"Well, look who finally got home from his extra credit assignment." Mrs. Murphy greeted as Milo entered the house, the rest of the family sitting in the living room watching game shows, but then she got a better look at Milo. His nice dress shirt was covered in tomato sauce. "Oh, Milo, what happened?"

"The show ended early, so we went out for pizza. There was an accident." Milo sighed, picking at his shirt, looking to the side, remembering it. Amanda hadn't reacted well.

"Shoot, let me get these into the wash with some stain remover." Milo had already lifted his arms and dropped his backpack away in anticipation, so Bridgette was able to strip him of his shirt and jacket, leaving him in his under shirt, and whisk them off to the laundry room rather quickly.

"So, mind telling us about what happened that made the opera so short? I'm sure it's quite the story." Martin smiled, and Sara looks interested as well.

"Yeah, were attacked by llamas? Did a space craft crash through the ceiling?" Sara asked as Milo took his seat on the couch.

"Oh no, nothing like that. It all started when got to the opera hall and saw Amanda walking up-" Milo started to explain.

"Wait, wait, back up, who is Amanda?" Sara asked, a playful smirk rising onto her face.

"Oh, you know…" Milo started to fluster, looking around at the ceiling, blushing, and fidgeting slightly. "Just a girl from class." He said, cringing slightly when his voice cracked slightly at the word 'girl'. "We go to school together."

"Oh my gosh, Milo has a crush on a girl!" Sara squealed, and Martin seemed equally giddy.

"Your first crush, huh?" He grinned.

"No!" Yes.

"You so do! It's so cute, your first crush, what does she look like? Is she nice?" Sara was starting to talk a little fast now.

"Don't have a crush on her." Milo was turning progressively more red. "And she's really nice."

"Awhhh-" Sara cooed, reaching over and giving Milo a hug, before being pried off him by their father.

"Alright, that's enough, let's let Milo finish his story." Martin said, giving Milo the floor.

"Thank you." Milo said, before going on to tell the rest of the story. By the end of it, Sara was smiling, seeming impressed that Milo went to such lengths to make sure a girl was happy, but Martin seemed a little worried, and had looked like that since Milo got to the part of the story where Milo was swinging by dangling lights.

"Sara, can you leave for a second so that Milo and I can have a talk?" Martin asked, puzzling the two siblings.

"Um, sure, no prob." She said, getting up and trotting up the stairs to her room.

"What's wrong, Dad?" Milo asked, giving his father a puzzled look.

"Oh boy… uh, Milo, when you start to like a girl-" Martin started, immediately setting off mental alarms in Milo's head, sending him into red faced arm waving to try stop him.

"Dad, please, you don't have to-"

"Oh, no, I wasn't going to talk about that! Unless, you'd like to."

"No no no, I'm fine, we covered it in health class last month. I'm fine, all good here." Milo nodded quickly.

"Are you sure, because now that there is actual a girl in the picture you might have some questions…"

"Gross, I don't want to have sex with Amanda! It's not like that, I just thinks she's cute, and nice, and her accent is really-" Milo looked up at his father's face, seeing the look of disbelief and catching it for once. "It's not- it really isn't..."

"Milo, you don't have to be shy, I was thirteen once-"

"It really isn't like that, I promise. I mean there was a… dream, once, but… I'm not going to try anything soon, so we don't have to talk about this right now." Milo said, standing up and trying to escape the conversation, only for him to be stopped by his father's hand on his shoulder.

"No, I wasn't trying to talk to you about that." Milo sat back down. "Look, Milo, there is this thing that boys do when they are around your age. You see when a boy starts to like a girl, they will go through… extensive means to impress them, or otherwise get their attention. Now, you now I don't like telling you that you shouldn't do things because of murphy's law, but I just… want you to be careful."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you could have gotten hurt, what if the lights fell, or that rope had snapped? You could have gotten really hurt, it's one thing when you get into situations like that on accident, but these were things you choose to do. You already have a lot to deal with with murphy's law without you going out of your way to put yourself in danger to fix it. Next time get one of the people running the show, it's their job to fix things like that. I just want you to be safe."

"But I couldn't just let Amanda's enjoyment hours waste away, they are so few and far between."

"Milo, did I ever tell you about the girl I dated before your mom?" Martin asked, tilting his head.

"No…"

"Well, before I meet your mom, there was this girl, Starla. She was the boy girl type, and way out of my league, and so I got it in my head…" Martin took a pause to laugh at his past self. "I got it in my head that I needed to pull some sort of stunt to impress her, because she was into bad boys. So one day, I waited until after school was over and her and her friends were leaving the school, and then I started to do donuts in the empty parking lot. Now, that was dangerous enough, but then…"

"Murphy's law." Milo cringed, already knowing what was doing to happen.

"You bet. The back two tires on the burned out and popped, and then the car flipped. I had several broken limbs, contusions, and had cracked my head open." Martin shock his head. "And you know what? It didn't even work. She started dating Nick Dorfmen the next week. You know what did work? A month later she and Nick broken up, and I was there for her. She started to like me because I was nice, and different from the other boys she dated. Now, of course it didn't work out, but about a month after we dated she introduced me to this 'goody-two-shoes' girl she talked to in chemistry class. You know who that was?"

"Mom." Milo smiled, starting to catch what was going on.

"Exactly. You don't need to do big stunts to get girls to like you. Just be nice to them, try to listen to them, though I know that can be hard sometimes, and they will like you a lot more. It's okay to help girls out, but maybe don't swing from the rafters to do it."

"Right." Milo nodded.

"Dad's right, you know. Plus, guys who try too hard look desperate!" Sara hollered down the stairs.

"Sara!"

"I need a glass of water." Sara said, descending the stairs. "But Dad is right, what you did was super sweet, but maybe next time warn the stage manager and then just go on your date."

"It wasn't a date." Milo complained, half-glaring in the direction Sara was in.

"Sure." Sara smiled, leaving the room.

"It wasn't!"

"Milo, don't listen to her, she's just trying to get your goat." Martin laughed, ruffling his hair.

"Oh, right." Milo chuckled sheepishly.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Abrupt ending is abrupt. Sorry, I couldn't think of anything XD

Alright, so I feel like I need to explain, or justify, this one, because it doesn't feel right. So, I got the idea for this one a while ago, when I was watching Smooth Opera-ator for the umpteenth time, and just had a sort of realized something, it sort of hit me… That Milo was going way out of his way to put himself in the way of Murphy's Law to fix what was happening. From what limited sample we have, he normally only does things like that when people or things could be seriously hurt, and after the first bit of keeping those lights from falling, all that was in real danger was the possibility of the show being stopped. He was doing it for Amanda. And So… this happened. Yeah, it's a bit of mental leap, somewhere… but… Yeah.

I'm not super happy with this one either… I'm sure I'll write something I'm happy with soon enough. Can't be all disappointment forever. Review or something. It'll make me smile XD