Surprisingly, a genius

Andre was the last one to be measured, Miley almost forgot him but Lina quickly stepped up for him and went to pull him forward towards the tailor while scolding him and telling him to stop acting that overly shy.

"You see? That's why I always tell you to talk and participate more in the discussions, you push yourself so much behind that everyone ends up forgetting you're here", she put him in front of Miley and pinched his cheek like a small child being reprimanded, "from now, I forbid you to stand behind in every one of the next gatherings. You heard me?"

Andre raised his sight toward Jamal but as soon as they crossed eyes Lina suddenly held the young man's chin and turned his head toward her as to force him to look at her, she shook her head as she told him, "no no, don't try to ask him or anybody for help, it's between you and me so now answer to my question, in all the next gatherings you will stand in front and participate to the discussions, do we have a deal or not? And by the way, you're not allowed to say no".

Andre nervously nodded and Lina smiled, patted his cheek and walked away to let Miley take his measurements.

Once she finished writing the numbers she just obtained in her notebook, she walked to her desk, put away the notebook in a drawer and returned to the group. She showed them the door, they left her office for the hall where the clicking noises were still resonating indicating that the employees were still earnestly focused on their work, only a few of them dared to raise their heads and take a look at the group which just left the private room of their boss, the others stayed unbothered.

While Miley stayed behind to close and lock the door of her office, the group instinctively started to observe the workers and as he was staring at them, Jamal found himself being overwhelmed by the passion those guys were putting in their work. He moved his sight to check on the reaction of his comrades when he crossed eyes with Lina, Natasha and Volga, with single glances at each other they naturally understood that they just felt the same sentiment and they simultaneously started to laugh together.

"What is it?" Miley asked them while putting her keys in her pocket just after she join the group.

The four people shrugged with smiles still stuck on their faces and Natasha replied while pointing at the workers, "no it's just that we find it fascinating how your employees are into it".

"They are not my employees, they are my disciples" Miley replied while raising a finger, "they accompany me in this journey of the search for the ultimate outfit". When she paused the four people looked at each other one more time as they finally understood where came from that particular great attachment of the 'disciples' for what they're doing.

"Your passion sure seems to be strongly contagious" Volga commented.

After the laughter calmed Miley proposed to accompany them outside, however, just as she said that, Lina stopped her as she just remembered she had another request to make.

She went to stand behind Dana while putting her hands on the latter's shoulders and told Miley that she wanted some new clothes for that little girl.

Dana pushed her away and turned around to look at her, annoyed, "can't you just do things without treating me like a kid in front of everyone?"

Lina didn't respond immediately, she approached the girl, held delicately her hand and with a smirk on her face she asked, "does that mean you will let me treat you like a kid when we're alone... just you and me?"

Dana pulled her hand with a grunt, "forget it". She ignored Lina, tired of her carefree behaviour and walked toward Miley to ask her herself if she could show her some nice clothes.

"While we are at it, don't you want to take this occasion to look for some clothes for yourself?" Volga suggested to Andre, unintentionally drawing all the attention on him.

The young man was about to decline and take a step back when he unconsciously moved his sight toward Lina as he suddenly remembered the menace she gave him a moment before, he thought to himself that he shouldn't provoke her wrath so he took a few steps forward and responded that he indeed would want to look for some clothes for himself.

Miley gladly accepted and with her usual enthusiasm, she lead the group to the other side of the hall where she made them enter into another room.

This room was slightly larger than her private room and was filled few rows of lockers with a different colour each and Dana timidly asked the chief tailor about why so, she explained that it's a way to quickly identify the type of clothes.

"Summer, winter, spring, autumn, black and white" Miley listed while at the same time pointing at the lockers one after another.

Half of the group looked confused by her choice of arrangements while the other half looked, on the total opposite, very comprehensive and even inspired.

Miley suddenly turned around, stared at the group with a smile and sparks in her as if she was already imagining outfits for each of them, she let out a long sigh and spread her arms, "so? Who is the first?"

Their reaction was quick and simultaneous as if it was a reflex or they had discussed beforehand, everyone grabbed a part of Andre and pushed him forward towards the tailor who immediately grabbed his wrist firmly and dragged him toward the white row of lockers. As he was being pulled away the young man turned his head back to his friends to let them know through his eyes that he felt that betrayal, each of them had a sad expression letting know that they were feeling bad for their action, however, still, none of them moved a finger to try saving him. They simply silently followed behind, trying their best to not cross too much Andre's glare.

