"Your bike? You can just come through the fence the way you always do," Kira says, causing Deli and me to give each other a confused look.

I have the phone on speaker on my bed while I lie around, buried under pants and T-shirts, watching my sister pretend to be my stylist. Apparently, all my clothes offend her, and if she keeps this up, everything in my closet is going to be piled on my bed. This time it won't be because I haven't cleaned my room in a while.

Scamp agrees with me. He valiantly tries to fight the flying shirts when they're sent to attack me. Deli isn't happy with the comfortable jeans and T-shirt I pulled on after my shower. Hell knows why. They don't have any stains or holes... not even on purpose.

"We're not having ice cream at your place, Kicks," I inform Kira since she clearly didn't realise that I was asking her on a date away from home. Well, technically, I didn't. "When I asked you if you wanted to go get ice cream, I meant at The Float Shoppe on the beach, the one with the many flavours."

Kicks loves that place. She might have a special addiction membership or something. She often gets her dad to take her there on Sundays after lunch, and then Deli and I tag along. We haven't done that in ages because Uncle Joe had been really busy lately.

"Oh!" she exclaims, and I can hear that she likes the idea despite the word bike still hanging in the air. "We can take the bus," she points out, and I pull a face, making Delia chuckle. She knows how much I hate taking the bus.

"It's so restrictive," I tell Kira, hoping to impress her with my knowledge of big words, but she's clearly not impressed... or she didn't get what I meant.

"The bus is convenient. It picks us up close by and drops us off almost inside the ice cream shop."

"Yeah, but if we have to catch the last bus home, it gives us almost no time to do other stuff."

"Other... stuff?" Wow! Is she actually sounding suspicious now? I'm slightly insulted that the idea of stuff with me seems to upset her, but that's because she doesn't know how much fun that stuff could be.

"Yeah, playing games at Game Galaxy, walking on the beach... dinner, if we get hungry," I suggest, being merciful by telling her about some normal fun stuff. "Do you have to be home early to cook for your dad?"

"No, he's grabbing dinner at work. He's in the middle of an important project, and it's at a critical stage right now."

That's right. We've barely seen him all week. It feels like ages since we had that game night.

"Don't you want to hang out with me, Kicks?" I ask since she's not saying anything now, and perhaps the stuff I listed also didn't appeal to her. I think we really need this, but it's possible that she might see it as one step too far in our Friendly Dating project.

"I... uhm..."

Oh, marvellous! Her abundance of enthusiasm is making my head spin, and I don't even remove the dark blue button shirt Delia tosses on my face. I'm just gonna lie here and suffocate now.

Nope, Scamp won't let me; he's already fighting his way under the shirt to sit on my face and try to eat my nose. I have no choice but to sit up.

Delia is putting away my clothes, but she's doing it a bit aggressively, and I can see that she is two seconds away from grabbing my phone and yelling at Kira. I don't want her to yell at my girlfriend. I get that Kicks is a bit apprehensive and I don't think scolding her is going to help.

"Kicks?"

"Yes, it sounds like fun," she finally says and judging by the look on my sister's face, she'd just saved herself from some serious Delia-love.

"Awesome, I'll meet you at the gate in..." I look up at Deli for guidance since she's an expert at going on dates. "How long do you need to get ready?"

"Not long," Kira says. "I'll just change my shirt and-"

"Hell no!" Delia yells, grabbing my phone. "I'm coming over there. Go take a shower!"

I'm laughing, shaking my head, when Deli hangs up and tosses the phone on my bed.

"Seriously, the two of you are making me old," she grumbles, stashing the last of my discarded clothes back inside my closet, more or less orderly. Well, marginally better than I would have. "That shirt, with these jeans, and style your hair," she instructs, pointing at the shirt still in my lap and tossing my pants at me. I'm going to take care of your ignorant girlfriend now. Seriously, you guys are hopeless!"

"Don't be mean to her."

"I'm never mean to her!" Delia frowns; technically, that might be true, but her assertiveness seems mean when directed at Kira. I don't like it when people are assertive towards her.

"Oh, and when I say style," Delia adds, giving me a stern look. "I don't mean like that time we went to our first school dance, and you gave yourself a side part and plastered your hair to your head like you were trying to be friggin' Clark Kent."

"I was being Superman!" I growl. "I had the little curl in front." I twist a strand of hair over my finger, carefully arranging it on my forehead, but my sense of style is not appreciated by Deli today at all.

"I'll shave your head," she warns and laughing, she runs from the room when I toss a pillow at her.

Well, Kicks might be sceptical about this whole date thing, but I'm just going to have to make it so awesome that she's going to want to go on dates with me every day. Easy, peasy, right? RIGHT?

Shit, I'm so dead.

At least I can be buried in a nice blue shirt and my best jeans. I'll even do some stuff with my hair to make it look messy without being messy - the way Jet showed me. Girls are always going gaga about his sense of style. Even Delia.

