[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 669 & 670.

Chapter 669: The house, nearly ready.

By the end of summer vacation we were all getting pretty nervous for obvious reasons. We’d been happy to ignore what was coming in favor of enjoying our holidays and our free time as high school graduates. We made sure to waste as little time as possible, and I mean that in the sense that we were satisfied with every day of our vacation, even those spent lazing around. But there was no more delaying it. Our summer was coming to an end and we’d soon be starting a whole new stage of our lives. We were every bit as excited as we were afraid.

No, scratch that. We were all more scared than anything else, though Grace, Sarah and Alice tried to hide it, for their own sake if nothing else.

All of us were going to the same university, at least, save for Mila who’d be going to modeling school and taking some acting classes while she continued and got a little more serious about her influencer work.

A little something that added more bad feelings to it all was that we wouldn’t be moving in together just yet. We couldn’t. Construction work on the house had only started a little under two months ago. The crew was working day and night, but there was no way they could finish it in time for that. 

Right?

Well… When I went to check on progress that Saturday, I found the house… complete. Or very nearly so. The outside, at least, looked finished. I remember it still looking rough last time I was here, but now…

A stone path led to the three-floors tall building. A gorgeous front of white, polished stone. A porch at the entrance with a balcony above it on the second floor. Symmetrically placed, black frame windows. A roof of orange clay tiles. Black double doors with a tiny window just above it and a small wall lamp at each side.

Beside the house… could I really call it that? It was too big for my definition of houses, but… Well, beside it was the garage, matching the house’s facade and large enough to fit about 4 cars, not counting the stone flooring outside it.

All of this in a quiet outskirts of the city with the green pastures and the mountains in the background. It was hard to believe how quickly they worked, and even harder to believe that this was… mine.

“Ah, Oliver, lad! Come here!” Mr. Moore waved at me from between the house and the garage. I could hear more construction work from the backyard and from inside. “There are some things I want to talk about, so follow me while I give you the usual tour,” He said, tossing me a white helmet.

“You’re working way faster than I expected,” I told him.

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Mr. Moore said, nodding. “We got offered another job for next month. I always give the boys two weeks off in between jobs at a minimum, so we’ve been working faster during this last phase. The house should be ready in a few days.”

“DAYS!?” My jaw dropped. “How? How do you work so fast?”

Mr. Moore chuckled. “Trade secrets, but let’s just say a lot of time is wasted in the transportation of materials. Also, each one of my boys can do in a few hours what it would take five men a whole day.”

I followed him towards the back and saw a couple of guys inside the empty pool, putting on tiles along the upper edges of the walls.

“Even the pool is nearly finished…” I said.

“And it will be by tomorrow. Normally you need to let concrete cure for a long time, but you know…”

Ah. I started to get a better picture of how they were so fast. Even with something simple as greater strength, moving heavy things without machinery was easier. Processes that needed to be waited out could be hastened. Hell, if I could keep things in place with the ‘stillness’ runes, then even that would work as scaffolding or temporary support. Honestly, my imagination was probably limiting my ideas. These people likely had very complex, very specific spells to get things done quickly and efficiently and I just don’t know enough about construction to even start getting ideas.

Mr. Moore showed me the inside of the house. The wooden floors were finished, too. Some guys were painting walls and others finishing with the installation of electric outlets.

All three floors were done, with only the finishing touches and the placing of the furniture being left.

“The furniture should start arriving tomorrow, and if it doesn’t I’ll raise hell, don’t you worry. But there’s something I wanted to show you now. Well, two things, actually. Your special requests.”

The first floor would have all the common spaces. Living room, kitchen, library, the bar and a couple of bathrooms. Then the second floor would have all our bedrooms and two larger bathrooms. The third floor would have other facilities for more personal use. The gym, the game room and the music room would be here, along with another, more… pleasure-oriented bathroom and a balcony view of the back yard.

We checked them out, of course, and I was happy to see the music room was fairly austere. Black carpet floor, cream-colored walls. Just big enough to fit a variety of instruments, including things like drums and a keyboard with enough space left over. What called my attention, however, were the shelves at the back of the room. Black wood and empty.

“Um… Is that…?”

Mr. Moore walked over to the shelves and opened one of the lower drawers. “Look for it here, at the top. You will find a little hole here. Pull the trigger inside and…”

Click.

The shelves opened up like doors towards us, revealing a secret room on the other side.

Red carpet and red walls, empty except for two metal poles close to one of the corners. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

This would be where we’d put the special room Mila requested. Our own little love hotel room.

[Image for general reference]

************

Chapter 670: Intermission - an important date.

