I thought the quick march to the bike would be enough distance and effort to douse my fires and turn me back into the dude who promised his dad and Uncle Joe that he would behave around Kira and not have his wicked way with her.
Well, I didn't promise it in so many words, but it was definitely implied.
I was wrong. It didn't help. I still want to turn around, grab Kicks and kiss her some more. She joins me at the bike, and I can see on her face that her brain is working in overdrive. I don't blame her. I wasn't supposed to kiss her like there's no tomorrow. That is against the rules, but seriously, stuff the rules! That was friggin' awesome!
The only problem is that I've unleashed a monster and am struggling to get it stuffed back in its cage. I've kissed many girls with plenty of passion, but I've never actually felt anything real while doing it. Not even with Wendy, and that came pretty close, but it was nothing compared to how kissing Kira with all my heart, ignoring minutes and rules, felt. My heart is beating so hard I'm a bit light-headed.
Gazing into Kira's wide eyes and seeing her flushed cheeks, I realise she is freaking out. It's another fire I need to douse in a hurry, or she will call the whole thing off. If I want her to trust me, I can't go acting like a horny goat around her. I need to defuse this situation fast.
"Take off your pants."
Yeah, that was probably not a step in the right direction, but she's standing here, wet and muddy, trembling with cold. She is not going to enjoy the ride home, not that she enjoyed the one here either, but it is going to be worse. Judging by the shock and horror on her face, I'm about the thickness of a banana peel away from "I hate you, Ethan Fletcher!" I don't want to be hated... not after that Earth-shattering kiss.
Arching my eyebrows, I cock my head, indicating her muddy shorts. "You're dirty; you're not getting on my baby in that state," I grin, teasing her, and her face relaxes into one of feigned annoyance. I can tell when Kira is really annoyed and when she's just pretending because she knows I'm just messing with her. "You can keep on your undies unless they're dirty too."
She narrows her eyes and makes a weird, scoffing sound that Jet would've been jealous of. The guy is always making gross or obnoxious scoffing sounds; he would've been impressed. I'm a little startled, though.
"You look worse," she informs me.
She's right; I do look worse. I grin, imagining Kira's face if I take the lead here. I'm seriously good at stripping... and I don't mean the kind that will help me make money; I mean the kind where I would be seriously happy living in a nudist colony. I've suggested it to my parents several times when the temperatures in Egret's Rest turn fry-your-ass-to-a-crisp degrees, and I cannot stand clothes on my body anymore. They don't wanna bite. They want me to suffer.
"If you take off your pants, you're dead!" Kira hurries to add. She knows me so well. She tilts her head, glaring at me in that cute, sexy way she has, and steps closer to my bike. Now she's really trying to kill me. She's doing some kind of weird seductive dance with the motorcycle, wiping her bottom against it and, lying over it, rubbing her chest on the seat. She's wiggling and gyrating, leaving hand and boob prints that I never want to wash off. I'll probably have to because I don't want rust to settle in. I always wash my bike after taking it for a dirty ride, but I really don't want to wash this off.
I would love those prints all over me, though. Seriously, I'm about to pass out! Pressing my lips together so they don't try to grab Kira's, I watch her with my arms crossed for the same reason. My entire body has developed a will of its own. I don't know what I might do next. I'm seriously a bit scared right now, watching Kira transferring the mud from her clothes to my bike.
Damn, she's so hot!
"It's a dirt bike, Ethy; it literally has the word dirt in its name."
Okay, I'm gonna die! Now that Kira's T-shirt is not camouflaged in thick mud anymore, it is a bit transparent, and I don't think it is Barbie Fairy's fine bits shining through. I grab my shirt from the bike's handlebars where Kicks left it earlier. I now have more reason than just the possibility of her freezing during the ride for her to change into the dry shirt.
"Thanks for the show," I grin, turning to her, trying really hard not to look at her too much or to show that I am nearing artificial-resuscitation-required status. "That was pretty hot. Here, put this on," I suggest, handing her the clean, dry T-shirt.
"It will just get dirty too," she points out, looking down at her smeared, wet top, holding mine out to me. She's clearly not seeing what I'm seeing. True... I might be using a lot of hormone-induced imagination, not just my eyes.
"Take that one off first, obviously," I say, and she just gapes at me; she has a lot of things against nudity. I heave a deep, sad sigh and turn my back to her. "Go ahead," I say, running my eyes over the stretch of vegetation edging the beach, running up the slope, separating it from the road. The breeze is picking up. Kira will soon start to tell me she's cold. On the other hand, I enjoy the relief from the constant cloying heat, trying to melt me.
