Delia told me that Kicks realised that dating me would be a perfectly safe practice environment within which she could learn how to behave in a romantic relationship.
I agree with that logic; she really does need all the practice she can get. She's a bit clueless and tends to run away if a boy seems to be too interested in her. She's certainly always running away from me if I even just try to flirt with her. It's probably because I really don't know how to flirt and usually end up annoying her or grossing her out.
She's wrong about one thing, though... I don't think this is going to be a safe practice environment for Kira at all! I'll never do anything to harm her, of course, but I can barely stop myself from touching her. If she is going into this project thinking she will be safe, it makes things so much more complicated for me. I'm not just practising. I love her, and I want her to love me back.
I had a long chat with Burlap a few minutes ago and admitted to him that I mucked up his entire plan, and when I told him what I eventually came up with, he wouldn't stop laughing. The jerk calls himself my friend! Well, when he was finally able to breathe again, he did tell me that he's got my back and will do everything he can to help me succeed. According to him, the fact that Kira agreed to my ridiculous plan just proves once and for all that he is right; she doesn't hate me, and in the deepest parts of her heart, she wants to be with me too.
I wish that were true.
I don't share his conviction when it comes to that. I know Kicks cares about me; she's proven that so many times in the last 12 years, but I don't think she has romantic feelings for me. We've been close for too many years; it's like that weird-ass saying about not being able to see the woods because there are too many trees around you... or something like that.
We're too close to each other; she cannot see me clearly.
That's what I think, and when I told Deli that, she'd gaped at me and asked me when I suddenly became so deep.
Today has been quite a day, and I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep tonight, which is really bad, because I have to be up early for rugby tomorrow. It's a friendly match to kick off the season, but a match against St Albany is always a blood bath. There's never anything friendly about it. They're our biggest rivals, and the first game of the year tends to set the trend for the rest of the year.
I have to sleep, but I'm lying here in the dark, staring at the screen of my phone, wanting to message Kira and knowing I probably shouldn't, mostly because I might muck things up. I should just date her without any contact... Right, that made no sense.
My phone's background is a picture of Jet and me riding a wave on our surfboards. That was a great day, with perfect weather, awesome waves and loads of fun, but today was a better one.
Making up my mind, I scroll through my pics until I find one of Kira and me and make that my background and lock screen. In the image, Kira is dodging the sand I'm shaking off my body after she and Deli buried me on the beach, and I broke out of my sand prison. It is a spectacular action shot. I'm jumping to my feet, sand flying everywhere in a huge wave, and Kira, screaming, has her hands up to ward me off, her face turned away from me. Kinda the story of our life together so far.
Maybe I'll be able to replace it with a more romantic one soon... I hope...
I jump with fright when my phone suddenly vibrates and squeals in my hand, letting me know I have a new message. The surprise causes me to drop the device on my face.
"Ow!" I snatch it up, blinking away the tears that spontaneously burst from my eyes when my nose announced that it was under attack. It takes me a few seconds of rubbing my nose and blinking my eyes before I can make out the message.
It's from Kira, and all it says is: "Good night."
"Why?!" I reply in reflex, really freaked out now. I haven't even talked to her yet or done anything. I've been lying here in my bed wondering if I should send her a message, but our whole relationship is made out of rice paper. A drop of water, a slight breeze, or one careless move could destroy it completely. I haven't added any water, wind or anything yet; why is she sending me such an ominous one-line message?!
"What do you mean why? It's night."
"Are you mad at me??" I really hope she's not mad at me. I am trying, but I cannot think of even one reason why she should be mad at me... then again, I seldom can. Come on, give me a break! I really need this chance! Don't take it away now!
"No more than usual. Why? What did you do now?" she replies.
Nothing! I did nothing!
This is going nowhere. I hate typing messages; my fingers are too big for the friggin' small buttons, and I end up making mistakes and adding a bunch of ls and ms when I try to backspace. Frustrated, I hit the voice note button instead.
"Good night? Just like that? Sounds pretty final. Are you ending it already, or are we still doing this?"
That was too aggressive; I should just delete the note and say something nicer. My mom is always telling me that I cannot catch flies with vinegar. I don't know what she's always on about; I don't want friggin' flies. I just don't want Kicks to break up with me already. My heart is beating in my throat now, and if I thought it hard to fall asleep earlier, I now know I'll never sleep again in my entire life.
I'm still trying to get my fingers to the right buttons to delete my sent message when my phone announces a reply from Kira.
"I wasn't saying farewell, Idiot," well, that sounds a lot better. "I was saying good night; it's a thing civilized people sometimes say to each other. Dell and Simon always say good morning and good night to each other. Seems nice. They're my only example, so... whatever. Go to sleep!"
