Not too particular, not too precise

Nick had a bit of a dilemma on his hands. Unlike so many problems he’d tried to run from in the past, though, this wasn’t something he could just ignore or try to brush under the table.

This was important. He couldn’t just avoid the issues that Amelia had raised- he needed to approach things with a level head, and actually try to make a difference.

And maybe, just maybe, try to take some control in his life.

That’s why, when Amelia pressed him on what they would be doing on this bizarre “family outing” of the three of them, he needed time to come up with a good plan.

When he had one, he was happy to share it.

“Okay, let’s start with this store then,” Nick said, walking through the shopping center. They arrived at a shop he’d been to a few times, that Mary had introduced to him, the bookstore they’d gone to on their first date.

Amelia raised her eyebrow curiously. “A bookstore, is it?”

“Aww, really?” Sylvia groaned. “All that buildup, and this is where you wanted us to go, Daddy? Come on!”

Nick glanced at her and she quickly straightened up, and **** a tight smile onto her face. She zipped up her lips and nodded, pretending like she hadn’t said anything at all.

Clearly though… she wasn’t a fan.

Not sure what Amelia thought, Nick turned to her with cautious optimism, hoping that she’d be okay with this plan.

She seemed ambivalent, which wasn’t a good sign. Then again, emotionless detachment was pretty common from his stepmother, so he couldn’t be sure.

“A bookstore…” she repeated, adjusting her glasses. “Yes, I can see how this would be a good choice for a date.”

That was enough to cause a swell of hope to rise in Nick’s heart, and he couldn’t fight the smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“…So long as you can provide an adequate reason for choosing it.”

And just like that, Nick deflated like a lead balloon.

“W-what?” He stammered, not sure what Amelia meant. “My… reason?”

“Certainly,” Amelia nodded. “Why did you choose to take us to this bookstore? Explain yourself.” Her harsh tone made him flinch, and she realized she needed to ask that question a little better.

“…Excuse me,” she corrected herself, and tried to shift to a gentler tone. “What I mean is… what were you thinking, choosing this store? …No, that’s not right either… I just want to know… was there an underlying thought process behind making this choice? And if so… what was it?”

Nick sighed in relief. So she wasn’t upset with him, she just wanted to know why exactly he’d chosen this place, out of all the available possibilities.

“I was thinking about you,” he replied. “You like reading those thick novels all the time, so I thought you’d enjoy yourself going to the bookstore. I know I did…”

Amelia nodded and stroked her chin contemplatively. “I see… so it was for my sake, then.”

Nick winced. “That… that’s what I should be doing, right? That’s part of making good plans for a date, at least, that’s the way I’ve always thought about it. Choose an activity that your date will enjoy, so that you two can have fun together.”

“Indeed, that’s certainly a good line of thinking to have,” Amelia agreed with him. “…But that can only go so far.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked. His heart sank as he wondered what he’d done wrong this time.

Amelia glanced over to Sylvia, who was still smiling that same **** smile.

“You’re correct that when out with a woman, it’s proper to develop a plan that will show her a good time,” Amelia said, turning back to him and gesturing to her fellow blonde. “But you failed to consider that in this instance, there are two people you need to account for. You chose an activity that I would find engaging, but is it something that your other companion would enjoy?”

Nick tensed. He hadn’t actually thought that far. “W-well…”

“I-I can enjoy a bookstore!” Sylvia said frantically, coming to Nick’s defense. “You don’t need to be so hard on Daddy, I’ll be fine! I’ll enjoy myself all on my own!”

