welcome to the new age || CLOSED

"...54...55..56...57.." As Ephraim continued to count while lazily leaning back into the bench, he heard faint singing from nearby but didn't really pay attention to it, although he did recognize the song right away. It was his party jam in his freshman year. Instead, he continued to count as he checked out some more girls started to walk inside the Mess Hall. Damn, they get finer and finer by the hour.. A smirk curled on his lips as a group of Aphrodite girls hurried in through the door and he shook his head. 10. 10 for all them. Hell, lets make it 100. A girl (Astrid) interrupted his thoughts as she sat down right on the bench next to him. Startled, he quickly turned towards her and watched as she was trying to balance her guitar to stay leaning on the bench. "Hi, I'm Astrid, daughter of Hecate, and you seem awfully interested in staring after girl's butts," she had told him and she caught his attention right away. She had cute features in his opinion, and guessed that she was the girl singing after seeing the guitar by her side. ..Eight. I'll give her an eight. You know what they say about girls who play guitar. "Hi Astrid. I'm Ephraim, Son of Apollo, and I must admit that you have a nice butt." He told her in a playful tone so that she wouldn't get offended. "I'm just kiddin', I was too distracted by that cute face to check out your butt anyway." He smiled his famous smile, little crinkles forming around his hazel eyes.

"Ah, its good to be back." He heard from behind him and turned around to find a guy sitting next to him with a smile on his face. Ephraim remembers seeing this guy earlier, giving a group of girls a wink as he walked by. Impressed, he nodded his head in greeting and grinned widely. It was nice to know he wasn't the only guy who liked to flirt with the ladies.
A kid who he vaguely recognized from his cabin began to talk to him and Ephraim rolled his eyes. Get a girlfriend? Pft...I ain't got no time for that...yet.. he thought to himself and decided to ignore the kid. He'll get him back tonight when he goes back to his cabin.
He looked back at Astrid, thinking if he should pull his 'Flirting technique' on her, but was soon interrupted by another boy who had come along. "Hey. I'm Alex." the guy had spoke, and Ephraim quickly saw that he looked like he regretted it. "Hey man, I'm Ephraim and you didn't really..interrupt anything. Its all good." he assured him, although Alex kinda did, Ephraim didn't care. He liked all these people finally talking to him. It felt as if his high school glory was coming back to him now. When he first came to camp, it definitely wasn't like this. He met a few people and conversed with them fairly, but he didn't actually have people come up to him. Ephraim now personally believes that his outfit probably made all these people want to talk to him. From now on..I'm calling this outfit 'Lucky'

Ephraim spotted another girl walking in with a black tube top and shorts. Oh damn. She's an eight. Although her outfit just screams ten. He nodded when she asked if they could sit with them, and was so close to using his famous pick up line when the girl winked at him, but he resisted. It would make him seem more like a womanizer than he really was. Instead, he gave her a small smile. As Ephraim's eyes began to wander he realized that he was actually waiting for more people to come talk to him. He felt that because so many people were coming to talk to him, there were probably some others out there somewhere. Feeling stupid about this thought, he pushed it away quickly. Ephraim finally turned back to Astrid and was about to use his flirting technique until a rude and foreign tone soon interrupted him.

"Hey. My name is Lillian -- Lillian Stone in full -- and I'm a daughter of Khonsu. You?" Ephraim looked at her in surprise, and quickly thought that she could pass for an 8 as well on his scale (exception of the attitude). "Hi. I'm Ephraim -- Ephraim Cowell in full -- and I'm a son of Apollo." he replied in a mocking tone, his southern accent contrasting her British accent very well. "And you seem like you are just full of sunshine and flowers and butterflies." His tone was sarcastic and he looked at her with indifference. Damn, he didn't know some girls around camp could be so snappy. It was a good thing she was hot. Ephraim could see that the table was now getting a bit full with people and realized that the other people in the Mess Hall were now staring over at their table. Even the Aphrodite girls across the room- who Ephraim gave a small wink too when he caught their eye. Ephraim was silently thanking his lucky outfit for making him not look like a loser anymore. Although these weren't the ideal people that he would usually hang out with outside of camp, they were close enough.

