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In the eighteen years he'd been alive, Alrik Rey had never cared to have the attention of a woman.

He enjoyed girls - what redblooded German didn't - but they were pretty things to look at across the room from you or on the internet. Or, according to his video games, damsels in distress or scantily-clad magic wielders. Interacting with one face to face, however, brought on an entire new slew of questions that he wasn't prepared for.

The blonde knew he could probably ask his mother, but what mom wanted to hear about how he met a nice young lady... at more or less a strip club?

Nope.

Not gonna happen.

Instead, he decided to confide in his best friend - the one girl who rarely judged him (outside of some rather stupid decisions he'd made in the past, he'd admit) and had the absolute BEST relationship advice that he could think of, outside of like... emailing Dear Abby or something dumb like that.

"Penny?"

His voice called out from the living room of his sister's apartment, once the young man had amped himself up enough for the upcoming conversation. "Pen, can you come in here?"

Across from her on the other side of the couch, her brother was looking far more tense than his relaxed older sister. While he still wore the jeans and shirt he'd been seen in earlier with Cass, he now also wore a grim expression across his face.

Hands folded themselves together and clung to one of his knees, grabbing on to the first thing he could think of for support.

How in the world was he going to admit this to Penny, of all people?

Taking a deep breath, he cleared his mind and decided to start simple. Hands were busy tightening around each other, fingers straining against fingers as he said softly, "Pen... I met a girl."

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, wondering where to take it from there. He inhaled, then exhaled again. "And I really like her. But... I don't know what I'm doing."

He physically flinched, almost as if she'd taken her lanyard and whacked him with it, as she'd done when they were Lieutenants. It wasn't hard to tell that Penelope was upset; she hid her emotions around him about as well as he hid his feelings over losing a game. Poorly.

Alrik had assumed she'd be overjoyed at the prospect of him finding a girl - at least initially, until she learned of this particular girl's occupation - but to have her immediately grow snippy over the matter threw him off of his game and suddenly the blonde eighteen year old was now unsure that he'd made the right decision in approaching his older sibling.

"I-I wasn't looking, Pen, she just found me okay?"

Well. There was some truth to his statement, at least. He'd been looking for a good time and Cass had found him along the way.

"She's....well, she's got way more confidence than I've ever seen in a girl and she likes me. Isn't that enough to be a winner??"

He opened his mouth to answer, but closed it as his heart sank into the pit of his stomach when Penelope uttered her last comment.

By some girl who goes through men like men go through dollar bills at strip clubs.

Aw, ******** have to give her my heart first, for it to be broken, right?"

His hand traveled up to his hair, running through it nervously. Things were so much easier when he was asking her for help on his homework or how to approach their mother about an issue at home. Talking about girls - all of this was new territory for him and having his sister already offer an icy shoulder to lean on... well, it wasn't the reassurance he'd been hoping for.

"But I mean, it's funny you should mention going to the club," he continued prattling on, intentionally leaving out the strip part, "Remember when I said I was going to go hang out with a couple of the guys?"

The grin he offered her was sheepish, followed by a helpless shrug of his shoulders.

"We, uh... may have gone to visit that club, y'know, the one over by Goodman road...?"

As her mouth opened to form a large O, he felt his cheeks begin to blossom a bright shade of pink. She'd figured it out in no time - not that he didn't doubt she would - but now that the cat was out of the bag, it was time to fully confess.

After all, how else could he get her to understand his predicament if she didn't know all of the facts???

"Penny, no, it's not like that - it's not like that."

She was making assumptions. Granted, they weren't far-fetched, considering stereotypes, but Penny wasn't giving him a chance to explain.

"Cass came from there, yeah, but she's different okay? She didn't care that I'm poor or hardly had any cash," His ears burned as he omitted the fact that he'd pandered money off their parents for such an adventure using false pretenses, "She even met me later - outside of the club. She's really cool and she really likes me, for me."

His hand was sweeping through his hair once more and he bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from saying something rude out of exasperation. Penny needed to get over the fact that he'd found someone on his own and help him figure out how to be smooth for the next time he ran into the lime colored lady he wanted to impress!

"What ulterior motive could she have, Pen??"

While the one hand remained in his hair, the other struck out and waved in the air helplessly. "I don't have any money! I don't have anything that she could want except... except me!"

The questions kept coming, like a barrage of arrows and Ali sitting there with no shield to deflect them with. When she brought up the subject of sex, however, his face paled an entire shade as he looked at her with wide, offended eyes.

"N-NO," he sputtered, "We have not done it, gross, Penny, I just met her."

.... not that he'd have minded, really, if Cass had approached him about it but that was besides the point.

Hitting a moment of exasperation, he finally blurted out, "Look, are you going to help me out here or am I going to have to go to Tommy's sister for advice?"

Kept him on a leash? Used him at their beck and call?

What did Penny exactly take him for... some dumb teenager??? He knew what he was doing (mostly!!); it wasn't some dumb little trap like she used on people like Kari to get what she wanted. Sure, Cass could probably get any guy who looked her way, but that didn't mean she was using him!

"As if I'd ask you to take me," his face was tomato red at that point, the mere thought of having to be shuffled into a place like Planned Parenthood giving him nausea. He knew to use rubbers - that was the obvious solution to keep everything... well, the way everything should be.

"You don't even know her and you're making judgement calls," he huffed, shooting his eldest (and only) sibling with a glare. "I'm coming to you, asking about how to impress a girl and you won't even let me get a word in edgewise before you're already writing her off!"

Well, crap.

Alrik Rey could count the number of times he'd ever lied to his sibling. It wasn't a lot - there had never really been a need to lie to her, after all. Their relationship was an honest one and, for the most part, Penny could be a reliable ally when he needed one.

In this particular situation, however, Alrik didn't think Penny would take too kindly to the whole truth. But was he going to outright lie to her? Could he even manage to lie to her and make a passable excuse?

Maybe….maybe he could just try for a cliffnotes version. Yeah - yeah!

“There's not really much to tell.” His words were slow, his brain scrambling to come up with a plausible explanation, “Some of the guys and I went to check it out, the club. We found a table and we were gonna grab some sodas or whatever and she approached us.”

So far, so good - and it had been the truth.

“She was nice and all, maybe a little forward but, y'know, a lot of waitresses are.”

Alright, maybe a fib, maybe not. For all he knew, she could have possibly been one of the girls to wait on tables too!

“And like...that's it. We chatted, she was super cool and when I lost my ID, she brought it back to me. Personally.”

Oh and she also gave me a lap dance, among other things.

“We talked and took a walk together.” Another shrug, another nervous look. “I promise, Penny, she's really nice.”