“This is precisely the problem,” Amelia said, indicating to Sylvia again. “Right now, Sylvia is focused on your enjoyment, and putting her own desires second. Because she wants to make this a ‘good date’ for your sake, she’s willing to forgo what she wants to do in favor of maintaining a positive atmosphere within the group. That can be acceptable to a degree. But it is not a dynamic that can exist for an extended period of time within a relationship. She is a person with her own interests and desires, same as everybody else. There is no one in this world who is truly okay with their wishes always coming last, Nicholas. You must understand that. If you aren’t careful, then this is a situation that will repeat itself many times moving forward. You may come up with activities that a large majority of your harem will find enjoyable, but a small minority will not. But because they do not wish to cause any problems within the group, they will smile and withstand things they do not enjoy, simply for the sake of making you and the other women in your harem happy. If you don’t develop the ability to recognize that and find a way to prioritize their needs as well, then you will cause those girls great pain.”

Nick stood frozen in place as Amelia’s words came crashing down on him like a pile of bricks. He thought of the more assertive and forceful women he knew who wanted to have things their way, and then he thought of the passive types, who were more willing to go with the flow. He cared about them all regardless, but…

“You… you’re right,” he said, hanging his head. “I need to get better about that.”

It wasn’t Sylvia he was thinking of when he said that, though. He was thinking about Gina.

How much had he really done to accommodate Gina’s needs? To take an interest in her, and what she actually wanted? Because the punk girl was so good at going with the flow and just doing whatever felt nice, he passively accepted their dynamic because it was easy.

But more likely than not, she wanted to be the priority sometimes too. She wanted to do things that the rest of the group didn’t, but never did anything to assert herself.

He’d be a fool not to think that was the case.

A small smile touched Amelia’s lips, and he finally saw a gleam of approval in her eyes. “I cannot imagine that it’s an easy task, trying to accommodate for the needs of so many women,” she said gently, for once not having any issue communicating her true feelings to her stepson. “And don’t think you’re alone in making those mistakes. People in all manner of relationships grow complacent, and take their partner’s desire to not rock the boat as a tacit agreement of support. That is precisely why communication is so vital in a relationship.”

These were hard truths that it had taken Amelia a significant amount of time to learn. Because they were a reflection of her own flaws.

Because I so often assume people can grasp my intentions with so few words, I say things in ways that don’t properly convey my meaning. And that has to stop.

It was a learning process, and one she still struggled with daily. But hopefully, even if all her counseling sessions were slow to improve her own situation, at the very least they could be used for the benefit of her treasured stepson.

“…So what now, then?” Nick mumbled. He’d been thoroughly humbled by Amelia’s harsh appraisal of his first idea, and now he didn’t know what to do as a backup.

“I won’t tell you,” Amelia replied. After a long pause in which she observed the tension in Nick’s face, she determined that more elaboration was necessary. “What I mean is… you’re the one who needs to decide for yourself what to do next.”

“I-I know that,” he said, his face heating up. He glanced at Sylvia, who looked as tense as he felt. “I just…”

“If, if this is about what I said before, um…” Sylvia had no idea what to say. What even was her role in all this? Had she really just been brought here for Amelia to use as an example of when Nick messed up? If so, that really sucked…

“Sylvia, if you don’t want to go to the bookstore, we can think of something else to do,” Nick said, trying to appeal to her. “I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can come up with something that all three of us can enjoy!”

“R-right! Good thinking, Daddy!” Sylvia nodded enthusiastically. “And I’m really easy to please, so it won’t be hard at all!”

“Rejected.”

Nick turned to Amelia in disbelief. “Wh-what?”

Amelia crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes into a stern glare. “Rejected,” she repeated, but this time she refused to elaborate.

Nick just stared at his stepmother in confusion. “Wh-what do you mean by ‘rejected’?” He asked. “Are you saying you don’t want to come up with anything we can all enjoy together?”

“That’s so mean!” Sylvia gasped. “I… I thought we were having fun! Are you just going to be a buzzkill the whole time and shoot down whatever ideas we come up with, then?”

Amelia stared blankly at the two of them, and then nodded slightly. “…Yes.”

“WHY?!”

Nick and Sylvia cried out in simultaneous disbelief, and then glanced at each other. Neither of them could make any sense of the sudden militant shift in Amelia’s position.