Ephraim stared at Josphine as she talked, his eyes just wandering all over her. He was so distracted that he didn't even hear her introduce herself. His distraction suddenly broke when he heard Astrid's voice, and he finally snapped back to reality. "You know, I was about to say your butt was cute also, but I haven't seen it yet," she had said in a playful tone along with a wink that made him smile. His attention was all back to Astrid now, his body turned towards her. She had a different style about her that Ephraim wasn't usually used to seeing during his life before Camp. Astrid kinda reminded him of a girl who liked to read books and go to Starbucks or something while playing tunes on her guitar. He knew that there was a word for that, but it wasn't coming to mind. Hippie? Hipster? Who knew. It didn't matter to him anyway, at least right now. Her forwardness and personality grabbed him pretty quickly. With a tilt of his head to the right, a flash of a smile, Ephraim put on his flirting technique. As he was about to open his mouth, the remaining people had come right into the little group as the other guy had left for some kind of Prom comittee meeting. Giving up, Ephraim just closed his mouth and stayed quiet. Damn it.
Ephraim's eyes flickered toward Josephine a few times and he flashed a smile towards her as well. It was until the other boy spoke that made his eye-flirting with the other girl come to a halt. "Oh, I'm sorry. My name's Alexander, but please call me Alex." Ephraim studied the guy for a moment after he stated he didn't really like his full name, and chuckled. This guy actually seemed pretty cool. He saw him checking out the ladies as well and now considered him as a 'bro'. Hey, they could be each other's wingmen. "Hey man, I'm Ephraim. Nice to meet you. If it makes ya' feel better, I hate my middle name." his lips curled into a smirk before he heard Astrid speak once again,

"Looks like the whole lunchroom is staring at us, we make quite an odd crew." Damn right they did, although Ephraim surprisingly didn't mind. He looked around the group and wondered if they were to meet outside of camp, would they still connect just like they were now? If they were to meet outside of camp, he'd most likely hook up with Josephine a couple of times, probably ignore Astrid even though he found her somewhat cute, flirt with Lillian just to make her mad, and become bro's with Alex (although Ephraim was sure that it was going to happen in camp.) Along with these thoughts, he wondered what the group should do or even talk about now that they were just..sitting together.
"So guys..how are ya'?" It was the most common, yet stupid question to ask but it was the only thing that he could think of.

Do you have a map?

Cause I'm lost in your eyes

Alex listened to the song intently, eyes closed. Music was definitely his passion. He loved it, even lived by it. He even recognized the song right when the first strings were plucked. He began singing in his head, even whispering out loud to some of the words. The girl was perfect; she never messed up a single note. He appeared to be disappointed right when she stopped. He opened his eyes again, and smiled at her.
"That was...great!"
He looked at her, smiling brilliantly. He again looked at the ground, tapping his fingers. He wasn't used to being surrounded by so many people, except at school. He was thinking of maybe playing a song as well, but decided not to. If he were to mess up, everyone would laugh at him. Even make fun of him for the rest of his life. So, he sat there, quiet as a mouse. He looked up, realizing that his soon-to-be bro had asked something.
"Oh yeah, I'm awesome."
He casually replied.

theta @ shine

Ephraim listened as Astrid was singing, his head tilted a little to the right with an impressed look on his face. Now his attention was right back to Astrid, grinning a little as he listened to the odd lyrics of the song. He's never really heard of that song, but the way Astrid sang it made him want to immediately look it up on the internet. There was a softness to her voice, which he wasn't used to since his type of music was the complete opposite of the song she was singing. This made him want to instantly show off his own musical skills, which was playing the piano, but at the same time he would rather not. It'd make him look....wimpy. The only dudes he saw play the piano wore tuxes and looked like they were born in the 1500s or whatever. Not cool. The only reason he knew piano was because of his Mom. The piano was solely the reason that his Mom and Apollo even met, and somehow his Mom thought it was destined for Ephraim to become a piano player. Of course, his talent fell more towards soccer, but he was quite talented in piano as well...after 3 years of learning lessons. He was not one to practice, nor even play at recitals. If he were to write all the excuses he used to prevent him from going to piano practice or recitals, it would probably be 200 pages. Ephraim became so occupied in his thoughts that he didn't even realize that Astrid was already done playing and had gotten up to get something to eat.

His eyebrows raised, he glanced over at Alex and nodded in approval. "She's damn good, I'll tell you that." As Astrid skipped back over to the table, he leaned back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest. "How long have you been playing, Astrid?" He asked her as she plopped a fry into her mouth with a satisfying grin. This made Ephraim want to get something to eat as well, especially when he spotted the cheeseburger on her plate. Cheeseburgers were his favorite.