"Wendy, please revive Ethan; he's closest to you," Burlap says, smashing buttons to move his on-screen character out of the way of killer robots. "I can't get to him; there are too many vex around me, and there's a centurion ready to smack Kyle. You're in the clear."

"I don't want to revive Ethan," Wendy sulks, spitefully letting her avatar run right over my dead character. "He pissed me off."

"What the hell, Wends?!" I grunt, and dropping my gaming controller, I try to grab hers, but she smacks me. Hard! This is not the first time I regret teaching her how to hit as though she means it. Her superpowers are only supposed to be used in self-defence.

Why is she mad at me?

After I left Kira's house, I got my bike and went to the 24-hour convenience store near our school to pick up some snacks for me and Burlap and a packet of peanut brittle for his grandfather. He might not always know what year it is and often thinks Burlap is his son, his brother, or his dad, and I'm the coal-delivery guy who tends to park on his flower beds and stole his date for the spring fling of 1959, but he always remembers that he loves peanut brittle.

I was about to start my bike and leave the shop when I noticed Wendy sitting on the low wall, hiding the collection of garbage cans. If it weren't for her favourite torn jeans, the fact that she's wearing Barn's huge Demon Hunter T-shirt and the defiant attitude with which she was smoking her cigarette, I wouldn't have recognised her because her hair is now cherry red and not the warm blond it had been when I saw her at the rugby this morning.

She said it's just a temporary hair colour that will rinse out with two washes; she'll be blond again when it's time for school on Monday. She actually looks kinda cute like this, and for a change, Burlap is not the only redhead in the room.

I called her over, as I normally do when I see her, gave her my helmet, and she got on the back of my bike. Here we are now, sitting on bean bags in Burlap's living room, playing console games while his grandfather lounges in his favourite chair, steadily progressing through his peanut brittle supply between short naps.

The late afternoon sun is filtering lazily through the gaps in the blinds, painting highlights on the bowls filled with chips, chocolates and M&M's. We were almost having fun, but I did notice that Wendy was not quite herself. I figured she was just running away from home again... she does every weekend and usually ends up here at Burlap's place unless she's with Jet or at my place.

"Because I didn't buy any peppermint crisp?" I ask, really surprised that she would hold that against me. "I didn't know you were coming. I'll go get some if you need it that much."

Wendy pulls a face, glaring at me, and she's right to glare. She can be extremely lovey-dovey one minute and beat you up for just looking at her too long the next. Sometimes, she's so feral she scares me, and other times, she's like a cat looking for affection, and it's hard to get her off your lap. She can alternate between these two pretty quickly too, but one thing she's never is a little princess that thinks people have to cater to her every need.

Come on, I'm lost here! Why is she angry with me?

"No, Moron!" she growls. "I'm mad because I've always encouraged you just to tie Kira up and threaten her until she says yes to being your girlfriend, and now that you've finally done it-."

"That's not what I did..."

"- I suddenly need permission to hang out with you. You never told me that losing my friend would be part of the deal."

"You're not losing me," I say, sitting back to get a better look at her and now I'm the one who is frowning. We've been friends for around four years now, and we've been through a lot together, and I've promised her that I'll always be there for her when life throws shit at her and tries to hurt her. That hasn't changed. Why would she think that it has? "I'm right here."

Wendy gives me a deadly look, and I move up a bit, hopefully out of reach of her nails. She can do vicious things to a guy using those. 

"You just texted your girlfriend to get permission to hang out with me."

"I didn't ask for permission!" I exclaim with a laugh. Kira is not the kind of girl who would try to tell me who I'm allowed to see and who I'm not allowed to see. She doesn't like Wendy much, but it's mostly just because she doesn't really know her and is too scared of her to get to know her. Wendy is always glaring at Kicks. She says it's because it pisses her off that Kira is too blind to see my worth. I think she just likes the way Kicks gets all nervous around her. 

"I just gave her a courtesy heads-up. Kicks and I are just starting out; I don't want her to hear about me hanging out with other girls and not know what to make of it."

"I'm an 'other girl' now? We're supposed to be friends. We always hang out together."

"I know..." She's right, but I still feel that I should let Kira know about things like this, at least for now, while everything is still uncertain. I want her to trust me completely.

"I've always been a girl," Wendy grunts, glaring at me in a very un-girl-like way. She looks like a gladiator... a pretty one with long red hair, and I move away from her a little bit more. It's very possible that she coloured her hair with the blood of the last guy who made her angry. I haven't seen Jet since the waterfall... Just saying...

