Saturday, October 4

He was answering mail for Crackhead. He could hear Lilly and Mia having a long Bond movie marathon in the other room – he wanted to join them but there was something inside him that refused to sit with two teenaged girls on a Friday night: some kind of misplaced sense of masculine pride.

The rest of him eventually won out.

As soon as he disconnected the internet to go join in with Lilly and Mia, the phone rang. He answered it. "Hello?"

"It's Mia's father. I need to talk to her. I've been trying to get through for hours."

The man sounded pissed.

"One minute," Michael said and left the corded phone hanging down from the unit screwed to the wall.

He realised he wasn't shirtless as soon as he stepped into his parents' bedroom. He always seemed to be bare-chested around Mia – not that it was on purpose or anything, though – but he did like the way it unsettled her or made her stare. But he realised he wasn't because Mia's eyes automatically became glued to his chest as soon as he entered the room – like they always did when he entered the room, usually because he was bare-chested.

He was annoyed at the idea that suddenly passed through his mind – the idea that he should have taken his shirt off for Mia before he went into the bedroom.

Just a little crush… Nothing to get jumped up over…

He battled a scowl. "Mia, your dad's on the phone. He's been calling for a while, but I was using the internet and he couldn't get through."

Her wide grey eyes met his…and they were even wider than usual. She looked like she'd swallowed a bowling ball.

There was a lull, before he finally recognised her expression as one of pleading. "Okay, don't worry about it, Thermopolis. I'll tell him you and Lilly already went to bed."

He went back to the phone. "Sir? Are you still there?"

"Yes. Is she there?"

"I'm sorry. She's already asleep. I could wake her up–"

"No, no! That's alright. I apologise. It is quite late. Tell her I'll talk to her in the morning. Thank you."

Michael hung up and went and reported back to Mia. She still had that pained look on her face. He knew just the thing to cheer her up.

He called Pavlov in. The sheltie leapt up onto the bed at Michael's command and, like a faithful pet, immediately saw why it was called. Pavlov crawled over to Mia and licked her face.

She couldn't resist. She smiled.

Michael's heart fluttered at the sight.

Lilly ruined the moment. "Michael, which Bond girls would you rather sleep with? The 'damsel-in-distress' blondes, or the gun-toting brunettes?"

His mind immediately conjured up an image of Mia with a gun, but he quickly shook it away and gave his sister a half-smile. "Can't resist a girl with a weapon."

The answer immediately gave way to a long conversation on Xena and Buffy.

At one point, Mia turned to him. "If it was the end of the world and you had to repopulate the planet, but you could only choose one life mate, would you choose Xena or Buffy?"

He loved the way she asked those kinds of questions, even if he'd never admit it.

"You're weird, Thermopolis. But…I suppose it would be Buffy."

The questions went on, ranging from Harrison Ford to Josh Richter. But it was at that point that Michael took a stand.

"What's so great about Josh Richter? He's pretty, and that's it. I even bet he's a coward – you'll be living in your post-nuclear Armageddon world, happy with your choice of life mate, and then a problem will turn up to which he'll just turn tail and run, leaving you to fend for yourself."

"Fear of new things is not an accurate measure of one's potential for growth, Michael," Lilly replied.

Mia nodded.

Michael tried not to sulk. "Well, you're both idiots if you think Josh Richter would ever give you as much as the time of day. He only likes girls like Lana Weinberger – girls who put out."

That should have been the end of the conversation, but instead of dwindling it continued.

"I'd put out for him if he met certain conditions," Lilly shot back. "Like bathing beforehand in an anti-bacterial solution, and wearing three condoms coated in spermicidal fluid during – you know, just in case one breaks or slips off."

He suppressed a shudder, before a thought hit him – would Mia put out for Josh?

He asked her. She paused. That was enough of an answer for him, and it stung a bit.

Then she came out with a totally ridiculous set of guidelines. "I would…but only if we had been dating for a year, he pledged his undying love for me, and he took me to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and didn't make fun of it."

He thought she was crazy if she was going to stand by those rules, but a part of him wondered whether it would be so arduous a task knowing, as he would, that he would have Mia by the end of the night if he just watched the stupid show and kept his mouth shut…

Instead of saying anything going on in his brain, he decided to make a smart-ass comment. "The first two sound alright, but if the third one's an example of the boyfriend you expect to get then you're going to be a virgin for a long, long time, Thermopolis. I don't know anyone with an ounce of testosterone who can watch that show without projectile vomiting."

Mia frowned.

Lily cut in. "You're going on about Josh, what about Lana? If you had to choose, would it be Mia or Lana Weinberger?"

"Mia, of course," he replied instantly – hands down, his mind added.

Lilly's eyes narrowed and she fired more questions at him, all of them between Mia and someone else. He chose Mia over a couple of them and a couple of them over Mia, finally realising Lilly's game – he had to seem impartial because Lilly was trying to zero in on Michael's eeny-weeny Mia-crush.

He wouldn't let her.

After so long, Lilly gave up…on Michael. She turned to Mia. "Mia? Michael, or Josh?"

Lilly's eyes immediately darted to Michael's face, reading his expression – he tried to keep it level but his heart was making it extremely difficult by beating out a samba.

Mia's brow furrowed. She looked thoughtful, like she was truly considering the question. A spark of something very much resembling hope sprung up in his chest…

"Michael? Lilly? Mia? What–Pavlov!"

Michael internally sighed. His parents were home, shouting and yelling about the mess in their room, and he would never know the answer.