Oooooooooh! The grin sneaking onto my face is making me look exactly like the idiot Kira just called me. She's clearly taking our deal seriously, and that is exactly what I want. Kira never does things by halves when she's made up her mind to do them. She's bringing in the big guns for this. Deli and Sy are experts!
"👍🏻Sorry. Good night."
I stare at the message I just sent, and I don't like it. It looks just as impersonal and blunt as Kira's original message. I should also use my sister and her perfect boyfriend as an example because Kira thinks Simon is the ideal guy. What would he do? Ah! I know!
"😘"
I wait and wait and wait, but there is no return kiss. This isn't right! I know for a fact that Deli always sends Sy a bunch of kisses with her messages. The two are really quite nauseating. I've begged her to stop showing me their corny messages, and sometimes she relents.
There's nothing from Kicks, no kiss, nothing! Perhaps she fell asleep. I'm stupidly thrilled when my phone buzzes again, but these are not kisses!
"🤣🤣🤣"
What the hell? How is this using Sy and Deli as an example?!
"Don't laugh!" I grumble into a voice note. "You started this. You're supposed to send a kiss back; you're being seriously unromantic."
When I hit send, I suddenly have a vision of Kira pouting out those cute lips of hers, and the thought is sending goosebumps up and down my back.
"No." She's getting pretty good at short messages. I'm actually starting to miss her essays.
"Come on."
"No."
"Come on!"
Oh, great, we're in a loop now! Kira should know me by now. I don't give up easily; I can do this all night, using any format she wants. Full caps, broken up into multiple one-letter messages, you name it!
"😘"
Finally!
"🤣🤣🤣" I hit send, laughing right along with the emojis I sent. Having late-night texting conversations with Kicks is really fun. Why have we never done this before? I hope we do this often from now on.
So, we're dating now. Monday is going to be pretty overwhelming for Kicks; we need to get the word out before then; get her used to being my girlfriend in increments. Kira is not very social. She prefers hanging out in groups of three or fewer, and if it can be a group of only one, she's in her element.
Deli and I are the only people she is completely comfortable with besides our parents. She's starting to accept Simon too, and she's always liked Burlap, but when it comes to the three stooges, she tends just to run away as soon as she gets a chance to escape. She cannot stand Jet, and I'm glad because I think he actually has a crush on her.
He asked me a while back if he could ask her out. I don't know if he was just trying to figure out if I'm really serious about her or whether he is just oblivious, but I think he really likes her. I made it pretty clear to him that she is off-limits, and he backed off.
If I just text them and tell them that we're dating, they'll scoff and joke around because they'll think I'm just blowing hot air. I cannot tell them about the deal; if I do, they'll muck it up. Not because they're mean; they're just dumbasses and will make a joke out of it and cause the whole thing to fall apart.
I don't like lying to them, but I'm going to have to; besides, it's not really lying because I love Kira, and as far as I'm concerned, she really is my girlfriend now, and I'm going to make sure that this dating thing becomes permanent. I just need to win her heart... no pressure...
It will be best just to show them somehow; they respond well to things they can see. Running my mind over Deli and Sy again for inspiration, I realise that Deli watches all of Simon's basketball games, and he watches all her hockey games.
Perfect! All my friends will be at the match tomorrow, and many of the girls I'm always running away from and just enough gossipy people to spread the word around a bit. It will make Monday so much easier.
"Coming tomorrow, right?" I sent Kicks a text message, and when I see her reply asking me "where", I figure that I was probably being too cryptic, so I send her a picture of the school. She understood this picture earlier today.
It's from a very old TV series called Little House on the Prairie. I've never seen it and have no idea what it's about, but the picture is of a cute little school with kids walking up to it carrying books tied with belts or something. It could also be a church, but there are those kids with books... and we don't have church tomorrow... We also don't have school... so...
"Why would I go to school on a Saturday?"
Yeah, I should've seen this question coming. Kira doesn't care about rugby. I'm about to send her a picture of a nice, shiny brown rugby ball when I realise that she'll probably think it's chocolate and that there's an easter egg festival going on at school, which makes no sense since Easter is long gone, so she'll be even more confused.
"Rugby."
"❓👀❓"
Oh, great! This is going to take forever. As much fun as I was having texting before, I'm not having that much fun anymore, and I have to get to sleep. Sitting up, I look at Kira's dark window. It seems to be open, but her curtains are drawn. I stare at that invitingly open window and the ivy-covered wall surrounding it. I could use my key to their back door, but the whole Liam-climbing-through-her-window thing is still bugging me despite Delia's explanation.
It just feels like the bastard owns that window, and I'm feeling an overwhelming need to claim my territory. I'm her boyfriend now; I should seal the fact by climbing up that wall and through her window.
Yes! How hard could it be? Liam is not exactly known for his athletic abilities. He is known for his money and his ability to flash it around.