Jamal leaned at Lina's ear to ask her why did Miley went directly for white clothes but it seemed that he had underestimated how keen Mikey's ears can become when it came to clothes, without even wasting a moment to think she started responding to his question, startling him a bit as it was totally unexpected. As she was bragging about how it is a priority for everyone to have a minimum of complete white outfits, but also she mentioned that just seeing someone in a complete white outfit made it easy to figure out what kind of style would suit that person the best.

She held Andre by his shoulders and made him turn around himself two times while staring at him attentively as she was trying to figure what would suit him the most. After the second turn she suddenly let go of him and started to open the closets, she picked a few clothes and hand them over to the young man before she started hastening him to go try them up.

He walked away to go into a fitting room so he can quickly get changed. As soon as he came back, 2 minutes later, everyone's gazes were on him while they were analyzing him from head to toe, Jamal checked at him and as he could have guessed Andre wasn't taking it well, from the little time they have been together it became obvious that he was not the kind of person who liked to stand out, he would always feel uncomfortable being the centre of the attention, and just by looking at his face, Jamal could understand that he was not enjoying that moment.

"So? What do you think?" Jamal thought he had to spare him from that torture, so he asked that question hoping to get some reaction from her and thus divert the attention. The plan seemed to have worked, the woman took a few steps forward towards the young man, she silently turned around him while staring at his outfit and by the way she was attentively looking she seemed to be in deep concentration. However, though everyone was now waiting for Mikey's instead of looking at him, the tailor close analysis was still making him feel a bit nervous.

Jamal in his mind, told the young man to bear with it, for it was the best he could do to help him.

The group had to wait for a few seconds, which for Andre felt like an hour, for Miley to complete her analysis and give them a response, however, her reaction was not what they were expecting. Instead of telling them something, she silently walked toward the row of closets, she opened two of them and grabbed three clothes and handed them to Andre, she then walked toward another row, opened some few closets to take some clothes and give them to her client and she kept repeating the same process, while the group would follow her from behind silently until she finished visiting all the six sections of clothes.

In the end, everyone in the group had astonished expressions stuck on their faces while staring at the woman. Her actions looked completely automatic as there was not an ounce of hesitation in every move she would make or a moment of reflection between each action she would make, she would walk straight toward a row, stop exactly in front of the closet she decided, open it and take out exactly the clothes she wanted. It was as if she had memorized that entire room, as well as the order of each item, was placed. And she had figured out all the types of outfits that would fit Andre the most just after he tried only one.

"Like some kind of genius..." Natasha mumbled though it was exactly what everyone around her was thinking. Until now they had only come across one person who would give off the same impression as her.

Instinctively, they all turned toward the person that was coming into their mind and the latter looked back at them at the same time surprised and embarrassed, "So this is what you feel when you look at me?" Could be read on Lina's face.

"I think with all this you will be fine, I'm confident they are at your size but if you feel unsatisfied you can still come here and we will fix it," Miley said to Andre while putting all the clothes into different bags to hand them over to him. She patted the young man's back before pushing him to the group, she looked at them and asked, "who's next?"

Lina pulled Dana from behind Carla to the front, she looked nervous as she shyly walked forward. Just like everyone else, Dana thought that Miley would give her a complete white outfit to try out too, however, she just took a short moment to turn around her, look at her from head to toe before she clapped in her hands and walked straight toward the row of black clothes and started picking few of them to give to the girl.

"You... want me to try them up?" The latter asked hesitantly.

Miley didn't respond but moved to another section.

Dana stayed there wondering if she didn't hear her or was just ignoring her when Lina came to empress her to follow the tailor.

"Hurry up! Go!" She said while tapping on Dana's back.

The girl rushed towards Miley and as she stopped right behind her, the woman turned and gave her the clothes she had picked, calmly, as if she has always assumed she was there behind her from the beginning.

When they passed by all the sections, they returned to the side of the room where they could put all the clothes. After Miley finished packing everything and gave the bags to Dana, the latter hesitated a little bit and managed to only articulate the beginning of her sentence, "W-why didn't you-"

"Why didn't you ask her to try out the first outfit as you did with Andre" Lina formulated the exact question Dana wanted to ask as if she had read in her mind.

"Hmm?" Miley turned her head to look at her, "oh, that's because there was no need to, I'm better at figuring out outfits for women than men, I just needed to have a good look at her".

Everyone nodded with an astounded expression, once again surprised by her talent, however, the latter just ignored their reaction, or rather she didn't notice, she just walked toward the door turned around and asked, "do you need anything else?"

Lina suddenly turned and pointed her finger at Carla but the girl immediately shook her head.

"Why?"

"I have already brought some of mine when coming here and also Natasha has many and shares some with me so I'm fine" She crossed her hands behind her back and got closer to Natasha.

