Forest Boy

[20] Phi Phi (and the Flowertots)

"You gonna skinny dip, Fleas?"

Rhyse paused midway through taking his shirt off to toss a bemused expression at me. "Skinny what?"

"Dip?" I responded meekly, wishing the lake would forge a sunken mouth and devour me whole before I was forced to woefully explain to the Forest Boy just what I meant.

He didn't budge an inch, except his eyes which blinked widely as he waited impatiently for my explanation.

"It's- it's where you go swimming... naked," I murmured.

He puckered his lips and arched his brow in scepticism and then smirked. "We're barely a thing yet Sophia, and you want to see me naked?"

"It was a joke!"

"So you can jest about seeing me in the nude but when I prank you it's too much? Double standards I see." He childishly folded his arms and pouted.

"Oh shut up you big man-baby and let's get in before your mother overhears you complaining from your cabin."

After lounging in the burning sun for a while, talking incessantly about nothing, doing nothing. The uncomfortable sensation of my hands and feet beginning prune ran through my body. It was time to get back to dry land.

With all the energy I had remaining after the sun had siphoned it from me while sunbathing, I dragged myself back to dry land. Back into the shade.

Rhyse swiftly followed, settling not too far from my side. Sluggishly, he perched himself up with his hands. I couldn't help but notice he was much more tanned than when I initially met him.

He turned his head towards me, and my heart fell into my ass. Not because he looked incredibly attractive at that moment, but because he would definitely realise I was checking him out.

"It's pretty when it's curly," Rhyse said. He nodded towards my hair that was occasionally dripping freezing cold droplets of my water down on my shoulder and down my back.

"Thanks," I responded sheepishly, glad he didn't acknowledge my ogling. "It's gonna be a pain in the ass to detangle later on, though."

His eyes didn't leave my head for a second. "I'd learn to do it for you if we had more time together. I do like doing hair."

I smiled at the boy and his generous offer, who was deep in thought about hair. He was a strange boy a lot of the time, but he also had peculiar wholesomeness about him that often came out of the left field. I'd never had a guy offer to do my hair before or even compliment it in its natural state. At most, it had just been non-black boys who wanted to touch it because they had some bizarre idea of what the texture would feel like.

"One day when I get out of here, I'll do it," he stated decidedly. His focus lingered on the expanse of the lake before us. "I want to learn all about you and your culture if you and the sorrel are anything to go by." He turned his head to briefly shoot me a dazzling grin, before settling his eyes on the lake again.

There was something else he was thinking of; his mind had wandered off elsewhere while he spoke to me. A yearning in his voice sounded like he was already imagining himself where he wanted to be in the future. It was odd seeing him be serious for a change without a questionable joke to make me question if he meant what he said. He was genuine. Contemplative.

... also very attractive, but that wasn't important!

It was clear that he wanted to leave the forest and see other things, but that his parents wouldn't let him leave. Presumably, it was his mother. I didn't mention that to him though, instead, I put the focus on something slightly different.