"I know, but it's never mattered before," I try to explain and am a bit relieved when she smirks at me and doesn't come at me with a fiery sword.

"Not even when we were still kissing and stuff?"

"Uhm... it mattered a bit then..."

Oh, right! 

A couple of years ago, we almost dated. It never got further than sharing some kisses because I'm in love with Kira, and Wendy has only contempt for love. She swears she'll never fall in love with anybody. Since it wasn't going anywhere and we were starting to become real friends, the kissing thing just kinda fizzled out and died a natural death. I hardly remember it, and I doubt she vividly remembers it either.

"Exactly!" she exclaims animatedly. "We're actual friends now. Doesn't your girl want us to be friends?"

I look into Wendy's disconcerting grey eyes, and I realise that she is really upset. She fears that my relationship with Kira will mean the end of a friendship that is important to her.

Will it? I hope not.

I look past her at Burlap sitting on her other side, and he gives me one of his calm smiles, reaching out to put a hand on Wendy's head. I am relieved when she turns away to look at him instead. 

"Wends, come on," he says gently, directing that smile at her now, and I know for a fact that Burlap's smile could end wars because it never fails to calm Wendy down. "Kiki is not like that. Ethan is just new to this; he needs to do what he feels is right, and we need to support him."

"Sure, yeah, you're right... and I do... mostly... but if Kira said no to hanging out with me today, you would've kicked me out?" I can see that all of this is really hurting Wendy, and I guess I get where she's coming from. We've never differentiated between her and our male friends before... except when it came to being rough or violent. I didn't mean to make her feel unwanted or rejected.

"No! She wouldn't do that," I say, unsure how I can make this make sense to her. What would I do if Kira said I cannot hang out with the guys when Wendy is around? No, she definitely wouldn't do that. "I didn't ask for permission, but if she had an issue, I would've gone over there and talked to her about it. Find a way to make it work and-."

"I think I should just leave," she says, putting her controller aside and getting to her feet.

"Hold on!" I jump up, too and grab her arm. I know Wendy; she doesn't do things for effect or to manipulate others; if she says she thinks she should leave, that is really what she believes. "Come on, don't be like this."

"Ethan," she says, pulling her arm from my grasp. "You've been pining for that girl since forever, which is one of the biggest reasons I never dated you. I don't want to be the thing that screws it up for you."

I never told Wendy how I felt about Kira like I told Burlap. She just knew. She never said anything about it, except occasionally when we were alone, and I felt mopy. She's right; she has always encouraged me. 

She also went after Amber a few times, not liking how the girl played Jet and me off against each other, and I had to run some serious interference to prevent bloodshed.

Wendy has really always been in my camp with both her feet.

"Don't be silly!" I grin. "The reason we never dated is because you told me you eat little boys like me for breakfast... I'm scared of you."

"Shut up," she chuckles, slamming her fist into my shoulder hard enough for me to feel it a bit.

"Come on, Wends, you've had my back until now," I tell her, putting my hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes. "Don't go all weird on me now. You're not going to screw anything up. We'll figure it out; just hang in there... It's like Burlap said, I'm new to this."

Wendy watches me with narrowed eyes, really looking at me, and whatever she sees on my face causes her to relax, and she collapses onto the bean bag as though all the bones in her legs suddenly turned into liquid, pulling me down with her.

"So," she huffs, poking Burlap with her elbow. "Do I now need permission to hang out with you too?"

I laugh, shaking my head when Burlap shrugs.

"You've always needed permission," he tells her. "You've just never cared about the fact that it was never granted."

"Shut up," Wendy growls, and wrapping her arms around his closest bicep, she leans over and bites him.

"Ow!" he yelps. "Do I need to muzzle you?"

"Not today."

"Are you people done with your drama because we've spectacularly failed the mission," Kyle's voice comes from the headset I've been wearing this whole time. I forgot about it, and hearing him talk directly into my ear makes me jump with fright. "I don't want to try doing it with only Burlap when it starts up again. We are too few players as it is."

When Wendy and I arrived, we played Call of Duty with Burlap for a while, and then Kyle Mwangi, one of my cousin's closest friends, came online and invited us to join him in his favourite game, Destiny 1. It is pretty old and not supported anymore, but we always join him when he comes online and starts begging for someone to play with him in that well-loved world. 

