It was almost noon when they woke up, eating breakfast in a surprisingly domestic manner despite their nudity, though it had something to do with their long marathon exhausting Mia.
He had been equally exhausted at first, but Endurance meant he recovered faster … especially since he occasionally cheated by relying on his fingers, which got even more effective thanks to Expert Piano and 60 Agility.
Mia looked extraordinary as she perched on the couch naked, her elegance turning the otherwise ordinary couch into a facsimile of a regal throne.
He admired her for it.
Most beautiful women looked either cute or sexy when they were naked.
Mia looked regal.
It took more than just nudity to break that layer … luckily, those he didn’t lack either.
The previous night had been magnificent indeed.
Unlike her, he wasn’t naked because he was about to cook breakfast.
Cooking naked was a dangerous idea.
He was sipping his coffee, trying to decide how to break that royal aura to unlock her hidden naughty stripper once again when his phone buzzed, breaking his thoughts.
Alex.
Worse, it was not a text but a call.
Alex didn’t call without texting first, unless something was wrong.
He answered directly.
“Hey.”
“I need to not be at my house right now,” Alex started, her voice tighter than he had heard it.
She sounded perfectly in control; it was under control like trying to further squeeze an already tight screw until it destroyed the threads.
“I know it’s early and I know you said you had a shoot that might extend, but I’m in my car and I’m driving and I don’t want to go to work and I don’t want to go to my dorm and I —”
“Come here.”
“Are you sure?
Are you alone?”
“I’m not.
But we’re having breakfast, and we have coffee.
Come here.”
A pause.
A breath that shuddered slightly at the edges.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Alex, I’m sure,” he said.
“Alright.
Ten minutes.”
He hung up and looked at Mia.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.
But a friend of mine is having a bad morning and needs somewhere to decompress.
I invited her, and she’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“She?” she said, her head nodding toward the bedroom.
“Yes, she,” he said calmly.
Mia processed this, looking tense, surprise flashing across her face.
“Should I leave?” she asked, almost as if she were trying to give him a graceful exit.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” he replied.
She paused, a flicker of uncertainty passing across her face.
“You want me to meet her,” she said.
“I want you to be comfortable.
If you’d rather leave, I will understand, but I prefer if you stay.”
She paused.
“Isn’t it backward?
I thought you should be trying to kick me out, and I insist on staying.
Especially since…”
“Since what?” he asked, and she said nothing, blushing.
He chuckled.
“Her family managed to get on her nerves, and she didn’t want to go back to her dorm since she’s taking a sabbatical.”
“Family, sabbatical?” she asked, her face tensing.
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen,” he said, and she immediately tensed.
The silence that followed had texture.
Mia looked at him with a recalibrating eye, the kind of look that reassessed not just the information but the person delivering it.
“Nineteen,” she repeated.
“Ethan, she’s a teenager.”
“Well, I’m twenty-two, hardly an absurd age gap, right?”
That made Mia’s eyes widen.
“You’re twenty-two?” she gasped, her eyes widening.
Mia pulled back slightly, not physically but expressively, her brow creasing.
He smirked.
“Is that a problem?”
She paused.
“It should,” she said, then shook her head.
“But it’s not.
I just assumed you’re older.
Late twenties, at least.
You carry yourself like someone who’s lived more than that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, even though you called me ancient and boring.”
“It wasn’t entirely a compliment,” she said, but she smiled.
She tucked the sheet tighter around herself, a self-conscious gesture that was new.
“I’m almost thirty, Ethan.”
“Almost thirty?” he asked.
“Since when do women count their age that way.”
“Fine, I’m twenty-six.
Still, I’m four years older than you.”
He chuckled.
“Now that’s surprising.
I’m not going to give any number, but I assumed you to be younger, but your beauty makes it hard to guess.
Not that it matters.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Of course it doesn’t.
As long as everyone involved are adults, age has no bearing on anything,” he replied.
He could still see her hesitancy.
“You still want to leave?”
Mia nodded.
“I don’t think I’ll have anything in common with a college … airhead,” she said.
He smirked.
Her words were not the nicest, but under the circumstances, he didn’t mind, especially since for an insult to work, it had to have at least a little link.
Alex was the furthest away from the title airhead.
However, he was mean enough to turn that into a little bet.
“How about this?
Stay, and if you feel underwhelmed, you’ll decide our next activity,” he said.
“If not, I pick.”
“Like a museum outing?” She asked, the implication clear.
“That … and more,” he said.
That made her smile.
“Fine,” she said.
Then she paused.
“Does she know about me?”
“She knows that I have a friend having breakfast.
She doesn’t know about you specifically, not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time I met with Alex, I was yet to meet you,” he told her, reminding that while their night had been intense, they had just met.
