The day is almost done, and I haven't thought of a project yet to tempt Kira with, and Deli hasn't come up with a great one either.

I have four more periods when the break ends, and then it is showtime. I've made up my mind. Today is the day. If I don't snare Kicks today, it's never going to happen.

Uhm... snare probably wasn't the right word. I'm not trying to trick the girl or cause her any kind of harm; I just want to grab hold of her and never let her go... and I don't mean that in a weird, rapey way! I just want her to realise that we're meant for each other, that we're good together and belong together. I know she sees it; she just needs to know that she sees it. 

Ugh! It makes so much more sense when Delia puts crap like this into words.

I know what I mean.

Yeah, I believe in corny stuff like soulmates and true love, and no, I haven't told the guys that. They would laugh me straight out of county Summerfields if they knew what I really think about love and romance and shit, except for Burlap. He gets it.

Barn believes he understands, but he doesn't. He really tries, though, and I'm grateful for that. The problem is he still thinks you can get a girl pregnant by holding her hand. Well, he doesn't actually think that, but his mother, being an experienced nurse with endless data and knowledge to draw on, has educated him on the dangers of STDs and pregnancy to such an extent that the guy is too scared to even look at a girl for too long. He is no expert when it comes to love and romance.

Jet believes in quantity rather than quality. He is often dating several girls at the same time, usually, girls who don't really care about that. His defiant response to conventional ideas about morals and community can be traced back to his status as the oldest child of rich parents who think that handing over a credit card or bailing out a borderline delinquent rather than making him feel the consequences of his actions is the ultimate parenting technique.

The guy sometimes goes to extremes to get them to parent him properly. If we didn't rein him in all the time, the dude would be in jail by now... or dead. Still, we love him. He is an irritating asshole, but he's our brother.

Lurch is always stuck to his girlfriend Tonia; I doubt he even knows about my ongoing Kira struggle. I don't think he knows his ass from his nose most of the time. He is a good sort but such an air-head at times. Tonia is the only one standing between him and self-annihilation due to ignorance. I've seen a definite improvement in his level of self-awareness since he started to date her about a year ago. I hope he manages to make it last with her.

So, no, the guys don't really know how I feel about Kira or that I'm serious about being her boyfriend. I've told them how I really feel about her many times, but I've also told them just as many times that she's like a sister to me and garbage like that. I just don't want them to mess things up even worse than they already are, so it's mostly better just to leave them in the dark. Especially Lurch and Jet.

Except for Burlap. He always gets me 100%, and he's got my back completely. Lately, Simon is becoming one of the pack too. He started dating my sister a few months ago, and I gave him the usual treatment. Glaring, threatening, flexing... that kind of thing. I dish it out big time to any guy who even looks at Deli (or Kira, but don't tell her that). I don't want either of them to get hurt or end up with unworthy men who cannot stand up for them or themselves.

Sy was the first guy to tell me to get stuffed; he was not going anywhere. He used nicer words and made a pretty speech, but I got the message. We've also come to an agreement that I'm gonna launch him to the moon if he doesn't treat Deli right.

So far, I've had to tell Delia to be good to my boy, Simon, because she tends to boss him around a little too much on occasion. She does, of course, try to launch me to the moon when I preach to her. Good thing I'm bigger than her.

"So," I tell Burlap. "Today is the day. Not tomorrow, not the day after, not next week, not-."

"Are you sure, Ethe?" he interrupts, saving me from spinning my wheels in an endless sentence. "The girl is still pretty mad at you for getting her detention yesterday."

I've lured Burlap away from the gang lounging on the terraced steps leading down to the sports grounds to talk to him in private. We always hang out there. It's comfortable and has a lot of shade. Most of the guys are taking a nap and didn't even notice us leaving, which is disappointing because I had a pretty impressive cover story for our defection involving the moving of science equipment from one lab to another. I was going to make it about rounding up escaped creatures from the echo system in the Geography class, but that might sound like fun. Barn, Lurch and Jet are allergic to work. They'd never voluntarily join us if we were going to move equipment around.

We're at the science class, and we're moving a bottle of soda back and forth between us. So, it wasn't a total lie.

"She's not pissed off because I got her detention; she's mad because during detention, we were cleaning the math class, and Kicks was washing the windows. I helped her out by doing the top parts where she couldn't reach."

"Sounds pretty nice," Burlap shrugs; he knows that I'm kind, like that, always willing to help my girl. "Wait..." he also knows my less valiant tendencies pretty well. "Did you do them while she was busy with the bottom parts?"

"Yeah," I grin at the memory. "I might have made it rain on her a little bit," I laugh, thinking about how annoyed Kira got. "She threw a bucket of water at me, and then Mr Walmer made us scrub the floor as well... The whole thing! Because we caused a section to be way cleaner than the rest of the floor, and it looked weird...."

"Seriously, Ethan!" Burlap exclaims, but he's laughing too. "You're trying to convince the girl that she loves you, not solidify the idea that she hates you. Your efforts are at best counterproductive and prone to causing misconceptions which ultimately lead to utter befuddlement."

I gape at him, slowly blinking my eyes. "And now once more in English," I tell him. "Sheesh! Just because you have a large vocabulary doesn't mean you have to use it."