“Allow me to explain my position clearly,” Amelia said, adjusting her glasses and relaxing her posture a hair. “Whatever ideas you and Sylvia come up with, I will reject them. That will be an activity that I would not want to do on this date. Is that understood?”

Nick tensed for a moment, but then he saw something in his stepmother’s gaze that gave him pause. Her eyes gleamed behind the lenses of her glasses with a flash of a challenge, and he realized that he was being purposefully put on the spot like this.

Amelia was testing him with this statement, trying to get him to figure something out and respond properly.

It was a pain in the ass… but Nick had to believe that she wasn’t just being difficult for the hell of it. No, she was trying to get him to realize something, in the worst way possible.

But it might also be the only way she’d be able to get him to listen to reason.

Nick took a deep breath and then exhaled. “…Okay. I just want to be clear. When you’re saying that anything Sylvia and I come up with will be an activity that you don’t want to do, does that mean you’re opposed to it? You’d just flat-out refuse?”

Amelia’s eyes widened slightly and then she shook her head. “No. But it is not an activity that I would choose for myself, if it were up to me. You’d be choosing to do something that I would not enjoy as much as either of you.”

Way to be difficult. But Nick thought there might be something he could work with in there.

“Even though you don’t even know what it is?” He pressed.

She shook her head again. “It doesn’t matter what it is.” She nodded her head at the bookstore. “I’d like to go and read in the bookstore. That’s what I want to do. There’s no other activity you can come up with that would make me as happy as that. End of story.”

And with that, she shut her mouth tight and drilled two holes into Nick’s skull with her glare.

Evidently, that was the last hint she had for him. But he still didn’t know what to make of it. He glanced over to Sylvia, who looked tensely back at him, and all she could do was shrug.

“I-I don’t know, Daddy,” she mumbled. “In that case, maybe we should just do the bookstore then, I guess…”

True. Sylvia’s objection to the bookstore wasn’t nearly as forceful as Amelia’s objection to anything other than the bookstore. But at the same time, his stepmother had just chewed him out for prioritizing one woman’s happiness over the other, so did she really want him to-

Wait… could it really be that simple?

For a moment, Nick wondered if he was making this whole mess more complicated than it needed to be. But Amelia couldn’t seriously be suggesting… right?

“…How about this?” He said slowly, glancing from Amelia over to Sylvia, and then back to his stepmother again. “How about we compromise?”

Amelia raised her eyebrow, and a look of intrigue flashed across her face. “A compromise?”

“Huh!? But Daddy, she just said she didn’t want to compromise,” Sylvia groaned.

“No, she said she didn’t want to agree to any other activities that we came up with,” Nick said, shaking his head. “There’s a difference.”

He didn’t miss the imperceptible nod of confirmation his stepmother gave.

“So what other compromise would there be?” Sylvia questioned.

Nick wondered if she really didn’t get it, or if she was in on this with his stepmother and this whole thing was one big performance put on by the two of them. He really couldn’t dismiss that possibility, even if he doubted that was the case.

More importantly…

“We just do both,” he said. “Remember my dates with the other girls? The ones you **** us to go on?” He tried to jog Sylvia’s memory and found that he didn’t have to. She nodded cheerfully.

“Yeah, what about ‘em?” She shrugged. “It was a great way to get you to interact with the women in your harem!”

“I know,” Nick nodded. “But you had us each do two activities together, one before lunch and one after lunch. So how about that for a compromise? We spend the rest of the morning in the bookstore, like how Amelia wants to do, and then after lunch, we do something you want to do? Does that sound fair enough for everybody?”

He really hoped that would work. It seemed like that was the answer Amelia had been trying to lead him towards, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Well, I guess that works for me,” Sylvia nodded. “I mean, I don’t like books and reading very much, but I’m just glad you’re thinking of me, Daddy. Trying to find something we can do together that I’d like too, you know?”