She blushed.
“Good point,” she said as she stood up.
“I better go dress,” she said.
“As much as I would love to see how Alex would react to it, it’s a good call,” he said.
Mia chuckled as she left.
Too bad.
It would have distracted Alex from her problems.
He chuckled while he quickly whipped a few more crepes, registering another benefit of Agility.
It improved cooking; his sliced fruits far smoother, and his pancakes flipped perfectly.
It took about fifteen minutes for a knock on the door.
Five times, rapid and sharp, the knock of someone whose knuckles were proxies for a frustration she couldn’t otherwise express.
Ethan opened the door and saw her frustrated. This story is hosted at g.com.
He also saw she was wearing fresh makeup, and she had probably changed her shirt to something more revealing than she had left home with.
He suspected that she did so after learning he had a guest.
He decided to start with a hug.
She stiffened in surprise, then she hugged him back, tight.
He pulled her inside and closed the door.
“Tough day,” he asked.
“Yes, my family is crazy.
My mother decided her daughters are growing up to be underachievers just because I took a break from college.
Like I’m anything like my harebrained sister who got kicked out of college,” she said.
That was the moment Mia entered the room.
He caught her gaze, and sighed.
Mia had come ready to fight, considering she was wearing one of his button-up shirts, and nothing else.
She might as well have written on her forehead.
Not that he was complaining.
In the spectrum of things she could do to retaliate, an obvious hint was better than a golf club to his knees.
Alex also paused when she saw Mia walk out and froze.
That didn’t surprise him either.
Alex was beautiful, but she also made a point of dressing frumpishly with little to no makeup until they met.
A few days were nowhere near enough to solve her insecurities.
And, Mia was a professional ballerina with an impressive natural beauty, like Alex’s worst dream.
Well, second worst dream, Haley being the first, but he would cross that bridge when it was.
“H-Hi,” Alex said, suddenly self-conscious as she tugged her skirt desperately while Mia watched her.
“Hi,” Mia said.
“Hi,” Alex repeated, in a voice that had climbed half an octave.
“How about a coffee?” he offered.
“I would like that,” Alex said as she immediately retreated to the kitchen.
He caught Mia’s gaze, who had a victorious smirk on her face.
He just smirked, very happy to keep the discussion there.
“Who’s she?” Alex growled in a whisper once they were at the kitchen.
“Did you call me specifically to ruin my day further by sending me to a pit of insecurity—” she started, but he leaned forward, stole a kiss to distract her.
“She’s Mia.
A ballerina and a good friend who assisted me in a small art project,” he said.
“A ballerina…” she whispered furiously.
“You understand that it makes it worse, right!”
He chuckled as he kissed her again.
“Look.
Go out there and talk with her while I finish cooking the pancakes.
She doesn’t bite …” he started, then smirked.
“Much.”
The joke, terrible as it might be, distracted Alex from her panic.
“We’ll talk about it later,” she said with an angry glare, grabbing her cup of coffee.
Alex went to sit across Mia, feeling self-conscious, which made Mia even more confident in her judgment.
He knew that it was rude for him to watch in amusement rather than intervening and solving the issue, but he decided to stay as an observer for a moment.
“So…” Alex muttered shyly after almost two minutes of stressful silence.
“Ethan mentioned that you’re a ballerina.
Anything I might know?”
“Maybe,” Mia said in a tone that implied there was no chance.
“We’re trying to put together a display for Paquita, but it’s slow going,” she said.
“Paquita Étoile is kicking my ass.”
That made Alex gasp.
“Paquita Étoile?
Really?
That’s like the hardest of the classical ballets.
And, you’re the principal ballerina?”
That made Mia’s eyes widen in surprise.
“You know ballet?
Did you dance?”
“No,” she shook her head.
“I have absolutely no sense of balance, so it’s always out for me,” she said.
“But I like to read about arts; it’s relaxing.”
“Really?” Mia said, her earlier disdain turning into a more neutral expression.
“Any preference?”
“Tough call,” she said.
“Each discipline has its own charm.
But if I were to choose, I’ll probably go between impressionist painting and classical music,” she said.
“Oh, impressionist painting?
Any favorites?”
“I’ll go with Bracquemond,” Alex replied.
“Interesting choice?
Why?” Mia asked.
Alex took a deep breath, ready to launch into a lecture.
“Well, it’s the way she uses color.
But I’m also impressed by her determination to continue painting even as people around her tried to stop her.
An early feminist icon, long before it’s referred to that way.”
As Alex delivered that, Mia’s eyebrows rose.
She caught his gaze, this time shrugging in surrender.