We're usually happy to do it, and through the years, we've spent a gazillion hours doing the same old missions, bantering, trash-talking and generally having some relaxing fun. We do play newer games most of the time, but there is just something about returning to old, well-known worlds where we once battled together, and we do this about once every two weeks.

"Get Tanner to join too," Wendy suggests with a sultry grin, and I involuntarily move away from her some more. I cannot have her become all cuddly with me anymore, even if it's just innocent affection she's seeking. She'll have to get that from the other guys from now on.

I'm taken. Hehe...

"I'm feeling lonely, and he is sooooo sexy..."

"You know you won't be able to see him, right?" Burlap reminds her while I make gagging sounds, and Kyle laughs his funny belly laugh that always causes more laughter. It's contagious.

"I could still hear him, though," Wendy informs Burlap, giving him a look that makes him shift around uneasily too. "His voice is even more sexy than the rest of him, with that husky thing he's got going on."

We're debating the joys of Tanner Trent (another of my cousin's friends) and his voice and whether hearing those sexy tones is worth the snarky garbage, lewd jokes and obnoxious crap he tends to spit up when our very own version of a snarky, lewd bastard says knock-knock somewhere behind us and crashes on the nearest empty bean bag as if he just got shot. That bean bag happens to be right next to me.

"Where's Lurch?" I ask Jet, watching him lie on his back, rubbing his hands over his face and into his honey-brown hair. Hearing the question, he lifts his hands away from his face to glare at me.

"I didn't plant a tracking device up his butt, Fletcher!"

Okay, our snarky, lewd bastard is in a bad mood. Something must've happened between the waterfall outing and now. He was fine earlier.

"He mentioned going with Tonia to her cousin's birthday party," Burlap informs us.

"See," I tell Jet. "Burlap planted a tracker up his butt."

"You should call Hunter too, Kyle," Wendy is still on a mission of her own, clearly not interested in who planted trackers and where. "He is seriously sexy too."

"See, that's why we shouldn't play with women!" Kyle grumbles, making his character run over to Wendy's, and I'm not sure; he might be trying to make it look like it's berating hers, but it's only doing a rather dorky dance.

"Are you jealous?" she snorts, and Kyle laughs happily.

"Of course I am! Who wants to hear about how sexy their friends are when they're right here... all sexy-like, but nobody notices."

"You're very sexy, Kyle," Burlap dryly assures him, drawing another burst of laughter over our headsets.

"You mock me, but I've lost like an entire me in body fat. I'm ripped now, I tell ya! Ripped.... well, slightly... I don't jiggle anymore."

It's true; after multiple warnings from his doctor about becoming diabetic, Kyle decided to change his unhealthy habit of spending 24/7 on his computer while snacking like food was soon going to become extinct. It was actually the fact that he wanted to be more in shape so that he could take the girl he liked out on a proper date and keep up with her while on that date that finally motivated him to go for walks and eat more healthily. 

"I don't want to call you sexy, Kyle," Wendy sniggers. "I don't know if that scary woman of yours is around."

"Seriously," Jet snorts, startling me. I forgot the guy was here; he is never this quiet. "Are you calling another woman scary?"

"I'm not scary," Wendy huffs. "I'm a peach."

"With a worm in it," I snort, and now the girl is trying to kill me, calling me a pervert, and I was really just thinking about rotten peaches, nothing sleazy at all... Not this time.

"Who tried to eat your puppy?" Wendy asks Jet when her rather dedicated murder attempt brings her almost face to face with the guy who is still lying on his back next to me, listlessly looking at us.

"Seriously, what is it with you and eating people's puppies?" I grumble. Wendy is always saying weird things like that.

"I don't eat people's puppies, Ethe," she explains, making herself comfortable in her bean bag and picking up her game controller to move her character around on the screen, impatient with the wait time for the start of the next mission. "That is what I would look like if someone ate mine," she says, nodding her head towards Jet.

"You don't have a puppy," Burlap points out helpfully.

"Well, I should."

"So you can eat it?"

"Ethan! Don't make me hurt you!"

We sit quietly for a while, Burlap and I watching Jet lying with his arms crossed over his face, and to be honest, I'm a bit worried now. The guy has been here for about ten minutes now, and he hasn't pissed me off even once.

"You guys sit like girls," Wendy tells us, and I'm about to ask her what the hell that means when I realise that she's smirking at the screen where our characters are lounging around, waiting for the countdown to start. Hers is the only one walking up and down, and I suddenly realise that it is also the only male character in the group. I am not entirely sure why that happened; we pick our characters based on skills and available armour.

