White Knight Syndrome

3 • Fantastic Four Next Door

"Yes. A game. If I help you up the tree, you'll have to tell me why you ran out on me." I beamed, proud of my spontaneous idea. I wasn't the spontaneous one in our group. Mckenzie definitely wasn't, either. Jay? Maybe. But the queen of impromptu (if not irresponsible) trips to Mexico, spontaneous hair color changes, and random declarations of love (sound familiar yet?) - that was Delilah's job. Maybe she was rubbing off on me after all these years.

"Um..." Ellie started to hesitate and I turned on my smile - the charming one - until it was up to its highest level. Ellie even blinked and flushed when she saw my grin.

Wiggling my brows at her, I cajoled her to face the rope. "Come on. The treehouse's amazing. I used to want to live in there, instead of in my own home."

Ellie let out a little laugh at that and relief washed through me. I didn't like that she felt uncomfortable here. I wanted her to want to stay, or else I would've felt like I'd failed in helping her have fun.

She gripped the rope with both hands and tilted her head back to smile at me. "Okay, fine. But you have to help me and promise you won't make fun of my skills."

Grinning back at her, I bent so my eyes were level with her brown ones and placed both hands on her waist. "I promise. It's not like you have any skills to make fun of, anyway."

She laughed - finally - and before she could turn to slap my arm, which she looked like she was about to do, I lifted her up the ground and urged her to climb. Following my order, her hands snaked up the rope and I continued lifting her until her hands had no more rope to reach for, and were instead latched onto the edge of the treehouse's mini porch thing.

I kept my arms hovering in the air where she was as she heaved herself up the porch, in case she fell again. This time, the drop wouldn't be so pathetic. After she had situated herself to one side of the porch, I jumped up on the rope and climbed the last few feet up, swinging myself onto the porch easily.

"Show off." she muttered, but her smile remained.

I winked at her and watched in amusement as her cheeks reddened once again. Then, I motioned grandly to the doorless door. "Behold, the great Knights' Mansion. Part two."

Ellie crawled into the treehouse, evidently slightly afraid to stand up. Not that I blamed her. The treehouse was fifteen feet above the ground and wasn't in its best state. The years had definitely weathered it, and I ignored the creaking noises the floorboards made when I ducked into the treehouse after her.

The treehouse wasn't very grand, but in my opinion, it was pretty amazing. A smattering of multicolored bean bags lay on the floor, sitting on layers of overlapping sheepskin and cowhide rugs. There was also a mini Turkish rug from when we went to Turkey five winters ago on a rare family trip. The walls were decorated with fairy-lights, strung across the room in an aesthetically messy manner, courtesy of Mckenzie and Delilah when they were thirteen and in their Tumblr phases.

It wasn't magnificent, but it was childhood. I turned on the lights and watched as the warm yellow glow of the lights washed Ellie's face with wonder. Under the hazy golden light, her brown eyes turned a rufescent honey color, and I didn't realize I was staring until she looked at me, and her rosy cheeks - you guessed it - reddened even more.

I smiled at her and collapsed backwards into the white beanbag chair (my designated beanbag chair), which had accumulated a thin layer of dust because the last time I came up here was eight months ago, when Jay, Mckenzie, Delilah and I all gathered up here with mugs of cider and hot chocolate and played board games on Christmas Eve.

"We used to pretend we were the kids from Kids Next Door when we were younger." I didn't think I had to elaborate on who "we" were.

Ellie gave me a blank look, and I wondered if I really did have to elaborate, after all. "What's Kids Next Door?" she asked, and although that wasn't the question I was expecting, I still wasn't expecting it at all.