So there's this girl...

[Dr. Nic†]

[Joshua Edwards - Continued from Gotta Go Fast]

"Hey, can I ask you for some advice?" Joshua said, turning his head to look at his uncle on the other side of the garage. He had been there for a few hours now, working with his uncle on yet another guitar. It had been a couple months since Joshua started work as a luthier with his uncle, and the work was slow, but it was rewarding; against the far wall, sitting on the shelves, sat three completed guitars. They each had been hand crafted, and they showed it; Joshua's inexperience and poor ability were very evident in the first, but the other two were significantly better looking. The work was far from professional, but they weren't shooting for professional. They were shooting for playable and plain, at least with the guitars; Thomas had an order for a violin for one of Joshua's classmates, and the pieces for that were sitting on the shelf below the work table, covered with a canvas cloth. Joshua had been busy working for hours on the backboard and sides of their current project, but his focus was elsewhere. He had been sanding down the back, smoothing out the edges and fine tuning the shape after having cut them, but his mind was on Bianca, rather than the work. Beautiful blonde-haired Bianca, with hips to die for, legs that just went on, and those deep blue eyes that Joshua just couldn't get enough of.

"Shoot," Thomas responded, putting down the headstock of the guitar. It took a moment before Joshua set aside his own tools and turned to face his uncle, who was brushing sawdust off of his clothes. "Well, I've got this friend... no, no, that's not it. See, there's this girl... and, well," Joshua said, stumbling over his words and not quite getting his thoughts out there. He was nervous and it showed, and as he tried to assemble his thoughts, he brushed the sawdust off of his hands and picked off bits of curled wood. Thomas was the one who picked the conversation up. "You want to ask her out, huh?" he said with a smirk, eying his nephew. Joshua could only manage a nod, and opening his mouth, but nothing came out. "Should've known. Well, how long have you known her?" Joshua took a deep breath and settled himself. If asking his uncle for advice on how to ask out Bianca was this hard, he couldn't imagine what it would be like to ask his brothers.

"Alright, so, I've been dating her for a while, and prom is coming up soon," Joshua said, pausing for a moment to brush off a bit of sawdust from his sleeve. He was stalling for time, hoping his uncle would get the idea, but it seemed that Joshua would just have to keep talking. His uncle was just staring at him and waiting for him to finish his sentence, and even started to motion for Joshua to get on with it. Another deep breath, and Joshua dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. Come on. You can do this. It's not the first time you've asked for advice. Man the fuck up, dude, he thought to himself and looked his uncle in the eye. His uncle had always told him to maintain eye contact when talking with someone. "Right. Prom is coming up soon, and I'd like to ask her out, but I can't come up with any way of doing it. I mean, I've thought of a few things, but they all seem terrible and not good enough. And whatever does sound good enough just seems like it would fit better in an 80s teen movie," he said, speaking a little fast and barely even pausing to breathe. He wasn't used to asking advice, especially when it came to girls; the earliest advice he'd gotten had been from Micheal, and even then, that had just been "Wing it. If you fuck up, oh well. Try again." Somehow, that didn't seem like good advice to apply to asking out your girlfriend to prom.

Thomas stared at Joshua for a moment, a smile on his face, and he was starting to make Joshua nervous again until he spoke up. "Alright. Well, don't worry about making it unforgettable, and don't worry about making it something too special. Yeah, it's prom, but if you worry about it and try to go out of your way to make it special, it ain't going to work. Brad had the same problem when his prom rolled around, and I'll give you the same advice I gave him. Take her out on a date," he said, and stifled a laugh when Joshua just gave him an incredulous look. "Look, coming up with something really special takes time, usually takes money, and you've got to know what the girl wants before you can do something she'll always remember. Until you find that out, just take her out. Hell, take notes on the things she likes and come up with something from those. You're a smart boy and you'll come up with something. And if you can't make anything really special, then a bouquet of her favorite flowers and a nice date is always a good way to ask anyone to prom. I know, it worked on Brad's mother."

It took a moment for Joshua to process what his uncle had said, and he was silent for some time afterward, trying to think of what Bianca liked, where she would like to go, what her favorite flowers were, and other things to take into account. When he finished figuring all of that out, he gave his uncle a smile. "Thanks. I think... I think that works. I don't know if I'll be able to stop worrying, but thanks for the advice. I'll try it," he said, and turned back to his work. His uncle went on to give him ideas and ask him about Bianca, and they made small talk until they finished the work for the day. Joshua was enjoying the work that went in to making a guitar, and he hoped to put the skills he was learning to work in making his own guitar some time in the future. However he asked Bianca out, he wanted it to be nice. He didn't want to be the guy asking out his girl over text message, and he didn't just want to ask her out at school. He wanted it to be nice, and if he could, he wanted to make it special. I wonder what her favorite flowers are.

[Joshua Edwards - Continued in Watch the Birdie]