"Put sugar, margarine, syrup and water into a large, heavy base saucepan," I read from the smudged, well-used printed recipe in my hand and am surprised to see Kira pour way too much sugar into the pot ready on the stove. She is about to add about a gazillion litres of water too.

Maybe she didn't hear me properly. I jump from the chair I was straddling, resting my arms on the backrest and hurry over to the stove to stop her.

"Whoa! Chick! I said 750ml sugar and 125ml water; what are you doing?"

"Dude, go sit down," she scolds in that school teacher voice she sometimes plucks out of her arsenal of cute voices, and now she's cutting 250g off the block of margarine, dumping it into the tons of sugar and floods of water. "I know what I'm doing; I've done this so often, I could do this in my sleep. I have an army to make fudge for, and I'm not going to make two batches separately; it will be too exhausting. I'm making double."

Oh, right, that makes sense.

"Please don't make fudge in your sleep, Kicks," I snort, tugging at the ends of her hair. "You're a bit of a klutz when you're awake; imagine what you'll be like when you're asleep."

"Why are you here?" she asks, and I'm starting to feel a bit unwelcome since she asks me that each time I play with her tins of condensed milk or use the cute plastic spoons locked together on the table to steal some ice cream from the tub in the freezer. She's constantly trying to spoil my fun, telling me not to use her measuring spoons and to grab a bowl and a regular spoon, eat some ice cream and get on with it.

This chick is taking life way too seriously!

She wouldn't even give me a proper answer when I tried to take life seriously, too, by eating the peanut, honeycomb, and chocolate delight ice cream with an old medicine spoon I found when she took the multiple-spoon tool away from me. Now, I'll never know if ice cream qualifies as medicine when eaten with a medicine spoon.

Imagine if it did. No more headache tablets, no more period pain... stuff, no more diarrhoea medicine; just grab some ice cream and a medicine spoon, and you'll be good as new.

When I explained it, she didn't see the beauty of it at all.

We had a nice swim earlier, we're all cooled off, and I convinced her to make the fudge now while I'm here to help her and she just grunted something about pests and nags and wanting to stuff something or someone in a box... I suspect she meant me, but I'm ignoring that for now, though I would love to see her try doing that.

That could become really fun.

Ethan and Kira stuck in a box, K I S S I N G! She didn't appreciate it when I made up that very romantic song just for her. I'm starting to suspect that Kira isn't big on romance, and she's lost her sense of humour in the last 30 minutes or so.

"I'm helping you make fudge," I tell her, and I'm sure I've told her that over 100 times already.

"You keep on saying that, but you're not helping; you're hindering." Now that's just hurtful!

"As your boyfriend, that's my job," I point out logically, and she gives me that cheeky pouty-lipped look of hers, and I'm so gonna kiss her if she does that much longer!

"Hindering, is a boyfriend's job?"

"Isn't it?" I chuckle, stepping a bit closer and getting ready to kiss her if she doesn't stop being a brat... and if she stops being one... I'm gonna kiss her either way.

Laughing, she pushes me back to my chair, and I let her because she looks a little frightened for some reason, and I don't want her to be afraid of me. It makes no sense! Surely she doesn't think I would try to put her in the pot?!

I would, but not while it's on the stove and there's stuff in it... a whole different kind of Kira-fudge... Hmmm... Well...

"Sit. Stay," she orders, navigating me to my chair and pushing me down so I can straddle it again, cowboy style. "Good boy," she says, patting my head like I'm her friggin' pet. I am, but still... it's the principle of the matter... I'm just not sure what principle and which matter...

"I swear I'm gonna bite you!" I growl, and she actually flinches as if I would really do that. Deli is the biter in our family! I watch her eyes grow large, and a pretty blush colour her cheeks when I kiss her fingertips and force myself to let her go.

The kitchen is already starting to feel a little hot, so I don't enjoy the next line I read in the recipe.

"Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved." Heat. Such a terrifying swear word!

Glancing up from the paper, I laugh, seeing Kira take a huge serving spoon from the drawer next to the stove. "Wow! That spoon is bigger than you, Kicks!"

"It has to have a long handle, Ethy; if it doesn't, the boiling sugar splatters onto my fingers and gives me blisters, and then I'm in hell for the rest of the time, struggling to keep the burned areas covered with a dish towel."

What the hell?! Is she serious?! That does not sound good. Now, I feel bad for nagging her to make fudge.

"Is that really what you go through each time?"

"Yes."

"Why do you do it then?" I ask, completely baffled that she would torture herself like that. "Doesn't sound like fun at all."

