way to make it an inclusive environment. I tried to tell myself that meant they’d be nice to me, too—and hated myself for being 26 and still worrying that a bunch of teenagers were going to be mean.

The truth was, I really hoped this advisor thing worked out, because I was beginning to think I’d maybe made a mistake in starting divinity school in the first place. I’d gone into it knowing that I liked helping people, and I loved talking about those big questions that most people think are uncomfortable but that I couldn’t seem to stop bringing up at parties when small talk would have been more appropriate.

Why yes, I did hear that it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, I wonder how many inches we’ll get, and also, do you ever wonder about the seeming incompatibility between an all-powerful God who controls the universe and an all-good God who apparently allows tragedies to happen all the time? How does that make you feel? Do you wanna talk about it for the next 45 minutes or—oh, right, of course, you’re edging away from me and saying you need to get more cocktail shrimp, no, it’s fine, I’ll just stand in the corner and be weird.

I’d thought that divinity school would be a perfect fit—a place where that kind of thinking was encouraged, and that was true, as far as it went. The problem was, I hadn’t really considered what happened after school, when suddenly I was supposed to be a minister, and do all these things that, it turned out, I didn’t think I was very well suited to do.

In the past year, my program had begun pushing me to explore what ministry looked like from a practical perspective. It turned out that a lot of ministry looked like doing things that made me uncomfortable—talking in front of large groups of people, managing large groups of people, and getting said large groups of people to do things they didn’t particularly want to do.

It seemed like endless committee meetings, punctuated by weekly bouts of standing up in front of people and pontificating, or at least saying something that didn’t make them fall asleep in their pews. Worse, sometimes it meant getting involved in social action efforts and having to give interviews and talk to even bigger groups of people.

One of the part-time jobs I currently held was with a nonprofit called the Family Futures project. They did amazing work with children and families affected by intimate partner violence, and I’d seen our director go on TV and talk about the work we did. It was important, but I knew I’d never feel comfortable being in the public eye like that.

The past year had been pretty eye-opening for me, and I was beginning to feel pretty dumb for not realizing what being a minister actually entailed. Pretty much the only good thing I’d gotten out of the last year was starting an internship at Peachtree, a mental health clinic where I provided one-on-one support to clients. That felt very much like something I’d like to do in the future—but I didn’t think that was the future I’d signed up for.

So I was really hoping that by some kind of miracle, I’d end up loving working with Mountview’s youth group, and I could just go into youth ministry or something. That would cut down on the amount of sermonizing I’d have to do, at least.

I knew that the con was being hosted by a congregation down the Jersey shore, but I didn’t realize until I got off the Parkway and followed the directions on my GPS that the church might actually be on the shore, literally. I rolled down my windows as I turned onto a country road that headed east. I could smell the ocean.

I slowed down, making a right-hand turn, then a left, then another left on what appeared to be a one-lane road headed straight for the water. About halfway down, I passed a sign for the Seagrass Unitarian Fellowship under some scrubby oak trees that were just turning from green to gold as autumn drew nearer. I could hear shouts and laughter coming from some low-slung buildings I could see in the distance.

I parked next to a few other sedans and an astonishing collection of minivans, some that seemed to date back to the 1990s. Before I could even get out and get my bearings, Gwen jogged out from a white stucco building with solar panels on the roof.

“Nick,” she said, her voice booming like she was on stage at an opera house. “Glad to see you found the place! How’re you doing? Come on in, we’ll get you situated.”

“Hey, Gwen.” I smiled at the sensation I always got around her—that of being greeted by several large, friendly, and enthusiastic Rottweilers. In the two weeks I’d known her, I’d only ever seen Gwen at two settings: excited, and very excited.

“Any trouble finding it?” Gwen asked. “Google Maps sometimes sends people to the bird sanctuary down the road, and you’d be amazed at how many people mix up the Parkway and the Turnpike and end up in Delaware by accident. You’d think the giant bridge would be a sign to them that they’re going in the wrong direction, but apparently not.”

“Yeah, no, it was fine,” I said, knowing she didn’t really need much of a response from me. “No issues.”

“Awesome, awesome. Well, follow me and we’ll get you settled.” Gwen turned and led me into what turned out to be a big dining hall with lots of school lunchroom-style tables. “We’re cafeteria chic here, as you can see,” she said over her shoulder. “There’s an advisors’ room down the hall to the left where you can drop your things. I know sleeping on the floor doesn’t sound that comfortable, but trust me, by the end of the weekend, you’ll be so exhausted that you’ll be able to sleep anywhere. Which is what the youth do, by the way—those who do sleep, anyway—so you’ll be picking your way across piles of sleeping-bagged bodies from Saturday morning onwards. Anyway, most youth groups should be arriving in the next half hour, but Mountview is already here, so why don’t I take you in to meet them, and then we’ll be rolling?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to catch my breath and keep up with her steady stream of talk. At least it didn’t give me very much time to be nervous. “Should I drop my stuff off or—”

“Oh, no need, you can do that in a minute. I’m actually in the middle of a phone call with one of the parents from Linden Hills—they’re lost somewhere on I-295—so if we can just do this quickly—”

She didn’t even wait for a response, just hustled off down a hall to the right. I followed dutifully, taking a huge breath. We stepped into a big lounge area filled with windows and couches—and I stopped dead.

There was a cluster of about ten people sitting on some couches in the middle of the room. The Mountview youth group, I assumed, had been talking amongst themselves, but they all turned when they heard Gwen sweep into the room.

“So, I promised you guys a new advisor this year, and look what the cat just dragged in,” Gwen said. “Everyone, this is Nick Sawyer, divinity student extraordinaire, and brand spanking new youth group advisor. What do you think? Should we keep him?”

Everyone laughed, except one person. One person with blond hair and wide blue eyes that I was used to seeing full of laughter and wide with curiosity. His eyes were wide for a different reason now, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure who was more surprised—me, or Eli.