Nick sighed in relief. So she wasn’t against the idea, then. That was good.

Now he just needed to brave the wall of ice that was the impenetrable Amelia Campbell.

“What do you think?” Nick asked her, trying not to sound too much like an anxious child again.

“…What do I think about what?” Amelia cryptically replied.

She still wasn’t making this easy on him.

“The compromise,” Nick pressed a little harder. “That way, everyone gets what they want. It means you’ll have to do something you don’t want to do, but-”

“I don’t care about that,” Amelia cut him off.

Nick winced. “You… you don’t?”

Fuck, did I get it wrong?

Amelia blinked, and then shook her head. “I apologize. That did not come out correctly. What I mean is that I do not care about doing something I don’t want to do,” she clarified. “That was never the point, Nicholas.”

She approached him, and her cold expression changed into a subtle smile.

“I was trying to test you,” she explained.

Yeah, I figured that was the case. Nick didn’t like that their outing today had turned into a series of tests for him. But at the same time, he couldn’t really object to her actions, either. It was clear Amelia was trying to help him confront problems that were likely to arise from his situation… and this time was no different.

“You’re trying to entertain two women at the same time,” Amelia said, glancing at Sylvia. “Sometimes, that will be a simple matter. If you can find an activity that all parties can enjoy, that would be the ideal. However…”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, you can’t always be sure that’ll happen. I totally get it.”

Like trying to take Holly or Dawn on a hiking trip with Carly, or trying to take Mary or Morgana to a dive bar to shoot pool with Gina. Some of the women in his harem had interests and desires that were simply incompatible in certain situations, and it was childish to think he- or anyone- would be able to come up with activities that everyone would find enjoyable, even if he could sacrifice his own happiness and interest to do it.

No… that was almost never going to be an option, and that’s why Amelia had been so belligerent in her objection.

She wanted me to realize that I’m not always going to have a perfect answer, and I’m going to need to come up with a plan to compromise.

“To suggest we spend some period of time doing something that one of your partners will enjoy, and the rest of the time doing something that the other would enjoy, is an adequate response,” Amelia said, her face glimmering with approval. “…But not a perfect one.”

Nick winced. Of course, nothing was ever good enough for her.

“There are a few issues with your proposed compromise,” Amelia continued. “Not necessarily in the idea itself, but rather, in the execution.”

“The execution?” Nick questioned.

She nodded. “For example, when making a proposal like that, at the very least, the proposed activities should not be things that one of the parties is completely against. It is one thing if only one person is having a fun, and the other is merely tolerating it- that can be acceptable. But if someone is demonstrably not enjoying themselves because the proposed activity is something they despise, that is not a fair sacrifice they’re making.”

“I see what you mean,” Nick agreed. “So when I come up with something that Sylvia would enjoy, I need to make sure it’s not something that you’d actively dislike. Just something you’d not be interested in, like how Sylvia isn’t interested in reading.”

“Does that mean no sex dungeon!?” Sylvia exclaimed.

Amelia and Nick both stared at her.

“…Kidding. That was a joke. Come on, you two are so serious!” Sylvia groaned, kicking a pebble down the road.

Amelia cleared her throat and turned back to Nick. “You’re half correct,” she said. “But there’s one other thing that you need to consider, when planning activities that you can do in groups. It isn’t just about one woman enjoying it and one not- you need to take another factor into consideration that will affect the happiness of the group.”

Nick tensed. “Really?” He questioned, not sure what she was getting at. But his stepmom was a lot smarter than he was, so it made sense she’d be onto something that he wouldn’t necessarily understand. “…What is it?”

A mysterious smile turned up Amelia’s lips and she brushed past him, glancing over her shoulder as she headed into the bookstore. “Use today to find out about it,” she said cryptically, walking inside.

Nick groaned. Just what I needed. Another freaking test.

This was Amelia’s night, and the levels of difficulty she was presenting him with were hard to get past.