Burlap laughs, ruffling the glossy red mop he calls his hair. Seriously, the guy has hair straight from a 3D HD anime. I wish I had flaming hair like his. James Reads-A-Lot Hessian often launches fancy words at me to frustrate me. Sometimes he even dredges up a much stronger British accent from his pre-Egret's Rest days just to make it sound more effective. It is his way of punishing me for torturing Kira.

Yeah, I understood him perfectly well; I'm not illiterate; I just get tired of listening and concentrating. If people don't keep it short and simple, I get bored and tune them out.

"Maybe you should let her cool off first," he advises, and normally I would take his advice.

"She's cooled off," I assure him. She's been ignoring me all morning. "She's so cooled off; she's virtually frozen."

"Getting doused with water does that to a person," he points out, pressing his lips together and blinking at me.

"Yeah, yeah," I grumble. "I'll try not to piss her off anymore, but that takes away half the fun in my life... probably in hers too."

I take a sip from our soda and hand it back to Burlap. He is still grinning at me, finding my struggles amusing. I know I bring these things on myself, but he doesn't have to enjoy it so much! Still, he has my back. He'll mock me, lecture me, and try to kick my butt (and fail), but he always has my back. 

He would actually be the perfect boyfriend for Kira. The only guy I shouldn't give any grief if he showed some interest, but hell, I'm not that noble or generous. She's mine! I'll kick his ass if he tries to date her... just a little bit... just enough to make him decide against it... unless she really wants to date him. If Kira loved Burlap, I would stay out of their way, but he would never in a million years go for her, knowing how I feel about her and have felt about her for years.

"I have to go for it today," I tell him again. "I cannot spend another weekend watching her through a gap between my curtains."

"Creepy!"

"Not really," I assure him. "Okay... maybe a little, but I just check to see if she's outside so that I can be outside too... by coincidence... and spray her with the hosepipe... or take Lazy-Bones for a walk... uhm... carry him to the park and back... She usually joins me when I do that," I try to put things in perspective a little more. "I also check to see if Scamp is in her window, so I can go over there to get him; for some reason, I make up on the spot... That kind of thing. What am I supposed to do? 

"Since Deli is dating Simon, Kicks is not at our house as much unless she's baking cookies with my mom or they're hanging out having girl time. I'm not allowed in the kitchen when they're baking," - seriously, you'd think stealing ingredients and sticking my fingers in their mixtures are the greatest sins on Earth, - "and I don't want to mess up their mother-daughter time. Sometimes it's hard to come up with good reasons to be where Kira is..."

"Do you really need to have a reason?"

"Y... yeah... don't I?" I shake my head, getting rid of the irrelevant details Burlap is now trying to plant in my brain. "I have to do it today, or I'm going to go mad. I don't want to end up living next door to Alice..." I sing, and he makes a face.

"Twelve more years to go before you're allowed to sing that song," he grimaces. "So, what exactly is your plan?"

Last night, I messaged him and told him about Deli's idea of turning it into a project Kira will get on board with, and he thought it sounded plausible but complicated. He doubts that I can pull it off successfully without some help, and he's right; I cannot even come up with a good project.

"Maybe I have to submit a Biology assignment for extra credit...?"

"One that involves loads of hugging and kissing and romance?" Burlap winces and I would really like to hear more about this assignment, but he is really disappointing today. "Yeah, Ethe, I don't think that's covered in our curriculum."

"Geography then..."

"Kira loves geography; she'll definitely climb on board if you bring stuff like echo systems, rainfall patterns, or bird migration into the mix," he agrees with my brilliance, "but then she'll just forget that you exist; besides, you don't have geography as a subject."

"Way to piss on my battery, Burlap," I grumble, making him chuckle.

"Think outside of school, Ethe. You said you want to hang out with her over weekends and stuff."

"Right."

"Soooo..."

He's right; I need to find a project that has nothing to do with school. One where I can spend a lot of time with Kira, doing something she loves and where she can open her eyes and really see me.

"I'm banned from the turtle sanctuary."

"Only by Kira if she's there," Burlap points out, and he's right; nobody at the sanctuary has ever tried to ban me. I sometimes help out when they really need hands. "If you schedule your shifts to be when she's not there you...." He grimaces when he realises that he'd fallen off the train and is now rolling down the side of the hill away from the tracks, "will achieve absolutely nothing in the line of romance... Besides, our rugby schedule kinda nixes that idea. You could do that during the holidays to show some solidarity with her and win her heart that way, but that's a couple of weeks away, so...."

"Now. Today," I remind him because the guy is heading off in long-term investment territory that may or may not pay out... and I am running out of time.

"Right."

"Stuff it. I'm just gonna play it by ear."

"Dude," Burlap groans. "Isn't that how you always end up in a tussle with the girl?"

"Seriously, Burlap, if we actually tussled, I'd be halfway to happy," I clarify the situation, and now Burlap is laughing again. "She usually just calls me an idiot, throws something at me and stomps off. As much fun as that is, I don't want that to happen today."

"I might have an idea," Burlap says, a grin spreading on his cheeky face. He has that sparkle he gets in his eyes when he is about to tell us his theories and spoil the ending of a good mystery movie. I hate that sparkle when we're watching a movie and usually muzzle him before he can start to talk. Burlap is hardly ever wrong, which makes me believe that the guy might be a criminal mastermind, at least partially. 

Right now, seeing that sparkle, I suddenly remember why this guy is my best friend.

♂♀