Friendly Dating 2 - Ethan

Chapter 35 - Time for a Splash

Seriously, people say I'm self-destructive, but I've got nothing on Miss Nature standing here, gazing up at me with shining eyes, searching my face for something while she holds my hand.

What has her looking so worried?

I'm only half listening to Lurch and Tonia having a mild argument about sometimes needing to pursue their own activities. I get it. Tonia wants to draw, and Lurch will stop her from drawing.

He's not all that crazy about Scarlett Park because the little stone kids freak him out too, and he gets bored just hanging around or climbing the mountain. The creek is not great for swimming, and it is seriously hot now. It's hard to believe that it was raining just this morning. The sun is already sucking all the moisture from the ground and trying to suffocate us with it.

"Did I just get dumped?" Lurch mutters when Tonia runs across the road after promising to meet up with him later. Honestly, the guy is so blooming clueless.

He is not like me, an expert who knows all about women since I have two running my life. One harpy and one angel... oh, and my mom. I feel sorry for the idiot; he looks lost and pretty devastated... the way I did this morning. He didn't mock me, so I won't mock him either.

I'm probably not an expert after all.

"Totally!" Jet guffaws; clearly, he has no issue with mocking heartbroken guys. Is he going to ask if he can have Tonia now? I step closer to him and jab him in the ribs, stopping him just in case. I don't like seeing Lurch so freaked out.

"Dude!" Delia scoffs. "She went off to make some nice drawings. I often do the same thing. Sometimes with Sy, sometimes without him. You're not stuck together with super-glue."

"But you heard what she said. She doesn't want to make out and give me massages and stuff... we always do that when we go to Ghosties..." he moans, nervously messing up his already messy brown hair, curling all over the place. It's time for his regular haircut, or we will use his head to mop Burlap's kitchen floor again. We do that sometimes because... uhm...

He is anxiously looking at Jet, who is still laughing even though Barn took over from me to shut him up and is now trying to tackle him to the ground. Barn is... well... a barn, and it might look as though he is about to kill Jet or snap him in half, but Jet is a friggin Honey Badger! He might not be as vicious and aggressive as one, but he is definitely as cocky, scrappy, tough and bad-ass.

"Lurch," Kira lets go of me to take his hand, patting it gently with her other hand. I know she's just being her sweet, encouraging self, so I'll let it slide... this time... but I want her hand back! "You do know that it's hard to draw and do those things simultaneously, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"And you do know that Tonia is an actual person with feelings and needs and things she'd like to do on her own?"

"Yeah...?"

What?! He didn't know?

Sometimes, Lurch is a bit oblivious, but I know he loves his girlfriend and enjoys having her around all the time. He is often just a little too blind to see what she might need. Tonia is always going along with his plans, and I guess he started to forget that she might have plans of her own sometimes because she never tells him.

I really hope Kira and I will get better at communicating because I don't want us to fall into that kind of trap where only the needs of one of us are ever catered for, and the other person starts to fade. I've seen it destroy relationships. She must never be afraid to tell me what she wants to do and when she needs to do things without me. I don't own her.