Yes, this is another shameless plug by yours truly to inform you about The Veritas Award that 'Perfect Strangers' is nominated for. If you love this story and think it is worthy of winning Best Alternate Universe, then please vote for me.

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And as a thank you, here is a sneak peak at the first ever Perfect Strangers One-Shots. I will create a new story called 'Perfect Strangers: One-Shots' (wow, original, right?) so if you have me as a Favorite Author or Alert, then you will know when it is out there. All one-shots will be under that story name. I hope to have it up in the next few days. Until then...

Chapter One - Getting Inked

"Dude! You are going to get what?" Nico, Beckendorf and Rachel exclaimed at the same time.

"A turtle," Percy mumbled again.

"Yeah," said Nico. "That's what we thought you said."

"Perce, that is so macho!" continued Beckendorf.

"Oh lay off him," said Rachel coming to his defense. "I think it's super cute and sweet."

And after a pause of five seconds, the three of them started rolling around and laughing again.

The four of them were chilling in Rachel's bedroom. "Bedroom" is used loosely since it takes over the entire fourth floor of her parent's brownstone on the Upper East Side. It was a cold and snowy Saturday in mid-January.

Percy already had his killer swim workout that morning. Nothing like churning out nine miles in the pool when it is below freezing outside.

Beckendorf already spent two two-hour sessions at the gym trying to get himself even more buff.

Nico, well Nico was finished doing whatever he does when the other two are busy.

Rachel spent that time painting some obscure picture and blasting her angry chick rock music loud enough to drive away her parents to their ski house in Vermont.

It was while she was painting that she came up her brilliant idea. One by one, she called the boys and told them to get their hot little buns to her house.

Pronto!

By chance, they showed up at the same time and when she opened the door, Rachel skipped the normal greeting and informed them, "We are getting tattoos!"

Thank you again for those of you who think doing the one-shots is a good idea and for supporting my nomination.

JustAnotherAthenaGirl - still want to be my Beta?

meeeethegr8 - thanks for vioting and for letting me know it's an awesome idea.

Hello there - I didn't see u - thanks for voting and the wishing me luck.

Silent Movements - thank you for what you wrote and for understanding why created the story the way that I did.

zynaofthenight - You have every chance of winning!

MetalManiacJoe - I couldn't agree more. Working through the pain of a bad relationship makes the right one feel that much better.

EPICThunder (or the friend of) - this review meant a great deal because they were a high school swimmer and suffered the same type of injury that Percy did. He/she said that my chapter described what he/she went through four years ago. I hate to hear of anyone getting injured but it is a wonderful feeling for an author to hear someone say "oh yeah, I so know what you are talking about."

Well, off to write more...

(As always) Happy Reading,

MFP