"Ethe? Can I come in?"

I tense when I hear my dad's voice on the other side of my bedroom door after a gentle knock when I've just pulled on my newest dark grey jeans. Well, it wasn't an I-have-to-talk-to-you knock, but still, I don't want to be in a mood when I meet up with Kira. This is an important date!

"Sure, Dad," I say with a grimace, fastening my pants and grabbing my belt from my bed to thread it through the loops.

"Deli tells me you're going on a date with Kira now?" he says or asks; I can't quite tell, and he is looking at me in a completely unreadable way. I've never been as good at Deli at reading my dad, and right now, I find my dad-illiteracy very uncomfortable.

"Yeeeeeeeees?" This is new territory, and I really don't need another castration speech right now. "I promise I'll behave. You may not believe it, Dad, but I am more protective of Kicks than even you can be... or Uncle Joe."

"I know, Son," my dad smiles, lifting the cat from my bed when the animal runs to the edge and starts clawing at the leg of his pants. "I think it's a great idea to take her out, but I know she doesn't like riding your bike, and to be honest, I'm not crazy about the idea either."

That's not news; he doesn't like me riding it either. He only gave in and bought me one because I was always catching rides with one of the guys, and he liked that even less. I wait for him to say more, but he is too busy nuzzling the thorny cloud in his hands. He looks really tired, his blond fringe hanging limply over his forehead and into his eyes. I don't think he slept well last night after our fight.

He needs a haircut, a shave and a day off. Well, tomorrow we'll be a the festival; hopefully, he'll stick around to have some fun and not just go home after building the things I need to help him with.

"Dad, the bus-"

"My car, Ethe," he says, pulling his keys from his pants pocket and tossing them at me. I almost miss catching them because it is so unexpected. "Take my car, okay? It has a full tank. Drive safely and have fun."

That is all he says, and he is even smiling at me as if we haven't been at war last night. I smile back, too surprised to react at first.

"Thanks, Dad!" I call after him when he turns and leaves my room with the cat snuggling in his arm, trying to eat the hand stroking its belly.

Kira is standing at their gate, waiting for me, when I steer my dad's grey Hyundai out of our driveway and stop in the street near her. The first thing I notice is that she looks extremely pretty in jeans and a floral top with sleeves that grow wider from her elbows.

So, Delia managed to get her to take a shower and dress up after all. Not that I doubted my sister's abilities to get people to do things they weren't planning on doing. Still, I would've been happy just to have Kicks with me in her work clothes. She even styled her hair in soft layers, and I'm pretty sure she's wearing a little makeup.

Kicks doesn't like makeup. I once heard her tell Deli it makes her face feel dirty. I thought it was hilarious - and I told her so, earning a pillow to my head – because her face is almost always dirty after her excursions into bug world. Then it's actual dirt, and it has never bothered her.

She called me an idiot and told me not to hang from the roof, looking into Deli's window. I wasn't; I was getting my ball out of the gutter on that side of the house where there's no second storey. I slipped, kicked over the ladder and got stuck on my way to the ground and broken bones with my legs in the air because my pants snagged on a downpipe bracket that was slowly pulling loose.

It took me a while to convince them that I was in serious danger and not just hanging around trying to eavesdrop on their stupid, girly conversations.

Hey, I was in seventh grade at the time!

Well, I might still die in this blue shirt, but it will be a pleasant death from a heart beating too fast and my stomach being all weird and bubbly, like having gas without actually having gas.

The second thing I notice is that Kira is extremely self-conscious. There's a huge chance that she's going to run back to her house and hide under her bed, and then the ice cream, beach walk and other fun will be gone, along with my best chance to make this relationship real.

I quickly open the driver's door and get out of the car, and from the look on Kira's face, I'm sure she thought I was my dad. She now seems even more keen on running away, so I hurry around the front of the car to open the passenger door for her. I tilt my head, waiting for her to realise that I'm not just showing her how skilled I am at opening doors but actually want her to get into the car. She just stands there, leaning against the wall next to their gate, blinking at me as if she has no idea what I could possibly want.

"Are you stealing your dad's car?" she asks, finally coming over and getting into the car. She is still giving me weird looks and I know it's not because my hair looks sexy (Deli said so) or that I'm wearing a shirt that hasn't been camping with me yet. It might be because I opened the door for her, but I'm not sure. I think I've done it before in the past when I was picking her up from somewhere, and her hands were full, and I had to grab her stuff from her to put them in the trunk.

"No," I say, sliding into my seat behind the wheel, and satisfied to see Kira fastening her seatbelt, I fasten mine too. "My dad told me to take the car because he doesn't want you riding on the back of my bike. I guess he likes you," I add with a grin, and Kira's eyes widen in panic.