"We are girls," Burlap, Kyle, and I say in unison and hearing our chorus of male voices, Wendy nods her head in passionate agreement.

"I'm getting married," Jet mutters and our general laughter and the insults being flung back and forth, mostly between Kyle, Wendy and me, suddenly stop.

What?! Nobody says it out loud, but the silence is shouting the word.

"Did he just say he's getting married?" Kyle asks, probably convinced that he heard wrong since Jet is not wearing a headset and though his voice got picked up by my mic, it wasn't clear.

"Yeah," I say, glancing at Burlap to see if he is as confused as I am. He is not confused; he is outright worried. I use my controller to change the output sound so that the TV speakers can project Kyle's voice and Jet can hear him too. Once I've plugged the free-standing mic into the jack, I unplug all the headphones from the adaptor and remove my headset. 

"Aren't you like 18 and in high school?" Kyle is sounding as baffled as I am feeling. Usually, when Jet says something weird like this, it is almost immediately followed by images of some supermodel or actress on his phone, but he is just lying here, staring at the ceiling now.

"Yeah..."

"Did you knock someone up?" Wendy wants to know. She's never really been big on tact.

"No."

"Why are you getting married while you're still in school," Kyle asks, unable to get his head around this rather strange idea.

"Not now; next year," Jet groans, sitting up.

"To whom?" Burlap asks, removing his headset, too and giving me a troubled look.

"Dunno. Some business merger of my dad's. Who cares," Jet shrugs, grabbing the nearest bowl of chips and hugs it to his chest, munching on a hand full.

"Rich people are weird," Wendy mutters, and I can see that she is also worried about Jet. His home life is not within our realm of normal at all. We've never been able to understand fully how it works.

"Yes, they are," Jet agrees with a snort, and he is starting to look better already, but I don't think he is just kidding around; his eyes are not lime green and filled with light right now; they're murky, sludgy green. The look they always have when he needs to be bailed out of whatever new trouble he'd gotten himself into.

"Do you have to?" I ask, hopeful that the answer will be no.

"If I want to continue living in luxury," he shrugs.

"Do you want to?"

"No," he says, levelling his eyes on me, and I can finally see a spark of life in them again. "End of this year, I'm out of here before my dad can even try to put that noose around my neck. I just need to dodge it until then."

I don't know where he thinks he'll be going, especially when he's penniless, but I know that if he went to Hummelton University and told them about his predicament, they would give him a bursary so he could play for their rugby team. They really want him. It could perhaps be an option, but his father will be able to reach him there and drag him back.

"Archer's been dating Lurch's cousin since before conception," the thought suddenly hits me, making me feel nauseous. "Is he also going to be forced to get married to someone else next year?"

"No, he's not the crown prince to the Tremain kingdom, lucky bastard," Jet grunts, his jaw clenching. "Besides, my uncle isn't a big douche like my dad; he won't do things like that to his kids."

None of us knows what to say now; the atmosphere that was becoming relaxed since Wendy and I talked things through is suddenly tense again. Each of us is wondering what we could do or say to help Jet. I often want to beat the dude up, but I don't like seeing him this frustrated and down... unless it is because I did that beating-up thing...

"Wanna run away with me?" Wendy asks. She's a practical person, and she's also always looking for someone to run away with her. I guess, in her mind, she could hit two flies with one blow if she ran away with Jet. "We can even get married. You cannot marry someone else if you're already married... not in this country."

"Sure," Jet grins, setting the bowl free and moving from his bean bag until he's crawling towards her on his hands and knees in a rather predatory way. He, of course, has no problem with the fact that I'm in his way; he crawls right over me. "Marry me, Wends, marry me hard!"

"Hell, no!" Wendy shrieks when he grabs her by the wrist and pulls her towards him; seriously, I'm still here and having him drag her over me is no fun. "I've changed my mind!" she screams, and I finally crawl free of the pile of bodies I'm being buried under and get to my feet, leaving the two of them to wrestle and giggle on my bean bag.

Well, this is a little more normal, at least. 

"It's starting," Kyle informs the heap of humans that displaced me, and on the screen, Burlap and I hurry our characters through the opening door, following Kyle's.

"What's up, Grandpa?" I ask Burlap's grandfather when I sit down near him on the armrest of the couch and see him becoming agitated, moving around with a frown on his face. "Do you need the bathroom?"

