Crash looked over and felt himself start to grin at the sight of her. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. She seemed to get hotter the more she aged. Even though he had seen her in a dozen adds for various products she was one of those women that was better looking with no makeup on.

He asked her, “So, Where have you been Australia or South America or somewhere more exotic?

“Actually I have been in Externia for the last month or so.”

“What? You have been gaming? I thought there was a few tourneys scheduled for the last month?”

“Yeah, I skipped them so I could learn more about these MMORPGs. I never played many games before. I wanted to learn what I was getting myself into before I came here. I didn’t even know if I would enjoy it, but boy was I wrong! I have been having a blast! Plus I spent a LOT more time on my socials and modeling. I make 10 times the amount of money from them than surfing you know?”

“No I don’t know, I’ve never enjoyed social media. I can’t take the trolls taking potshots at me over a surfing mistake or those stupid fashion comments.”

“Honestly? Your fashion seems fine to me, although I prefer seeing you with no shirt when I’m stalking your photo’s!”

He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. “Stalking huh? Really? You stalk my socials?”

She stopped in her tracks and yanked Crash back to her. “Listen Crash I want to get this out in the open. You and I… We have been flirting with each other for over two years now right?”

Crash started to blush and looked down at his feet. “Well, I was trying to flirt with you. I didn’t really know if you liked it or were just being nice to me, I mean...”

Malia’s mouth opened into a big O. “Are you kidding me? I have practically thrown myself at you! I have never been more flirty with another man! The only reason I agreed to come here was because they told me that they were going to try for you. If you turned this down, I wasn’t going to come. I want to try hanging out with you and if it feels right for both of us maybe giving it a shot?”

Crash looked her in the eyes and felt foolish. He was never shy around anyone, but Malia made him feel like he needed to be more. He smiled and said “I would really, really like that. The only reason I came was because of you. I have been really kicking ass on tour lately you know?”

She laughed. “Oh I know. I watched your last tourney. What were you thinking about taking that last wave? That was stupid! I nearly had a heart attack watching that!”

He laughed back at her. “That is almost word for word what my dad said. I dunno though. The big waves seem to be my only edge. From what I hear we are going to be handling some real monsters here. Both on the water and off!”

“By the way, what did you whisper to Destiny, If you don’t want me to know it’s fine, I’m just curious.”

She grinned and looked up at an invisible camera just like Destiny did. “When you look up like this by the way the live stream camera focuses on your face and the streamers know you are speaking to them! I whispered to Destiny to ask her if the class I wanted to play was appropriate for the Goddess of Welcoming. I’m not going to tell my audience what it is, but if they tune in tomorrow or the next day they will get a peek at what a total badass bitch I can be!”

She looked up at the sky again and asked, “Stream Director, can you mute our voices for one minute so as not to spoil my surprise for tomorrow?”

She leaned over to Crash and whispered into his ear, “I am going to play a total badass Shield Maiden like Lagertha from Vikings. A huge ass round shield and a wicked sharp spear with a barbarian outfit like the Valeria chick from the Conan movie!”

Crash raised his eyebrows remembering the shining mithril outfit Valeria wore. He whispered, “Do you want to live forever?” He smiled and whispered to her, “I told Destiny I wanted to be a Paladin, but I am SURE she would approve a Conan outfit with this stupid body she put on me!”

Destiny looked him up and down. “Ya, I noticed that. Not my normal thing, but I’m already getting used to it!” She wiggled her eyes up and down.

He laughed at her and pointed ahead. “Look, the starting village.” He rolled his eyes and laughed. “Can you guess which one is our villa?”

They looked over and a decent sized villa sat at the waters edge. The entire building had a pinkish haze floating over the top of it. The entire settlement was set up like a luxury vacation village from Bali or some other exotic paradise. The buildings were stylish round exteriors with hardened thatched roofs. There was exotic greenery and flowers everywhere you looked. Pools and hot tubs were visible everywhere.

Their villa looked to be 4 round buildings attached to each other. One was set in front and three others sat in a semi-circle behind it. The front room was a general living room with couches and tables. The back room to the right had a symbol for a female on it. The middle hut was split in two with a kitchen and bathing area. The back room on the left had a symbol for a male. There was a huge feast sitting on the tables with fruits, meats and breads. A glistening pitcher of something sat at the front with two glasses.

Crash looked at the food and almost started drooling. He glanced over at Malia and said, “Mind if I take a quick shower before we eat? I was in a hurricane earlier and I’m a bit gritty!”

She chuckled and said, “Go for it, but I am going to drink that entire pitcher of Sangria if you don’t hurry!”

Crash hustled off to his room. There was a huge bed and it was furnished better than any resort he had ever been to. He opened the closet and it was filled with different outfits. He focused on them and found that they were just generic clothing with no stats. He snagged a pair of white silk pants that looked like lounge wear and went to the bathroom. A pile of towels sat on a side table outside of the walk-in shower that had smoked glass from thigh to neck level.

