Friendly Dating 2 - Ethan

Chapter 19 - Piggyback Ride

"Ethan, I can walk!"

"Yeah, I know; you were already doing it pretty well when I met you 12 years ago," I snort, tightening my arms looped around Kira's thighs, giving her a seat and keeping her in place on my back while I navigate the path down from the waterfall. Kicks, Burlap and I left the others who wanted to enjoy the pool a little longer because we had things to do.

"This is ridiculous," Kira sighs, sounding exasperated, but she stops resisting, wrapping her arms around my neck instead and resting her chin on my shoulder. After a couple of seconds, I realise that she's trying to use it to drill a hole in my skin, but her breath, whisper-soft against my ear, is sending shivers down my back, causing my heartbeat to pick up and a heat wave to rush through my body, nearly undoing all the good cooling-off work the pool had done.

She cut her heel while we were playing in the pool. We have this fun thing we do where we climb onto the tall boulder near the centre of the pool, and then I toss Kira into the water, jumping in after her, and though we did that many times, it is not how she got hurt. She was standing on that boulder, guiding me to dive for the shell she nearly drowned herself for, and when I brought it to the surface, she got so excited she fell off and scratched her heel in the process.

It's a pretty good shell to continue the collection her mom started before she died, but it's not worthy of Kira's blood. After my first jump from the waterfall, I was horrified to realise that I still had it in my pocket. To my relief, it survived; she would've been devastated if I'd broken it. 

Well, the cut is not deep and will be nothing but a vague memory tomorrow, but it needs cleaning, or it could get infected and turn into a problem; I don't want her to walk around until I've taken care of the cut.

"James, please talk some sense into this guy's head," she huffs when it's clear that her chin is not doing any damage to my shoulder muscles or making me relax my hold on her, and she turns her head to look at Burlap walking beside me, her cheek taking her chin's place on my shoulder. I think she's very comfortable back there.

"Nah, he seems to know what he's doing," Burlap grins. See? The dude's got my back. Always.

"Damn straight, I do," I agree with a grin, and grunting softly, Kira relaxes against my back as if she has lost all her bones and her muscles did not function anymore. I think she's trying to make herself heavy, and it would've worked, too, if she actually were heavy. She's not. I swear my schoolbag weighs more than she does. "Besides, you're haemorrhaging."

"I'm not haemorrhaging!" she laughs. "There's barely a drop of blood."

"Exactly, there's blood," I cannot believe that this requires explaining! "You're haemorrhaging."

"Buddy, that doesn't qualify as haemorrhaging," Burlap, the traitor, is laughing now too.

"Seriously, Burlap, your parents are doctors," I remind him since he has clearly forgotten. "You should know about things like this."

"Exactly, and that's why I know she's not haemorrhaging," the bastard is still laughing at me.

"Well, I suppose you're right," I tell him, narrowing my eyes. "It's not you who has the medical degree; you wouldn't know."

Chortling happily, the guy shakes his head and gives my shoulder a gentle punch. Unlike the other guys, especially Jet, Burlap never hits me hard enough actually to feel it; he saves his real violence for our friends... and enemies... uhm... the same thing... I guess I do it too. 

"Okay, yes, you're right, Ethe; she's haemorrhaging," he finally sees reason.

"See?" I tell Kira, turning my head to try and look at her, and suddenly her lips, rosy and sweet, are too close to mine. I see them part with a soft gasp while her eyes widen, the pupils instantly growing to wipe out the biggest parts of her irises, and then she jerks her head back.