Friendly Dating 2 - Ethan

Chapter 29 - Bliss in the Shade

I was right! I'm in hell!

Well, physically, I am. I struggled to get out of bed this morning, and it took a cold shower to wake me up completely. I couldn't concentrate during rugby practice, and the stupid smile that constantly snuck onto my face caused our coach to make me run a couple of laps.

Doesn't matter, I'm happy. I was grinning again when we came to the locker room, and I punched Paul and Lucas for making gross suggestions about what Kira and I must've been up to last night. Burlap keeps on giving me these amused looks like he would like to stick me under a microscope. "What are you up to, Fletcher?" he asks, tossing a towel at me when I leave the shower, dripping on the floor.

"Nothing, just thinking about my girlfriend," I shrug, grinning again and use the towel to dry off. Burlap shakes his head and, chuckling, pulls on his shirt.

"Well, get dressed first; we don't need to see what happens when you do that!" Jet shouts, so I snap him with my towel, leaving a nice red stripe on his white butt. The dude never learns not to mess with me before he's covered in clothes. Of course, this results in a full-on war, making me realise that I haven't learned that lesson yet either.

I regret so many things by the time Barn, Lurch and Lucas join in too.

We leave the locker room fully dressed once we've admired each other's bruises and burns and are done whining about the unfairness of life as naked guys in the boys' locker room. All my pain and misery disappear, the happy grin returning to my face when I see Deli and Simon entering the school gate. My stomach cramps with excitement when I find Kira in the crowd of students.

As always, the sun is covering her head in a golden crown, making her shine and sparkle; her eyes are wide and bright, and her lips just pouty and red enough to make my legs feel the exercise I've just had.

Last night, while I was offering Kicks an extensive list of possible new names for kissing, she asked me why I was suddenly obsessed with randomly kissing her when I was happy with the whole three-second hello and goodbye and good luck thing before.

"I like it," I told her honestly and asked if she hated it. She didn't seem to hate it, but if she didn't hate it, why was she kicking against it?

"It's really confusing, Ethy... I mean, what are we even doing?"

What are we doing? We're dating!

Okay, she thinks we're just tutoring each other in dating, but I'm really dating her. I didn't know what to say to her that wouldn't make her run away, but there was that 'tutor' word hanging around, inspiring me, so I went back to when she was tutoring me on maths.

"Well, when some of the algebra rules confused me, you told me just to practice examples of each one over and over again, and now I'm not confused anymore," I told her, really impressed with my logic and genius. See, that way, kissing is actually her idea and not mine. She cannot go against her own ideas, right? "If you practised kissing me over and over, you won't be confused about kissing anymore either."

"Am I so bad at kissing that I need to practice it over and over again?" she asked, being completely insane. Couldn't she tell from my reactions that kissing her and being kissed by her brings me to the brink of death by sensory overload?

"If only you were, Kicks. If only you were..."

I weave my way through the students milling about, entering the school grounds, hurrying over to where Kira is walking, carrying a canvas bag that looks pretty heavy. What the hell does she have in there? She's just supposed to bring my lunch; I doubt that's all that is.