Turning to look at me, she smiles a sweet, affectionate smile, shrugging her small shoulders.

"Well, you love it... and so does Daddy... besides, you guys are always nagging, so...."

That is so friggin' sweet!

I give her an affectionate smile of my own, tracing the contours of her face with my eyes. Yeah, maybe she does like me more than I thought. Blushing, she turns away and adds two tablespoons of golden syrup to the pot and stirs the mixture with the same spoon she used to add the syrup.

I really am not helping, am I? She knows the recipe by heart.

She switches to her big spoon when all the syrup has dissolved from the one she just used.

"Why don't you wear gloves?" I ask, watching her slowly stir her mixture using the massive spoon.

"It would have to be those thick heat-resistant ones, and as you said, I'm a bit of a klutz. Imagine what I'll be like with gloves on."

That's it! I can't just sit here and watch her suffer!

I toss the recipe on the table and join her at the stove. Putting my arms around her, I pull her backwards into a hug, realising I startled her when she stiffens with a soft gasp.

"I won't make you do it again," I promise her and seeing my dreams of Kira-fudge flapping their wings and flying out the window, I quickly add. "Well, not alone. Let me stir."

I slip the spoon from her hand, and she scurries away from me, moving along the counter to where the cans of condensed milk stand on their heads because she wants the insides to drip away from the bottom... or something weird... She told me that when I played with them and turned them right-side up.

She can just use a spoon to get all the condensed milk out of them. I told her that her system was stupid because I was pretty sure she was just trying to spoil my fun again, and she told me to bite her... which I very almost did... very almost... and I still might.

"The sugar is dissolved; what is the next step?" I ask after expertly stirring it for three million years until there's a thin, hot, granule-free liquid in the pot.

"Now I turn up the heat," she says, fidgeting with the nob on the stove. I do not like those words! "And boil it for 10 minutes, giving it a good stir every couple of minutes."

"Okay." Honestly, I'm already a bit fed up with this stirring game. It's making me sleepy. Round and round in figure eight, over and over and over again. So boring and so friggin' hot!

"You should really preserve your stirring energy, Ethy," Kira destroys the last of the delusions of romantic fudge making I had when I decided to help her. "Because when I add the condensed milk, it has to be stirred non-stop, constantly scraping the bottom for about 15 minutes."

"Seriously, Kicks, the fun factor is going down by the minute. I'm already sweating here," I grumble, and I'm not exaggerating; standing here in the steam from the pot is sheer hell. I'm already boiling.

"It's okay, Ethy, I can do this. Why don't you go take a shower?" she offers, trying to take the spoon, and I can see that she's doing it because she knows how easily I overheat, and she's trying to be kind, but I'm not going to put her in this hell. I do what I always do when she tries to take her sweets, the TV remote, the gaming remote, the thing I'm torturing her with or anything else away from me that I don't want to give her. I stick out one arm and hold her off so she cannot reach me.

So mean. Hehe!

As usual, it doesn't take long for her to start growling at me, but this time, I'm not going to laugh and give her what she's after, and I guess she realises that because she gives up and cranks up the air conditioner instead, directing the airflow towards me.

"Thanks," I grin, and shrugging, she opens the cans of condensed milk. I stir and stir and after every few figure eights, I step away from the stove and spread my arms and legs to capture some of the sweet cold air blasting from the air-con. I'm not ecstatic when the timer goes off, and Kira adds the two 397g cans of condensed milk to the pot, and the serious stirring begins.

"We can take turns," she smiles, watching me slowly stirring the mixture in overlapping figure eights, scraping the bottom and sides all the time, making sure that nothing stays on the pot's surface long enough to burn.

"I'm not letting this shit burn you," I tell her, putting myself between her and the pot, hoping there won't be a tussle because one or both of us might end up burned this time. "What happens after 15 minutes in hell?"

"Actually, it could be more than 15 minutes," she informs me with a grimace. "It could be less too," she adds because she probably saw the pain on my face. "I keep on checking the consistency when the texture starts to change. As soon as the bits I drip out cool to become more or less what I want it to become, you know, very slightly brittle, we take the pot off the stove, add a teaspoon vanilla essence - well, two, since I'm doing everything double - and stir it really quickly and pour it into the greased pans. We have to be really fast, or it will set in the pot, and then we'll have a mess."

While Kicks rubs some margarine in the two large baking trays waiting on the counter, I stir and stir and sweat and stir. I'm too scared to take short cooling breaks; I don't want to fudge this up! Pun totally intended... if it is one...