After all, having not only knowledge but strong opinions on obscure nineteenth-century impressionist painters was not exactly something one would expect from a ‘bimbo’.
To think that it was not even the beginning of her surprise.
Luckily, while Mia was slightly annoyed at his trap, she didn’t try to attack Alex in response.
Instead, she engaged with her.
“An interesting angle…” Mia said, responding.
Alex had another point, and just like that, they started discussing many artists before settling on discussing the merits of Edgar Degas, which he only knew because Mia had mentioned it before.
He continued to listen to their talk, as he was able to follow some of it thanks to overlapping knowledge, and Intelligence allowed him to deduce the rest.
Seeing them get along was fun.
Alex was much more comfortable whenever a discussion happened on a factual basis, and Mia was just an art lover.
“Breakfast time,” he finally said, coming to them with warm food that he had plated carefully, Agility helping him.
Small details mattered.
He sat next to them, as if he hadn’t just introduced two girls he had been … exercising with and passed a potentially explosive situation.
“Ethan,” Mia said once she sat down.
“You should have mentioned that Alex is majoring in art history—”
“She’s not,” he said, while Alex looked just surprised.
“What?” Mia asked.
Alex suddenly looked self-conscious.
“I’m majoring in Engineering and Physics,” Alex muttered, looking self-conscious.
Mia seemed surprised at it.
“Double major?
That’s amazing.
Why are you telling it like you just got out of prison?” she asked.
“Well, I’m a bit of of know-it-all,” she admitted.
“Hardly the favorite person at the parties.”
Mia smiled.
“So am I,” she said.
“Yeah, right?” Alex said dismissively, looking at her.
Mia sighed.
“Believe or not, a serious ballerina who goes to bed at nine-thirty almost every night and limits herself to two glasses of wine a week and has soda once a month as a cheat day is not exactly Miss Popularity.”
Alex laughed.
Small, surprised, the laugh of someone who had been braced for hostility and received kinship instead.
“That’s enough heart-to-heart,” he said with a chuckle.
“Now, eat your pancakes before they get cold,” he said.
“That’s too much pancake,” Mia said.
“I’ll help you burn it off,” he said, which made Mia cough and Alex blush.
“What?” he said, not hiding his smirk.
“What, you chose to wear that shirt to make a statement?
You can’t expect me to act like I never saw you naked.”
“Ethan,” Mia growled, while Alex blushed.
“I’m talking about our photoshoot,” he teased.
“Alex, do you want to see them after breakfast?” he said.
“I think I really surpassed myself last night.”
Alex blushed even worse.
“Ethan,” she gasped.
“Unfortunately, this time he’s being serious.
We had spent something like five hours working on a concept based on the Impressionism movement, actually.”
“It’s photography?
How?” Alex asked.
Mia shrugged.
“I don’t know either.
I don’t usually engage with photography much beyond the occasional marketing material, but he surprised me,” Mia said.
“Yeah, for a sarcastic bastard, he has a tendency to pull some surprising tricks.
I was surprised that he could play the cello that well.
He’s better than my teacher, good enough to play in an orchestra.”
“That’s one thing.
There are many artists with multiple skills.
I was more surprised when he just casually rebuilt my website,” Mia said.
That made Alex pause.
“Wait, you can program websites as well?” she said.
He shrugged.
“I told you.
I dabble,” he said.
Alex looked at him suspiciously.
“That’s what you said about playing the cello as well,” she said.
He smirked.
“You’re enjoying it, are you?” she said.
“Of course,” he said shamelessly.
“I have the attention of two beautiful and smart women on me, trying to decipher my secrets.
Naturally, I’m enjoying it,” he said.
“No, we’re not going to give you the attention you’re begging for,” Alex suddenly said.
“That’s how I deal with my hyperactive young brother.”
“That’s how I deal with the children in my class as well,” Mia added.
He stood up, pressed his hand to his chest, and delivered a pretty impressive extended death scene, straight out of Macbeth.
“Let’s ignore him,” the girls said at the same time, grabbed their plates, and moved to the table holding the laptop, and Mia started to show Alex the pictures they had taken first.
Instead of teasing them further, he gathered the plates and started washing them, his apartment lacking a dishwasher.
He expected Mia and Alex not to clash, but seeing them actually get along was a nice surprise.
He watched from a distance as they talked, laptop became their common ground, the photographs a shared text they could both read from different angles.
They both lacked the formal grounding in photography, but that made their exploration even more interesting; especially since Alex liked listening when the topic engaged her as much as she liked talking, and Mia wasn’t too different.
He could have interrupted them, but instead, he chose to open a few articles and focus on reading.
“You’re silent, Ethan,” Mia asked.