"I already went," he says, "it's leaking."

Burlap drops his remote and headset to jump to his feet and join me next to his grandfather's recliner. I hand my controller to Jet when Wendy shoves him off of her and retakes her place in the game.

"Don't revive me if I die; I'll be back," Burlap tells them, and together we help his grandfather from the recliner into his wheelchair. I'm glad to see that the leak the man's diaper had sprung is not quite as severe as we feared.

In his grandfather's bedroom, I help Burlap clean him up and dress him in his pyjamas, and when he tells us he'd like to go to bed, Burlap wheels him to the bathroom to brush his teeth. "I've got it from here, Ethe, thanks."

"I'm back," I say, taking over Burlap's bean bag since Jet apparently needs two, mine and his. "What are we doing?"

"Reviving Burlap," Jet informs me, and I can see that we're well on our way to failing the mission again while Wendy and Jet take turns to revive Burlap, who is constantly being killed by circling enemies. I pick up his controller and rejoin the game once Jet has revived the character again.

"Wendy, what are you doing?" Kyle wants to know, and he is right to wonder because she is pretty much ignoring the enemy, her character doing crazy attack moves and shooting at nothing.

"I'm killing Jet," she says as if we're idiots for not knowing that.

"You know this is not GTA, right?" Kyle reminds her. "You can't kill your own team members... or you would all have been dead by now! Well, unless you manage to make them fall down a ravine... I should do that..."

"I can still try," she huffs.

"I can kill you back," Jet growls.

"Now you two are just dancing, and we're dying!"

I grin, seeing Jet get ready to use his rocket launcher and nimbly guide my Titan character to drop a shield on him just as he fires and "boom!" he blows himself up.

"F#ck!"

"There, you go, Wends," I laugh, leaning over to bump her shoulder with mine. "I've got your back."

"I love you, Ethe!" she chortles happily.

"Seriously! I'm about to quit you mofos," Kyle growls, but I can hear the laughter in his voice, "and take up knitting to relax! I'm battling alone out here!"

"Told you to call Tanner and Hunter," Wendy huffs, reviving Jet so that we can all rejoin the fight. "And Dex... oh yeah! Please call Dex..."

"Fine, I've sent invites to the entire friggin' clan," Kyle grumbles. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic!"

My butt starts to vibrate, and I tilt myself over to the side to drag my phone from my back pocket. Trying to check my messages while defending my character against pesky vex (and Jet, who is hell-bent on revenge) is not as easy as one might think it would be.

It's from Kira's dad!

"Games tonight?"

"Yes!" I cannot stop the grin from cracking my face while I send him a thumbs-up.

"What? Did she finally say yes, you can touch her fingertips?" Wendy scowls, probably worried that it's Kira telling me to quit playing with her.

"My father-in-law wants to hang out tonight. Score!"

"You're weird," Wendy grins.

"Are you sure you're not dating Uncle Joe?" Jet laughs, and I lean past Wendy to flick his head. 

Uncle Joe has been working long hours lately, and we haven't really had time to hang out for a while. I'm actually feeling a bit nervous now that I think about it, and it hits me that he is officially my girlfriend's father.

Should I tell him? Did Kicks tell him? Should I ask her if it's okay for me to hang out with him? Is he OK with me dating Kira? Well, he's always acted as though we've been dating for years, but now that it's real, he might not be as supportive anymore.

We play valiantly against highly stacked odds... well, mostly. Kyle shouts directions, and we mainly just ignore those directions, and it is not long before we lose another campaign and are back in waiting mode.

I stand up and hand Burlap his controller, stepping away from his bean bag when he returns to the living room.

"Grandpa okay?"

"Yup, snug in his bed, reading his book," he smiles. "Thanks, Ethe." It always amazes me how his grandfather can read books, picking up where he left off each day when he cannot remember what someone said to him only a few minutes ago. I wonder how that works.

"I'm going to get going now, I-."

"He has a date with Uncle Joe," Jet finishes my sentence, and I just blink at him, wondering if that was supposed to qualify as trash talk.

"Yeah," I agree. "I do, but I'm gonna make some coffee first."

"Ah, Ethe!" Burlap grins. "I love you." Yeah, the guy really likes my coffee, and I always make him a fresh pot just before I leave his house. I'll make a round for all of us and then refill it and go home for my first dinner.