I'm pleasantly surprised when Kira suddenly pushes a chair next to the stove, stands on it and drapes a wet towel over my head and shoulders where the aircon can blow on it to cool me down even more.

Awesome! I have the best girlfriend ever!

"I made you a head-con," she says, and I glance at her with a grin. "A head aircon," she giggles, the sound like fresh rain all around me.

"Thanks, it's helping."

I'm so used to looking down at her that I'm a bit overwhelmed having her at just a bit higher than eye level. Her eyes are bright and sparkling; her cherry lips parted prettily over her even white teeth.

She is so friggin' gorgeous!

I nearly suffer a complete meltdown - the fun kind, if there is such a thing - when she suddenly places her hands on my shoulders and leans forward, pressing her lips against mine.

Oh, yeah! Now you're talking!

Letting go of the spoon, I turn towards her, wrap my arms around her and pull her flush against me. Suddenly, there's only me and Kira, her lips and mine. Her taste knocks every thought from my brain, and the softness of her lips is drowning out the kitchen's heat and the steam blowing into the side of my face.

This is so much nicer than... what was I doing?!

"Ethan, the fudge!" Kira exclaims, scrambling off the chair and harshly yanking me back to reality.

"Shit," I grunt, grabbing the spoon. I've worked so hard to get to this point perfectly; if the seconds I stopped stirring have spoiled the fudge now, I'll be seriously depressed because it was torture... but... the loss would be so worth it. That was some kiss, and for once, I wasn't the one who started it.

"There are dark flecks. Did I mess it up now?" I ask, stirring with gusto, trying to make up for the mistake.

Kira returns from wherever she'd run away to and inspects the mixture, sniffing it while I stir. There are darker streaks in the browning mixture, but only a little bit, and it doesn't smell like burned cooking.

"No, I think it's going to be fine," she says to my relief. "Just don't stop again unless you want me to take over for a bit to give you a break."

I stir and stir and stir some more, using my free hand to run the wet towel over my face and neck while Kira cleans up the kitchen. Every minute or so, she appears and dips a teaspoon into the fudge to test the consistency when it cools. When the substance cooling on the tip of the spoon is definitely fudgy, Kira rushes over with the bottle of vanilla essence.

Working together, I take the pot from the heat and hold it for her to add two teaspoons. She gives the mixture a couple of fast and thorough stirs before we pour the already hardening substance into the trays, scraping the pot clean and levelling the fudge with the spoon.

We each grab a knife covered in butter and drag it horizontally and vertically through the fudge, creating squares. We have to work fast because the fudge is already setting and caking around our knives.

And it is done! Woohoo!

That was hell, but I'm seriously proud of myself for being a small part of this batch of stunning fudge. It looks so much better than the mud did on Sunday. It looks like lumps of hardened sugar or the rough sand and water rocks I used to make as a kid to build towns.

It's beautiful, and I know for a fact that it's the yummiest fudge in the world!

Seeing me grinning at her, Kira uses her knife to scoop a small corner piece from one of the trays and put it on the tabletop to cool.

"There's your taste test," she tells me, dropping her knife next to mine on the table.

"Kicks," I mutter, my heart suddenly overflowing, and the fear stuck in my throat all day finally spills out. I take her by her forearms and pull her towards me so that I can look into her eyes. "Promise me we'll never fight like that again and-"

"Ethan!" My dad's voice cuts through my speech, ripping a canyon in the atmosphere in the kitchen. Seriously! That was not the voice I wanted to hear right now. He must know I'm here and stands at the fence, bellowing for me.

Excellent timing, Dad!

"Your dad is looking for you," Kira states the obvious, and I shrug, pressing my lips together in an irritated line.

"Kicks..."

"Ethan! Where are you?!"

"Please go before he gets mad," she gasps. Since when is she so scared of my father? Sure, we fight a lot, but that's just normal these days. "I'll bring your fudge when it's cooled down enough to stuff in the bottles."

"Kicks..."

"Nahte, we fight all the time," she smiles a little wobbly. "How can I make a promise like that?"

We don't fight like that! Never seriously, not able to talk to each other for hours afterwards. I cannot do that again. I need her to tell me that it won't happen again. Why does she think it will?

"I think I know what you mean. I didn't like it either," she finally says, sounding slightly nervous. "Let's not do that again."

"Okay," I whisper. I guess that will have to do. She's right; I cannot ask her to make a weird promise like that, but as long as she hated it too, we'll probably be okay. Right?