Making up my mind, I slip out of bed, climb out my window and use the many convenient features on the wall below it to make it to the ground. Technically, it would be easier to use the side with the small balcony, but then there'll be light shining on me, and my parents might hear; besides, I've used this route so many times before, I can do it with my eyes closed.
After I've scaled the low wall making a poor job of separating our yard from the Crofts', I examine the expanse of wall leading from the ground to Kira's window, and I cannot even begin to imagine how Liam managed to climb it. There is no conveniently placed hosepipe wheel, brackets for gardening tools or anything protruding nicely from this wall as there are on mine. It's just brick and ivy. There's bugger all to hold onto and virtually no safe places to put one's feet.
I am not going to let that get in my way. If Liam could do it, so can I! This is my wall, and that is my window... well, no, it's Kira's wall and window, but whatever... I'm going to crawl up there and make it mine! I'll be the lord of the wall and window! Yes, I have lost my mind...
I really should've done this during the day first to find a good route because I cannot see a thing now. I have to feel around with my fingertips until I find a place where I can dig in my toes, and then there's still the problem of finding a ridge or a bump big enough to use to pull myself up. Once or twice I nearly lose my grip and have to grab hold of the ivy, and that does not work out all that well.
The Disney movies are all wrong; you cannot climb up a wall using ivy... well, maybe if you're a 2D animation, but definitely not if you're a fairly muscular guy because I keep on pulling their roots loose from the wall. Not good at all. I don't want to destroy the ivy.
I'm really relieved when I finally reach Kira's windowsill, and with a great sense of achievement and victory (in your face Liam Quinn), I crawl through her window and the gap in her curtains to land with a grunt on her carpet.
I made it! This window is mine now, Bastard!
Kira is not sharing in my euphoria, she is sitting up in her bed, clutching her full moon lamp to her chest, and it is in its cycle phase, flashing red and yellow and green and blue and other colours as if it's having a panic attack. She and her moon both look terrified, and they should be! I could've been anybody!
"You shouldn't leave your window open like that, Kicks," I huff, getting to my feet and wiping my hands against each other to get rid of all the embedded grit. "Something weird could get into your room."
"So I see," she acknowledges cheekily, blinking at me.
"Sheesh! That was harder than I thought it would be," I gasp, struggling to get my breathing back to normal. I'm huffing like Lazy-Bones on the few occasions when he actually does make it up or down the stairs to my bedroom. These days he usually just sleeps with Delia because once he's in my room, I have to get up in the middle of the night to take him down the stairs to use the doggy door in the kitchen, or he'll sit there and whine the whole household awake.
"I now have some real respect for that milk-soppy dude you dated. Saw him climb into your window once; he made it look easy. Figured if he could do it, I probably could do it too, but... pheeeew! Almost saw my ass a few times just now."
Kira is frowning at me now, slowly shaking her head.
"Liam used a ladder," she tells me, causing me to stop mid-gasp to blink at her in shock.
"What?"
"My dad was cleaning the gutters that week; he left the ladder out... didn't you see it?"
"It was dark..." Liam climbed a blooming ladder?! That makes so much more sense. That's it! I'm installing a permanent ladder behind the ivy... a well-hidden one only I will know is there... Don't want random strangers to use it.
Still shaking her head, Kira is laughing at me now. "Why are you here?" she asks, putting her moon back on its stand and patting it until it's casting a soft blue glow.
It might just be that subdued lighting, but Kira seems to be blushing and unable to look straight at me. Surely she's not that shocked and freaked out about my invasion; she's used to me, after all. Seeing her eyes shy away from me, I suddenly realise that I just jumped out of my bed and rushed right over. I didn't even pull on my Jedi Nights shirt. I'm just wearing boxer shorts, and I don't think it's the many little Yodas waving their lightsabers around, covering the black background, that is making her nervous.
My lightsaber is behaving quite well at the moment, but if Kira decides to get out of that bed, looking all cute in her cannibal bunny PJs, the situation might become uncomfortable. Long ago, I watched a movie about a cannibal who tried to make himself a suit out of the skins of his victims, and since Kira's PJs has a soft spongy little tail and bunny ears and is covered in bunnies, I figured she had the same thing going on and told her all about my theory.
She wasn't pleased...
Still, she looks adorable in these pyjamas, especially when she pulls up the hood, which she is not doing tonight since it's so friggin' hot. I came here to ask her to come to the rugby tomorrow; I cannot have her see me get all excited about how cute she looks in her PJs. It will rip the rice paper existence of our relationship to shreds, so I hastily sit down on her windowsill, slightly hunched over to fit in the opening and decide to rather look at my toes. There's nothing as good at destroying romantic thoughts as staring at human toes.
Ugly buggers, the lot of them!
♂♀