Gathering at Grace’s house.

And speaking of stepping out of my comfort zone, that Sunday we were all getting together at Grace’s house, and by ‘all’ I mean my girlfriends and I. Grace said that her housemaid and the gardener didn’t work on Sundays. And with her dad away on business and her mom away on a sudden vacation, Grace had no qualms over inviting me and the others to her house with practically no subtleties over what was going to happen in there. She said we’d have her house all to ourselves.

See, on the one hand, I was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea, in the same way I was uncomfortable when Sarah invited me to her house for the first time. Doing dirty things with someone’s daughter in their own house felt… wrong. But on the other hand, these people left my girl alone during Christmas and new years, so fuck them.

You constantly leave your daughter alone, even during important holidays, and expect her to wait there like a good girl? Not like they gave her any good reasons to. No, after that night at my house, my own qualms about going over to Grace’s house were very quickly fading into the background.

In fact, I swallowed my shame and asked mom if I could stay over until tomorrow, at least. Surprisingly, she said yes, and with only a single warning to be responsible.

Mila picked me up at my house and we went together to Grace’s house. We got there at 10:00 am, which was a little later than we had agreed. We waited for the electric gate to open, and as Mila drove in, we saw Sarah’s SUV already parked there.

“Told you we’d be the last ones,” I told Mila.

“Blame my bedsheets! They wouldn’t let me go!”

It was a cute way of saying she overslept, so I forgave her.

In case you don’t remember, Grace’s house is a single story tall, but it’s really wide. It had a stone front and a roof of red tiles. Mila and I walked the stone path in the middle of all the grass and went up to the front door. We rang the doorbell and Sarah was the one who let us in.

“Come in. Make yourselves at home,” she said casually. It got a chuckle out of me. She led us to the living room, where Alice, Noelle and Grace were having breakfast.

The living room was big. Maybe too big. It left a lot of space unused. The sectional couches helped in defining an area to use in all that space since they were set to make a 90 degree angle with a wine-red carpet below and a large coffee table made of dark wood in the middle. On the wall in front of the couches was a tall, wide media cabinet of the same dark wood displaying the large TV, some small sculptures, some pottery and some framed pictures. The floor was also made of wood, but this one clearer and in square patterns, like tiles. The ceiling was high and had two glass chandeliers. The windows were tall, so while narrow, they still let a lot of light in.

“Too much for only two people living here, right?” Grace said, smiling at me as she set her cup of tea down on the coffee table.

“Well… Yeah.”

“This was my grandfather’s house. Dad likes it and refuses to move.”

“I think it’s pretty,” Noelle said. “But yes, it feels like there’s too much space.”

Mila and I went to sit down with everyone. There was a porcelain teapot on the table, as well as a basket with pastries and another with small sandwiches. There were also cups and plates for everyone.

I was about to take a seat next to Grace, but she stopped me, grinning and making shooing gestures with her hands. “Nope. Go away. I had my time with you. It’s someone else’s turn to have you.”

“I’ll have him if you don’t want him, then,” Mila said, pulling me by the arm and making me sit between her and Noelle. The redhead took the opportunity to kiss me on the cheek to draw my attention.

“Did you rest well yesterday?” she asked me.

“Mmm, hard to say,” I told her. “I was busy all day, but I had a good time. I finished building Isabelle’s PC and then spent the rest of the day playing guitar, bass and the ocarina.”

“Ocarina?” Noelle asked, eyes widening. “You have an ocarina?”

“I do now,” I told her. “Thomas gave me one for Christmas.”

The redhead grinned. “Do you think you could play…”

“Way ahead of you,” I told her. Even to me, someone who’s not a big fan of the series, an ocarina is synonymous with a very specific video game, and Noelle knew that, too. “I already started practicing one.”

Her smile grew. “Which one?”

“Song of Storms.”

Mila pouted beside me. “Hm. Maybe I should get into games, too. I get a little jealous when I see you two having these talks.”

“Right?” Alice agreed, giggling. “I think it’s cool that you can nerd out together, but it makes me wish we could do the same.”

“I tried running that game we played at your house on my laptop, but that thing’s too old, apparently,” Sarah said.

Noelle blushed. “We don’t really nerd out a lot.”

“Hmm. I knew this already, but we don’t have a lot in common with Oliver, do we?” Grace asked.

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “He doesn’t like parties like we do.”

“Or going shopping,” Mila added. “Or even using social media.”

Alice shrugged. “Well, I don’t have that much in common with any of you, either. I’m not into using social media like you all are, and I know you don’t particularly enjoy it when I start talking about cars. Oliver at least listens to me.”

“I like listening, though,” I told her. “I’ve learned a lot already. Do we need to have hobbies in common to be together?” I asked.

“Well, clearly not,” Sarah said. “Unless these past five months have been a fluke.”

“And sometimes having things in common doesn’t even help,” Alice said. “I… dated a college guy for a while, someone I met at one of the car meets. That didn’t go very well, even though we were both really into cars.”

“I can attest to that,” Grace agreed. “Having different interests opens up the mind to other possibilities instead of staying cooped up in your own little echo chamber.” She looked at Noelle. “We never would’ve tried that one series if not for Noelle, right?”

“Oh, yeah! That was fun,” Mila said. “Is there any other one that’s kinda like it?”

We ate breakfast in peace, talking about simple things, enjoying each other’s presence. It was after breakfast that things began to get… spicy.

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