Lowering my face to hers, I brush a soft kiss over her lips, not trusting myself with anything more than that and scooping up the piece of cooling fudge; I hurry out of their kitchen, closing the door behind me.

I was right; my dad is at the fence, glaring at me when I walk around the Crofts' house and head to the gap near him.

"Are you planning to put the bins out tonight, or are we going to have a repeat of last week?"

"Depends on what you prefer, Dad," I grumble, seeing his eyes narrow in warning. He is not in a good mood. I'm not in the most awesome mood, either. I'm tired. I haven't slept properly for two nights in a row, and last night was awful... so was most of this morning... I also just spent ages in hell creating Heaven.

Slipping past him, I hurry into the house to collect all the garbage we managed to accumulate in a week and transfer it to the big general garbage bin in the garage or the recycle one, depending on where they belong. The job is so much more pleasant while sucking on a piece of the fudge I helped Kira make. This batch tastes pretty awesome, a little darker like it has more depth.

Well, my dad is not wrong. I was well on my way to forget again, and we already have double the load now. Surprisingly, he doesn't say another word, but his silence is deadly while he helps me collect the garbage, get the municipal bins ready and wheel them to the sidewalk.

I could do it alone; it's not that big a job.

The oppressive silence doesn't last long... unfortunately... because he thinks I'm trying to make a race out of it and will cause one of the bins to overturn and spill the contents on the driveway. I'm not trying to make a race of it... this time, I'm just in a hurry to get it over with so that I can get away from him. 

Of course, this leads to yet another argument and the first chance I get, I make my escape into the house, leaving him to follow me at his own pace. I hate this.

"Ethan," he says when I've washed my hands in the laundry and am aiming for the stairs leading up to my bedroom. "We need to talk about next year."

"I have homework, Dad. Can we do it later, please?"

I don't wait for his answer; I just hurry up the stairs and into my bathroom to shower. The last thing, the very, very last thing I'll be able to handle right now, is another fight about my plans for next year. We're never going to agree. At this stage, I'm going to apply for a job at Game Galaxy, the ice cream parlour, the auto shop... and wherever I can and enrol for the degree via correspondence, just so I can stay in Egret's.

I'll live in a tent in Scarlett Park.

I don't understand why my father is hell-bent on sending me to study in Hummelton. While he's at it, why doesn't he just send me all the way to Thunder Ridge, where my cousin is going? That is pretty far away.

Is having me around that horrible?

He might not really be in the mood for that topic right now either or hearing the word 'homework' coming from my mouth paralysed his brain because he doesn't follow me or bellow after me, which is a relief. I hurry to rinse the built-up heat off my body and out of my hair and am soon sitting at my desk, staring at my maths homework... missing Kira.

I figured that since I used homework as an excuse to escape from my dad, I should at least try to do some. Maybe I should ask Kicks to tutor me again. No, I don't need help with maths. I just need her. Here... With me.

I've never been able to concentrate well when it's quiet; it's too distracting. The right side of my brain needs to have something fun going on to keep it busy so that the left side can deal with schoolwork. As always, I play my favourite music very loudly. The sound also tends to repel my dad and discourages visits from him. I don't play it loud enough to bother anybody when they stick to their own areas, and I use headphones when it gets late and people are sleeping.

Right now, though, I have my Bluetooth speakers cranked up as high as I can without distortion, playing my favourite songs on my phone. Songs like 22-20s' Shoot Your Gun, Barns Courtney's Fire and You, Me at Six's song Glasgow.

I'm struggling to get the math problem I'm working on to work out. I'm sure I have the right answer, but I cannot get it to fit. On the speaker, You, Me at Six's lead singer is shouting about stitching us back together, and I agree wholeheartedly that Kicks and I need some stitching... my dad and I probably even more. Suddenly aware that I'm not alone in my room, I turn in my chair, bracing myself to deal with my father and his latest lecture and am pleasantly surprised to see Kira hesitating just inside my door.

She doesn't generally make a habit of coming to my room. She says it is a toxic waste area and only runs in here when there's a thunderstorm, or Delia drags her up here to help her torture me. I like having her here in my space.

"Hey," I grin, lowering the volume of my music, and when Kira shakes a bottle of fudge at me, I rise and stroll over to her. She always uses slightly larger jam bottles to store the fudge meant for her father and me because we are the biggest fudge lovers.

This fudge tradition began a couple of years ago when she found the recipe and decided to make each of us a pretty, decorated bottle filled with fudge for Christmas. Best gift ever! Whenever we run out, we just take our bottles to her and beg for more.

I don't think I'll be doing that anymore now.