"Thanks," she says, and I turn to look at her, grinning when I see her swim in my black Radiohead T-shirt. She looks adorable, like a little girl wearing her daddy's clothes. Kira runs her eyes over my mud-streaked chest and abdomen, a lovely blush colouring her cheeks. She is seriously checking me out now! I hope... I cannot quite tell, but for a change, she doesn't seem to hate what she sees. Awesome! I can feel a satisfied grin spreading on my face, growing even bigger and more sure of itself when she stutters, struggling to look at me now.
'Wh-what about you? You're going to be c-cold."
"Nah, I'm hot-blooded," I shrug, taking her wet top from the motorcycle seat where she'd draped it. Great! What do I do with this now? It might fit in Kira's bag, but it will mess with her phone and the inside of the bag. There's only one thing I can do, really; I wring it out to get rid of the worst of the water and pull it on.
"What are you doing?!" Kira giggles, shaking her head.
Damn, it's tight! It's stretching so badly to the sides that it has become a crop top, and if I flex my pecs or biceps, it might tear. This is not comfortable, but whatever. I hope I don't stretch it so much that Kira won't be able to wear it anymore. Actually, she likes baggy t-shirts; if I stretch it enough, fairy Barbie can prance around on Kira's chest for a couple of years longer... unless I tear it.
Kira is watching me with a confused-amused look on her face, clearly not grasping the beauty of this plan. I was about to say, 'You're welcome', but I'm giving up on that idea now.
"I can't ride around town half naked," I explain instead, giving her a scandalised look.
"Oh, my word!" she laughs. "You're always riding your bike around town half-naked."
"Yeah, but now I have my girlfriend with me, and I have to think about her reputation." I'm not even joking right now. If I'm on the bike half naked, with Kicks wearing my shirt, there might be stories if the wrong people see us. I don't want people to gossip about Kira and speculate about what we were doing in nature. It wouldn't be fair to her.
"Nahte, what do you think it is going to do to my reputation if we're seen leaving this area wearing each other's shirts?"
What does she mean? We're both dressed... They'll just think we have an odd fashion sense. Oh! Wait! Yeah... okay... "It will be very good for my reputation," I grin since there's nothing else we can do right now. Kira cannot be in this damp shirt. She tries to glare at me, but her face is once again cycling through a whole array of expressions I wish I could read, and even her ears are turning red now. What is making her so flustered?
"Ethan, please take that off," she begs, burying her face in her hands.
"Really? You're always telling me to put on some clothes."
"That's when you're wandering around wearing only a towel, making me nervous."
"Seeing me in a towel makes you nervous?" I grin, giving her a come-hither-look, realising immediately that those usually make her run-thither.
"Fear of you losing the thing is what makes me nervous," she says, and I can tell that she is not as indifferent as she's pretending to be while she loops the strap of the bag containing our shoes and phones crossways over her shoulder and waist. I plop one of the motorcycle helmets on her head and tie it in place.
Riding towards the mudflats was a little more fun than it was supposed to be, but I was wearing my T-shirt, and Kira's hands were only a whisper through the material. Now, her fingers are touching my naked midriff, and suddenly, I find it hard to remember how to ride this bike. I wonder if Kicks will let me kiss her again when we get home. I probably shouldn't try it. I told myself that one kiss a day was enough. I was lying, but I don't want to get greedy now and spoil everything.
I honestly would like to know how she felt about it. Did she enjoy it as much as I did? Did it tell her something positive about what she might feel for me... or the opposite? She hasn't complained yet or tried to cut my lips off. I'll take that as a good sign.
She was not unaffected by it, that's for sure. I could feel her heart beating as fast as mine; I just don't know if it was for the same reason. Perhaps she was scared.
I try to drive slowly to prolong this semi-hug situation, but soon the environment changes from natural to urban, and I slow down even more to adhere to the speed limit.
"Are you okay?" I ask, stopping at a traffic light and turning slightly to check on her. She might be freezing, in which case we can get off and walk the rest of the way. The sun should warm her up fast. We're not that far from home; I could just push the bike.
"No," she answers in a strange voice, alarming me. "I haven't been okay since the bridge situation on Friday."
Shit! Deli said she gave her a once-over, and all was fine; I have more scrapes and bruises than she does. I also have a tender lump on my head. I hope Kira wasn't hiding how badly she'd been hurt.
"Kicks, did you get really hurt when we fell off the rock?" I ask, seriously worried now. "I thought you were fine."
"Ethan, I don't think I've been fine since the day I met you 12 years ago."
"What?" That did not sound good. Is it good? It's bad, isn't it? What did she mean?
"Nothing, the light's green," she mutters, wrapping her arms around my waist and leaning her head against my back, forcing me to return to my original position. Why hasn't she been fine since she met me? Do I annoy her that much? I don't get it. I doubt that she'll tell me. I need to speak to Deli or Burlap... or my mom.
