Max [Part 1 of ?] [Written May 2021]

 The first thing he did upon meeting her for the first time, was to ignore the fact that the two girls were taking sips off of his drink. He winked the first time her friend took a sip which let them know that he was allowing them to get away with something. The girls of course had no idea the alcohol content of wine coolers and so when the girls acted bubbly and drunk off of a few sips he just laughed and played along, though of course he knew better. His drink of choice at the festival was only 7% alcohol per volume and so the girls would have had to drink a lot more than a mug full to be falling over drunk, though they didn’t realize this. He almost took a kind of pride in knowing that these girls just wanted to be near to him and be seen with him. However prideful he may have felt he also needed to be careful that no one got the wrong impression considering the age gap between them.

If you’re the type of person who believes in the theory categorizing people into two distinct categories, then these two girls were the epitome of those two common categories of women. The first, Lily was a girl he had known for most of her life, was the kind of girl who takes everything you have, the kind who expects to be spoiled with gifts and attention and has no shame in asking for more. The second, Mia was the girl he was meeting for this first time on this balmy day, was the type of woman who exuded low self esteem and was too bashful to ask for much of anything. When he offered his hand in the old-timely way, explaining that should Lily let her hand hover over top of his that would mean she is being escorted by someone she does not necessarily want to be around, however if she were to place her palm on the top of his hand, that would almost be considered an intimate method of holding hands. The middle ground would be for Lily to place a single finger on the back of his hand. Lily opted for the last option, and he could tell that Mia was jealous. He smirked and let her writhe for a few moments in the awkwardness of feeling like the third wheel. Eventually he asked if she would like to be escorted like a lady as well, and she said, “Why, yes, good sir.” Attempting the medieval accent with little success. Mia opted for placing her warm hand directly atop his down turned hand and on he walked, escorting two lovely ladies in gypsy garb across the fair.

He was looking for someone, Nick, and once he found him he let the girls take their hands from his before beginning his conversation. The girls went off a few paces away and shared whispers between each other, the contents of those whispers left up to his imagination. Once he was done with his work conversation with Nick, he asked the girls where the next stop was, and Lily blurted out that Mia wanted a picture with the two men. Despite how bashful Mia may have acted upon meeting himself, she was beet red from blushing after Nick put a hand on her waist. He wanted to feel jealous but he couldn’t help but notice that while she may have been blushing about Nick, she was leaning almost exclusively towards himself.