Lina reverted her sight to the latter, looking betrayed, "what? You never let borrow your clothes anymore, how come you willingly give it to her?"

"Don't give me that look, you know exactly why" Natasha replied with a slightly higher tone, " I can start by the fact that at least she doesn't brag about how my clothes look better on her. And you really want to talk how and why you always give them back completely messed up in front of him?" She added with a sneaky sign of the head pointing at Jamal.

The latter caught that discreet message and turned to his lover, "what is she talking about?"

Lina suddenly reacted in rush almost looking panicked as she had a nervous laugh and the way she held his hand seemed too forced, "Hmm? Nothing, it's nothing, just forget about it" she then turned to Natasha, "you know what? Let's all forget about this, Carla doesn't want new clothes? Got it, let's move on. Alright?" She looked at her friend insistingly like she was begging her to not say more and the latter just nodded and looked away.

The reality is that deep down Natasha regretted a bit what she just said, when they quarrelling, it's never her attention to hurt Lina by saying overly offensive things or ruin her relationship with Jamal by revealing some embarrassing secrets she had done in the past but could be a turn off if he were to know, Natasha knew how much Lina loved Jamal and how she has always been loyal to him and thus she didn't want to ruin the happiness her friend had found. When they were bickering or teasing each other, Lina always stayed careful to not say overly embarrassing things only she knew about her in front of Jamal or anyone else, as she knew it would deeply hurt her, however, Natasha was not the same, sometimes she could forget to watch what she was saying or could just lose control in the anger and ended up saying too much. It was during these kinds of moments she hated herself the most.

Lina walked toward Miley, "what about we go finalize the payment for all these items", she started pushing her slightly toward the door, "I don't think to have all that cash on me but I can give you a receipt of the city hall so you can come and collect your money whenever you want".

Natasha passed by Jamal, glanced at him but when their eyes crossed each other, she quickly move her sight to look down as she felt quite guilty and shameful for what happened, even though he didn't understand.

The rest of the group who were looked completely lost, confused by what just happened but they simply decided to brush that off and followed the others to the exit.

...

While Lina stayed behind to have one last talk with the chief tailor, the others were helping Dana and Andre to stock their bags in the cars.

They were already done when Lina joined them back. While she was approaching Natasha quickly walked to her and went on mumbling an apology, "I-I'm sorry for earlier I shouldn't have said that, it was unnecessary".

Lina smiled and just held her hand and told her it was fine before she pulled her to the rest of the group. She was not the kind to hold a grudge and was quick to forgive. Natasha looked at her from behind, smiled and held her hand tighter.

"So what are we doing now?" Volga asked the mayor.

"I intended to show you some of the weapons and gadgets I was talking about earlier but what do you think?" Lina replied.

The woman shrugged, saying that it was fine with her and that she kind of curious about those gadgets. But as Lina was about to tell them to get going Matteo rose his hand and said that he personally preferred to go back.

"I intend to do it this night" just after he said that everyone's face became tense, the ambience suddenly turned serious. "So I think it's better for me to go back, have some rest and prepare myself".

Jamal patted his shoulder, he was trying his best to look proud and reassuring but deep down he was undoubtedly worried about him, he told him that it was a good idea and that all of them will join him later to stay by his side.

When they were about to designate someone to drive him back Dana shyly rose her hand and announced that she too was tired and wanted to go back home and have some rest, "it's true that I didn't get to try any outfit but I somehow feel spent... so...".

"Alright," pointed her finger at Carla, "you will accompany Matteo and keep an eye on him until we join you," she then moved her finger to Natasha, "she will give you a ride home and in the way bring back Dana to her house. The first of us will go take a look at the weapons".

Everyone nodded with no objection, however, except for Jamal, he approached Natasha and asked, "do you mind if I tag along, I promised you a ride after all?"

"What is happening?" Lina said while spreading her arms.

"Relax. It's just a quick car ride, I will join you a bit later and anyway I already know half of what you're about to show them" Jamal quickly responded while waving the hand to calm her, "so?"

Natasha smiled and nodded a bit hysterically.

As they were already parting ways, walking in the direction of Jamal's car, Lina was next to hers and started shouting at Natasha, "Listen you brat, you better not lay a finger on my man, even for a slight touch on his muscled thigh or forearm I would be ready to throw hands, and believe me, I will know it! You heard me?!"

Natasha's group ignored her and entered the car, except for Jamal who had the courtesy to turn and wave his hand at her and as she was about to add some more pointless menace Volga, in her car with Andre, honked at her to let her know that they were waiting for her. The woman bit her lips, entered in the car and as she was turning the car to join Volga, she started to think about what sex game would she make Jamal do with her to make up for this.