After using the remote to open our gate, I veer off the driveway into the narrow alley between the fence and the wall bordering my bedroom, where the hosepipe wheel is mounted, and the hose is permanently attached to the tap.
"Thank you, Ethy," Kira says, dismounting and removing her helmet. "For everything," she smiles, shaking her hair, the few strands not damp and muddy, flowing prettily in the breeze for a second. She slips the bag from her shoulder, placing it on the motorcycle seat, probably to get my shoes and phone from it, but when I struggle to unwind the garden hose from where it always gets caught on the spool, she steps away from the bike to help me.
"It was fun," I tell her, pointing the hosepipe nozzle at my feet. I really did enjoy it... and not just because I got to roll around in the mud with her and experienced a kiss that would've caused me to die happy if it had killed me. I grin at Kira, looking at her muddy hair and the streaks on her face. Even the black T-shirt is no longer clean since her shorts are caked with mud, and she was pressing up against me on the bike. Her legs are a disaster, and I won't even mention her feet. She cannot enter her house in that state; she'll destroy all the hard work she put into washing the kitchen floor.
I pull the trigger at the base of the hose, bringing it up to direct a strong spray of sun-warmed water at her feet and legs.
"Ethan!" she yells in shock when I lift the hose to run the spray over her entire body, and now I remember that the warm water doesn't last very long; it turns pretty cold really quickly. I like it, but Kicks might not. Well, she needs a thorough rinse anyway, so I walk around her, spraying her from all sides. She'll thank me later.
"What?" I ask when I stop the flow, and she still looks ready to murder me. "Your feet and your ass were dirty. Were you gonna walk into your house like that?"
"I don't generally walk on my head," she huffs, and watching water drip from her hair onto her nose, I realise that I probably should've stuck with her legs and feet. "And you could've warned me and done it with a little less enthusiasm!"
Yeah, I probably could've. Hey, my brain stopped working right the second Kira's lips touched mine. Nobody can really expect reason from me right now. Well, it's done; she's rinsed. "You look really hot wearing my shirt; I tried to cool you down," I shrug, grinning at her. "I was helping."
I hand her the hosepipe when she holds her hand out for it and make myself an easy target with my arms and legs stretched to the sides. Kira doesn't hold back; the cold water feels awesome on my burning body. I was cooling down nicely in the wind from the ride, but we'd barely stopped when the heat started building up again relentlessly. This is heaven.
"You're an idiot," she informs me, handing me the nozzle when she decides that she's had her revenge.
"I already know," I shrug. "You're always telling me that."
Our outing is over, and I'm sad about that. I would like to hang around with her some more. We could chat or watch a movie, or she could feed me, and I could make her some coffee, but she's dirty, and I'm dirty... and tomorrow is a school day. We both need a shower, and I doubt that she'll agree that it would be a fun activity to do together, so I guess this is goodbye for today... unless she pops over later to hang out with Deli.
I lean towards her to give her the three seconds, and all rules obeyed goodbye kiss we'd agreed upon and am pretty devastated when she takes a step back, placing herself out of my reach.
"You've already had all the kisses you're getting today, and future ones are up for debate."
I do not like the sound of that! The only debate I want about kissing is the one where we use kisses instead of words to debate. If that were an actual thing, I would join the debate team in a heartbeat... but only if it meant debating with Kira all the time. I wouldn't want to debate some guy from St Albany's...
"I didn't hear you complaining," I say, my eyes tracing every line of her face, enjoying the startling purity of it in its all-natural state. Kira wears muddy water really well. Her eyes are bright, and her lips are flushed. She is so friggin' pretty. I want to hold her right now and tell her how much I love her. Is she ready to hear it now? Would she believe it this time?
Deli told me to be patient and not rush things, but sometimes, I just want to show Kira how I feel. She must've felt it on the beach earlier. She couldn't have not seen it. What did she feel when we kissed? I wish she would just tell me. If it's my feelings plastered all over my face, causing her to take another step back, she probably didn't like it as much as I did, or she's not ready to accept my feelings yet.
"You caught me off guard," she mutters, and spinning on her heel, she hurries through the convenient opening in the fence our parents made years ago because we were always trying to climb over it instead of walking to the gate, and Kicks got hurt.
I watch her go, and then her bag, still lying on the motorcycle seat, catches my eye. I drop the hose and grab the bag, yelling for Kira to hold up so I can give it to her, but calling her just makes her run faster. Excellent, now even my voice is chasing her away. This is not going well. I should probably just give her some space. I'm sure she was as into the kiss as I was. She didn't push me away; I'm the one who ended it... because I'm an idiot.
Well, she didn't break up with me... yet.
The pretty prints she'd left on my bike are all smeared and messed up after our trip, which makes it easier for me to put the bag out of the way and pick up the hose to rinse my motorcycle.
♂♀