When I reach her, she steps back, bumping against the bedroom door, causing it to slam shut. The sound jolts her forward, jumping into me, and I steady her with one hand while taking the bottle with the other.

"What's wrong?" I chuckle, amused by how jumpy she is. Surely she doesn't think that now that she's in my lair, I'll jump her bones and have my wicked way with her... I could... if she wanted me to. Does she want me to?

Probably not.

"N-nothing..." she shrugs, walking past me to my desk, and I can see that she is pretending to be interested in what I've been up to. Why is she so nervous? I'm pretty sure she didn't come up here to break up with me. She kissed me in their kitchen earlier. You don't kiss a guy that way one minute and then break up with him the next...

That's not a thing, right?

"Thanks for the fudge," I say, crossing the floor to stand behind her, reaching past her to place the bottle on the desk. Resting my left hand on her shoulder, I stroke her hair out of my way.

"I like this batch," I tell her, running my fingertips from her shoulder to her neck, gently drawing circles on her soft skin.

"Yeah... me too..." she mutters, and I'm happy to feel tiny goosebumps breaking out on her skin along the patterns I'm drawing with my fingertips.

"Uhm, I'm a bit stuck on that last problem," I say, leaning past her to tap my notebook, mostly because I need to change my focus before I need another shower. "I think I'm missing a step. I can guess that x equals 12.4, but I keep on getting 5.2...."

Kira collapses onto my chair as if she'd lost all the bones in her body, and now I miss having her back pressed up against my stomach. Turning around, I lean my butt against the edge of my desk, watching her go over the problem. That frown of concentration, drawing her eyebrows together while she bites on her lower lip, is sending my heart racing, encouraged by the subtle fragrance of her shampoo filling my nostrils.

I am going to go up in flames any second now!

"Ethan! I've told you to leave this door open if you have a girl in your room!" My father's voice cuts through me for the second time in less than an hour, and he flings open my bedroom door, glaring at me.

His glare turns to confusion and a faint blush when Kira hastily jumps to her feet. She stands beside me, blinking at him with large eyes, and I know my dad regrets his outburst.

He must've glimpsed her coming up here or heard a female voice and didn't know who it was. He, too, is not used to Kira being up here alone with me. He probably thought it was Amber again or hell knows who... I haven't had a girl in here in ages, and Amber isn't even in town!

Besides, I'd never cheat on my girlfriend, especially if that girlfriend is Kira. Has he already forgotten that I'm dating her now? He gave me that speech and everything! Wasn't he taking it seriously?

"Oh, Kiki!" he exclaims, looking as startled as Kira. "I didn't know it was you..."

Wow! He really did forget... or has an even lower opinion of me than I thought!

"Hello, Mr Fletcher," Kira says in a small voice, nodding at my fudge. "I put yours in the kitchen."

"Thank you, Sweetheart..." I'm almost sorry for the dude now; he clearly feels horrible about that charming outburst... and about forgetting something this vitally important... or thinking I'm the cheating kind...

No, he probably just regrets shouting like that and scaring Kira.

"You were supposed to divide the value in the bracket by 13, not by 31... that's all," Kira tells me. I was right; the answer is 12.4. If there's one thing that stands in the way of me becoming an architectural engineer, then it is my stupid habit of sometimes swopping numbers around when I lose concentration for a moment. I always have to double and triple-check, and I'm not focussing well today at all.

"Goodbye, Mr Fletcher," Kira says and hurries to duck past him where he is still standing just inside the door, looking at her as if the side of the house has suddenly torn away from the rest, and there is a gaping hole where the living room is supposed to be.

"You don't have to leave, Honey..." he tries to stop her.

"I have to go make dinner; Daddy will be home soon," Kira says with a nervous smile and runs away like a rabbit chased by a fox.

"Why am I Mr Fletcher, but your mom is Aunt Gemma?" Dad asks me, and I can see that it genuinely hurts him that Kira has been tearing away from him to this extent. Well, Dad, maybe you need to try being yourself again, rather than friggin' Robocop... or the Terminator... or one of those scary dudes from other old movies I like to watch.

"I'm sure she'll be willing to call you Aunt Gemma if you really want her to, Dad."

"Shut up," he chuckles, closing the door, and I know we're about to have one of those fun discussions that will have us yelling and angry until my mom sends us to our rooms, threatening to bring her flip-flop to teach us to behave.

I am so not in the mood for this.

♂♀

Note:- This flop-resistant recipe was once published by Hulett Sugar, and I always used it to bring some joy to the fudge-loving men in my life. My father, husband and sons. Enjoy!