While Oliver went to check on the house on his own, the girls took the opportunity to gather behind his back. It was an important matter, one that shouldn’t be discussed in his presence, and once more, Diana’s house served as the perfect place since there would be no one to rat them out. Except if Oliver suddenly developed the ability to talk to animals for real, then Red would definitely talk.

They all sat around the living room, a heavy silence hanging over them. In just a few hours Diana would have to leave for work again, and though they had her permission to stay if needed, they really had to figure things out while she was with them.

“Seriously, he’s such a pain in the ass!” Sarah groaned, rubbing her face. “Who DOESN’T like celebrating their birthday!?”

Yep. Turns out Oliver’s birthday was coming up in just a few days, and they never would’ve found out if not for Isabelle going out of her way to explicitly tell them.

“He really was going to let it be just another day, huh?” Grace asked, arms crossed and shaking her head.

“Well, you heard Isabelle,” Noelle said. “I can sort of understand where he’s coming from.”

According to their intel, Oliver didn’t have good experiences with his birthdays, at least not since he was around 8 years old. Isabelle admitted to having some responsibility in that. Twins, remember? Same birthday. And with one of them having more friends than the other, the parties always ended up becoming far more about Isabelle than about Oliver. Then, when the two siblings became distant, Isabelle would celebrate her birthday on her own while Oliver would stay in his bedroom like it was just another day.

“All the more reason to do something special! Mila said, growing more irritated the more she thought about it.

Birthdays are supposed to be fun! It’s a person’s one day of the year that should be all about them! Eating cake, partying with friends, the gifts, the good vibes! No person should even have to spend their birthday alone.

“I get where you’re coming from, I do,” Diana said. “But you know he’s not into big celebrations. We can celebrate here at my house, amongst ourselves.”

“I’m sure he’d be happy with that,” Grace said with a sigh. “But…”

“I think we should do more,” Alice said. “We can have sex whenever we want, but… I’d like this year to be different for him. Very different. He’s not a friendless guy who spends all his time in his room anymore. He has plenty of friends, even not counting us, who’d be happy to celebrate with him.”

“Should we get Thomas in on this?” Noelle asked.

“I hear he has a lot in his mind lately,” Diana said. “His talk with his parents about moving in with Maria didn’t go too well.”

“Ah.”

“I think we can do something simple and keep it short,” Grace said. “I doubt he’d enjoy a whole night of having to play host, even if he likes everyone invited.”

“How about we take him out to dinner with everyone else?” Sarah suggested. “We make reservations somewhere nice, we celebrate, then we take him someplace else and…”

“You know, that sounds good to me. No need to set everything up, either. I get the feeling Oliver isn’t one for balloons and ‘happy birthday’ banners.”

“Where do we go, though?” Diana asked, bringing out her phone. “The best food I can think of is the hotel we work at, and we’d have a room right there, too, but…”

“But yeah, you work there now,” Alice said, grimacing. “It’d be awkward to be served by your colleagues.”

Grace let out a sigh. “Hey, everyone? If we’re inviting Oliver’s friends… Would you mind if we invited Fernanda?”

“I know you well enough to know that’s not the exact question you want to ask,” Alice said with a small, amused smile. “You want to know if we’re okay with either of them making a move.”

“I mean…” Grace’s cheeks reddened and she turned her eyes away. “Wouldn’t it be a nice gift?”

“I’ve been okay with it for a while,” Sarah said. “And from what I hear from you, she’s doing better.”

“Yeah, if she’s up for it, I don’t really mind, She seems nice,” Mila said. “I do want to get to know her a little better, though.”

“Same here,” Noelle said. “I didn’t get to talk to her much during our trip.”

“We’ve all made it clear we’re open to Oliver exploring new relationships,” Alice said. “Well, all of us except…”

All eyes turned to Diana. She was the one who was most hesitant about it, and nobody really blamed her. If Oliver started courting another woman just a month or so after he got together with Diana, it would’ve felt very wrong. But what about now? Was it still too early?

“I’ll get them both drunk if I need to,” Diana said bluntly. “I swear, it couldn’t be more obvious that they like each other. I respect how careful they’re being but it’s high time they do something about it. Dip their toes into it, if nothing else.” 

“Okay, I didn’t expect that,” Grace said, giggling. “You have a soft spot for her, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Diana admitted. “And you don’t?”

“...Maybe.”

“Okay, I definitely need to have a chat with her,” Mila said.

They spent some time looking for restaurants with good reviews, and after picking three, Mila, Grace, Sarah, Noelle and Alice split up to check them out while Diana went to work.

She was tempted to tell him what they were planning because he wasn’t very good with surprises, but she figured he’d survive it.