All First Chapter Samples

How were there never any normal questions from anyone in the entire town?

“I’m…I don’t know?” I wasn’t even sure what the question meant, much less how to answer it.

The old man sighed and looked at me almost sadly, like he thought I was stupid. Some people said I was too cute to be a scientist but no one had ever said I looked like an idiot.

But this one was shaking his head.

“What flavor of little are you?” Enunciating the words slowly, he kept going with the strange topic. “We just need to know your category so we can make sure we match you up right.”

Tough guys didn’t scream. Even when something knocked on the window in the middle of the night. But gasping a little and taking some deep breaths were perfectly acceptable—especially since I was only eight. Getting out of bed and going over to the window in my small room made me all kinds of badass, though.

“Shit, man, are you trying to kill me?” Opening the window, my chest finally stopped pounding when I realized it was Hayden. I didn’t have to fake being badass for him. He knew me too well.
Hayden had been my best friend and neighbor for as long as I could remember. He’d just always been there. But that wasn’t surprising. My mother always complained that once people moved into the trailer park where we lived, it was where they stayed until they died.

Since Mr. Murphy’s trailer had gotten hauled away last week after his heart attack a few months ago, she must have actually been right about that. I thought she’d just been being dramatic like my grandma had claimed.

“I’m sorry, Trent.” Hayden’s voice was so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it.

“Climb in. You don’t have to whisper. Grandma don’t have her hearing aids in at night and Mom’s over at her boyfriend’s.” Grandma didn’t have many rules, but one of them was no sleepovers. The only exception was for Hayden and that was just because Grandma thought his parents were worse than white trash. But she wouldn’t tell me what that was.

All I could figure out was that it was someone who drank a lot and never had enough food in the house.

He was naked.

Wait. Could a species that didn’t have genitals really be naked?

Did they have genitals?

They kept claiming that since they didn’t have legs, pants weren’t necessary, but when they used two of their main tentacles for walking and the others as de facto arms, well, it seemed like pants would be important even if they didn’t have a dick hanging out.

Not that a penis would’ve been troubling.

I mean, I was in the process of interviewing for a job as a porn star, so seeing someone’s junk wasn’t going to be a problem. But I hadn’t expected to see anyone naked while I was filling out paperwork.

Man, this place was weird.

I loved it.

“May I request occupational-specific introductions?” The alien…tentacle guy…the sexy as fuck dude looked over at the admin, who’d been slowly handing me the paperwork she said I needed to fill out.

“He’s gay, right?”

Scott snorted. I didn’t need to glance over at him to picture the frustrated look on his face. “He’s in a gay bar, wearing skintight jeans, a see-through shirt, and some stud who’s probably got a hot accent just bought him a drink. What do you think?”

I knew right off the bat how to drain the smug sound from his voice. “I have three words for you. Pizza. Delivery. Guy.”

It was like a balloon deflating. “Oh, okay…so he might be gay.”

And we were back to square one. “Do you think he’s gay?”

Scott took a moment to think it through, and I glanced over to see his wide shoulders shrug. “I really think the pizza guy was an anomaly. Who flirts with gay guys to get bigger tips?”

Evidently, we either tipped too much or were suckers.