"Shit, Burlap, next thing Ethe is going to have to text Kira if he wants to hang out with you too," Wendy grunts, and I pull a face at her.

"Jet, can we have a quick chat?" I ask, pointing to the kitchen when he frowns at me.

"No, I don't need a talk about the birds and the bees, Mom; I'm not getting married."

"Shut up," I groan, and when I enter the kitchen, he is right behind me, anyway. He is such a brat.

"What?" he asks, crossing his arms over his Rick and Morty T-shirt and giving me a wary look from under his sun-streaked fringe. Seriously, this guy always looks like he's about to go surfing... or sailing. He never looks like the stressed only son of multi-millionaires. He looks like a carefree beach bum.

Actually, I'm surprised that he is not out with his yacht right now. I know Barn is sailing at the moment, and usually, they enjoy doing it together. They practice for the yearly race we have on Founders' Day, which is next Saturday, nearly every afternoon. The boating club where Barn has a part-time job gave him access to one of their yachts, and Jet uses his own. Sailing is the one thing in life he is truly passionate about. The two of them spend hours chasing each other around the Bay Area every chance they get. 

"Are we cool?" I decided to ask the question straight out because Jet and I never mince words when we're discussing something... we do sometimes try to mince each other, though.

"What do you mean?" he frowns, looking confused. "We've never been cool... well, I'm cool... you're not..."

"I mean about Kira?" Apparently, my words were more minced than I thought they were.

"Yeah, why wouldn't we be?" he asks, stepping away from the counter he was leaning against to open a cupboard and retrieve some mugs from it while I get the coffee maker ready for the first round.

"I know you like her..."

"Yeah, well, she wants you, not me," he shrugs, dumping the mugs on the counter near me and opening a drawer to find some teaspoons. "There's no accounting for some people's taste."

"So..."

He rolls his eyes and gives me an annoyed shove, clearly not enjoying the fact that I'm trying to have a serious discussion with him. To be fair, we seldom have those.

"Look, Ethe," he finally relents when I just solemnly gaze at him, trying to read his mind and failing because the guy should've been born with a manual to help humans understand him. "If I'd known for sure how you really felt about the girl, I would never even have thought about the possibility of trying to get her not to hate me. I wish I knew, that's all. I think I did know... I just didn't know. I've got your back," he grins. "No! Not with a dagger," he adds when I try to look over my shoulder.

"It's all good, Ethe. I never stood a chance anyway. I've always known that she actually really digs you," he scoffs. "I mean, all that: 'Don't eat that, it's Ethy's, here, these are yours' kind of crap." He is actually making a cute little voice now, and I swear, I almost hear Kicks. I miss her. I hope she sticks around a bit to be with me and her dad.

Will it feel weird if she does?

Maybe she'll let me kiss her again. I still cannot believe she let me do that.

"Mine often has gherkins in it," I explain, hastily swallowing my grin. I don't need Jet asking me what that is all about. "Unless she stole them out. You hate gherkins..."

"In fudge?" he frowns.

"Uhm..."

"No, it's not a thing, Fletcher!" He growls a warning. "And don't you dare try to make it one!"

I chuckle, getting the milk from the refrigerator while Jet fetches the sugar from another cabinet. 

"Besides, if I had any doubts about how she feels about you, they left me when I saw her take on Gibbs today," he grins, placing the sugar next to the milk and mugs. "The guy is twice her size and has the morals of a cockroach; he would think nothing of punching her, and yet, there she stood, all feisty like she's going to give him detention... So hot... I'll be honest; I had a moment."

"Me too," I grin, my heart fluttering at the memory. Now that Kicks is no longer in any danger, I enjoy thinking about that incident. It wasn't fun at the time, though. "Hey! You can't go having moments about my girlfriend!" I grumble, suddenly realising what he said and swat at his shoulder with the back of my hand.

"I know," he shrugs. "It's still going to happen, though."

"Then I'm going to have to beat you up," I inform him matter-of-factly, making him chuckle happily.

"You do what you have to do, Fletcher."

"Can I help?" I ask, watching the coffee maker trickle a nice dark stream of coffee into the pot. "About this whole marriage thing, I mean."

"Yeah," he sighs, running a hand through his already messed-up hair. "You can do that dimple thing you always do and seduce the bride... when I know who she is, but I guess Kira won't like that."

"I could kidnap you and make you disappear," I kindly offer, smirking at him.

"Are you sure that would be helping me?"

♂♀