“Having me discuss those photos won’t help,” he said.
“La mort de l’auteur?” Alex asked.
“Exactly.
As the creator, my involvement with the material ends the moment I create it.
My comments can only reduce the meaning, not enhance it,” he said.
“I can answer if you have technical questions, but I won’t get into the discussion of meaning.”
“A good distinction,” Alex admitted.
They nodded before they returned to their discussion, while he returned to his reading, focusing on modern photography to understand whether the information granted by the skill was comprehensive or if it had some gaps.
It seemed like a reasonable precaution.
He only stopped to refill Mia and Alex’s coffees, and returned them.
However, when he arrived at their side, he grabbed Mia’s chin, and delivered a searing kiss that left her gasping.
Then, he turned to Alex, who looked at them with a mixture of fascination and jealousy, grabbed her chin, and repeated it.
If Mia was gasping, Alex was dazed.
After all, the last time he kissed, he didn’t have a long list of advantages.
“Bastard,” Mia muttered, but that didn’t prevent her smile.
He smiled, as it was starting to become a common insult, but he found it funny.
He returned to his chores.
They continued to talk about the pictures passionately even as they moved to the couch, their legs crossed, talking like they had been friends for months rather than just hours, casually discussing even Mia’s naked pictures.
Admittedly, they were abstract works, which made sense.
A while later, his reading was interrupted by a gasp.
He raised his head, only to see the screen showing Mia … no longer dancing, but wearing the midnight blue nightie.
They both paused.
They could have ignored it, but he decided to intervene, not wanting to miss such a perfect point to change the nature of their friendship.
“It’s a beautiful photo, isn’t it, Alex?” he asked as he walked to them, grabbed the laptop, and sat between them.
They both shuffled, surprised yet captivated.
“Well,” Alex said, gulping.
“Objectively, you’re right,” she said.
“The lighting is simpler, but it still shows the subject in a perfect…” she continued, trying to maintain the earlier tone, but failing utterly.
Even Mia blushed, and it was she who was on the screen.
“Mia, do you want to show the rest of them to Alex?” he whispered, soft enough that only she heard.
Mia looked at him, paused for a moment, and nodded.
“Perfect,” he said, then turned to Alex.
“Why don’t you take over the slide show,” he said even as he put his hands on their thighs, Alex on the left, Mia on the right, his fingers already disappearing under their clothes.
Mia still wore no underwear, while pushing Alex’ panties had been simple enough.
It was absurdly reckless, but it was also the benefit of pushing them out of their comfort zone.
They ended up surprisingly passive, letting him take the lead.
He had no intention of surrendering the lead in question.
Which led to a very little fun start, where he was letting his fingers dance at their entrance.
They said nothing, but soon their moans started to ring.
He watched as Alex leaned forward, caught Mia’s gaze, who nodded.
Just like that, they leaned towards him and started kissing his neck.
At the same time, their hands sneaked down, freed his shaft and wrapped one hand each, Alex taking the bottom side while Mia took the top.
His fingers danced, Perception allowing him to manage the intensity to make sure their buildup matched … and five minutes later, they exploded in matching moans.
Perfect timing.
[Achievement complete.
Three is not always a crowd with Alex Dunphy.
Challenge: Hard]
[+10 Intelligence
1 Random Gold Skill
1 Random Gold Reward]
[Achievement complete.
Three is not always a crowd with Mia.
Challenge: Medium]
[+5 Agility
1 Random Silver Skill
1 Random Silver Reward]
While they tried to recover from the explosion, he noticed something.
Mia didn’t give any bonus … suggesting that he had read her earlier expression perfectly.
That her relationship with Charlie had come to an end.
Before he could consider the implications, or even make a choice on the rewards, Alex’s phone rang.
She answered it as she walked away, only for her euphoric expression to evaporate immediately.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Luke.
I’ll kill you!” she declared, her fury back on the surface.
“Don’t touch anything else.
I’ll be there.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My brother decided the robot I was building as a final project is a toy, and broke it.
I need to leave … sorry.”
“Don’t even apologize,” he said as he stood up and hugged her.
“It’s important.”
“Yes, Alex.
Our responsibilities are—” Mia started, only for her eyes to widen and she checked her phone.
“No.
I only have twenty minutes until my class.
I got distracted,” she gasped.
She turned to him.
“That’s your fault!”
Ethan smirked.
“Well, that’s true.”
But, as tempting as it was to keep them back, he just watched as they changed and dashed out of his house, leaving him alone.
“Well,” he said with a chuckle.
He wasn’t expecting his fun midday adventure to come to a rapid end, leaving him with blue balls.
Still, it had been an excellent Saturday morning brunch…