Crash turned the handle and put his hand out to feel the temperature of the spray. He scrunched up his eyes in confusion as the water was already at the exact temp that he liked. He pulled off his shirt and stepped into the shower and took off his shorts and tossed them out on top of his shirt. He grabbed some body soap and started lathering up. The soap had some kind of effect that vibrated on his body making it feel better than any shower he had ever had before. He started involuntarily moaning. He heard some noise in the bathroom as Malia was poking around for something.

She said “Just looking for some toothpaste! Not peeking!”

Crash laughed “The glass is smoked out, Ya can’t see even if you peek!”

Malia started laughing. “Oh my God are you moaning!?”

“I can’t help it, this body wash vibrates. It feels like I’m getting a massage as I’m soaping up!”

She laughed again. “I can’t believe all of your fans are seeing you all nakey rubbing soap all over your body erotically and moaning before I can!”

Crash almost dropped his scrunchy. “WHAT! WHO IS SEEING ME ALL NAKEY!?”

Malia started laughing even harder. “At this point I’d say about 25 million people, but prolly half of the men went to make sandwiches or fix a lawnmower or do something manly!”

Crash opened the door a bit and held out his hand. “Oh my God!, Oh my God hand me a towel quick!”

Malia walked over and picked up the pile of towels and his clothes and walked away. As she went back out of the door he heard her say, “What towels? I can’t seem to find any!”

“Malia! Malia, come back!” He closed the door and looked down at the body wash. He looked up at the sky to his viewers and said, “Fuck it, I hope you all are getting your jollies off, but if you knew how amazing this body wash was you wouldn’t care anyway!”

Crash spent another 5 minutes showering even hamming it up a few time by over moaning and licking his lips trying to be sexy, but he ended up laughing at himself and looked up and winked at his fans. He really didn’t care about nudity and he really did look like like Conan Jr. body wise. When he opened the shower door his towels were back with his pants and he smiled at the thought of Malia sneaking back in when he was hamming it up.

Crash strolled out into the living room in his white silks with a towel throw over his shoulder. Malia was grinning like a fox at him and he threw the towel at her. “That was mean.”

She started laughing. “When I came back with your towels you sounded very, very busy. Did you umm?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Did I umm what?” He poured himself some sangria and took a sip.

“You know what I mean!”

“Do not, what are you trying to say. Spit it out.”

“Come on.. you know… Erm.. shaking hands with the milkman!?”

Crash Spit out a tiny bit of his drink and started coughing. Malia had an evil grin on her face.

“Celebrating Palm Sunday? Buffing the...”

Crash held up a hand laughing. “Quit, Quit it. I give, you win! No, I was not buffing anything in there. I did look up to the stream and licked my lips as I moaned though HAHA! Please tell me the toilet is off limits?”

She nodded. “Yeah, TOTAL toilet privacy and if you want it they can blur out your nether region in the shower. But everything else is fair game. By the way, no one can film these streams and use them for anything else. They cannot be recorded even if someone sits in a seat filming with their phone. All they get is fuzzy rolling lines of snow. New streaming tech!”

“Well that’s good to know. I would hate to have thousands of videos out there of me slaughtering bunnies!”

They both nodded and chuckled at each other. “Let’s eat! This looks amazing! What does that say? Roasted Unicorn?”

Twenty minutes later and feeling stuffed and tipsy from the amazing sangria like drink they headed out to their front deck and sat in some over stuffed chairs.

“Wow! Those two moons are freaking amazing! Is it even possible for them to be that big? They must be super close! That one on the left definitely has an atmosphere. I can see continents! Wonder how that affects the waves?”

Crash nodded. “Jimmy did mention surfing 60 foot waves every day.”

“So what do you want to do tomorrow? Crush the local low level animal population into mush? Learn how to exploit the native npc’s for gold? Take over the town temple and convert it for Destiny?”

Crash just stared at Malia in disbelief. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. Jekyll! I thought maybe we could get the lay of the land. Check out the starting town. Find out where to get our starting gear. See where the best place is for waves… get maps? You know, get set up for some adventuring? Who were you playing with this last month? Dracula?”

Malia snickered. “I told you earlier I was a badass!”

Crash said, “Alrighty then. On that note I think it’s time for sleep. I can’t wait to explore The Island!”

Malia said, “I’m gonna meditate for a bit before bed. Good night.”

“Nighty night!”

Crash climbed into the huge bed. He instantly let out a moan. “Sweet baby Jesus I’ve never felt a more comfortable bed! What is it with this realm? Everything is better than home!” He started to drift off right away.

Ten minutes later he felt Malia climb into his bed. She kissed his shoulder and snuggled up to him. Two minutes later he heard her lightly snoring.

Crash smiled and fell asleep. He already loved this world.