Now what?!

"He knows about us?!"

Really? She expected me to keep it a secret from my dad, her father's buddy... my mom's husband?

"Yeah, I told him on Saturday just before I went over to your place to hang out with your dad. I also mentioned it to him after you nearly broke your neck to flee out of my room the other night."

"Oh, my word! What must he think of me?!" Kira groans, making me laugh, surprised to see her so distressed over this.

"That you are a decent girl with a big heart and a sterling reputation and that he'll skin me alive if I hurt you in any way. At least, that's what he told me."

"He did?"

"Yeah, I think he's in the process of writing a 1000-page rule book on what I'm allowed to do and not do," I tease, laughing when she buries her face in her hands. "I was tempted to show him our extremely detailed spreadsheet so he can see you already have that covered."

"Does he know that we're just..." She falls silent, swallowing nervously, and her fingers start to wrestle each other in her lap. I watch them, fascinated. They're like dainty little fairy tentacles trying to strangle each other.

"Just what?" I ask, keeping an eye on those fingers to see which hand wins.

"You know."

"No, I don't," I assure her, though I do know. I just really hate that she wants to call what we have fake. I look up from her agitated fingers to look into her eyes instead. This is not helping because her entire body is starting to squirm now. Why is this making her so nervous? This is me, and that is her, and we've been around each other for most of our lives. "He knows we're in a romantic relationship, like Deli and Sy," I grunt, putting her out of her misery and starting the car. I'm the one in misery now. "I think he gave Sy the same lecture when they started dating."

We drive to town in a silence that isn't all that comfortable and I'm not sure why. This is not starting out all that great. The girl looks ready to start chewing on those fingers that have stopped their wrestling and are now just tightly clinging to each other.

"You look very pretty, Kicks," I tell her when I'm sure my voice won't come out in a stupid dry whimper.

"Thanks, so do you," she whispers shyly and glancing at her, I can see that she means it. Her cheeks are flaming, and she's subtly checking me out, from my hair to my toes. I'm not sure pretty is what my stylist was going for, but the girl is nervous. I'll be happy with pretty for now.

For the record, I was aiming for something like sexy, dashing, yummy... handsome... stuff like that when I did my hair, but, yeah, pretty will do.

"Well, it's our first date, so-"

"No, it's not!" Kira exclaims as if I'd pinched her. I never pinch people; that is Deli's job!

"We already had our first date, and I missed it?" I ask, horrified. Exactly which of our outings did she see as our first date?

"Well..."

"Just so you know, crawling in the mud and stalking my sister weren't dates."

"Okay then, this is our first date," she concedes and if it were possible, I would've thought that she is even more nervous now.

This is actually awesome. I'm driving my dad's car, and it's decent as cars go. It handles smoothly and smells nice. The sun is mellow, and I have the prettiest girl in Egret's Rest right here in the car with me. She smells really nice too, like roses and lemon, and something I cannot name that makes my stomach flutter excitedly.

What more could I want?

Entering the town centre, I park the car in the main parking lot from where all the places we might want to be can easily be reached. There are many other cars tonight, as lots of people are in the town square getting as many things ready for tomorrow as possible. Dad and I will be here early in the morning to help build the bleachers and put up some more pre-manufactured kiosks. My mom and the girls will come later to help wherever they can. The festival kicks off just after lunchtime.

I walk around the car to open the door for Kira, and she almost falls out. I think her seatbelt gut stuck, and she managed to get it loose just as I opened the door. I grab her and help her from her seat until she's standing beside me.

"Thanks," she mutters and shoves one arm through the long strap of her bag, which she pulls over her head. She always does that to keep her hands free. Kira doesn't have shoulders broad enough to support a handbag; the straps are always slipping off.

I watch her, trying to smile comfortingly, but I have no idea how to stop the girl from looking and acting so tense and agitated.

Maybe I shouldn't have called this a date.

"Are you cold?" I ask, taking her hand and checking to see why she is shivering, which is strange because it is pretty hot. She is trembling, though. Surely she's not afraid of me?!

"I just survived a ride with a hell driver," she says, and I narrow my eyes at her with a derisive snort, wrapping my fingers over hers. I drive carefully when I have people in the car with me. Jet is always calling me Sally Safety after one of the road safety mascots from primary school. I've told him a million times that I'm Shane Safety, Sally's brother, but he insists that I look more like Sally.

I don't see how that is possible, as they are both traffic cones with faces, and Sally has black pigtails. Shane has one lock of black hair curling on his forehead, but not like Superman... except if Superman went bald and just kept the one curl.

We stroll along the sidewalk to The Float Shoppe, where I buy Kira her favourite two-scoop combo, coffee cream and salted caramel, and chocolate and peanut butter for myself. Alice and Lucy, working the counter today, go to school with us, and while they're doing the scooping and I do the paying, we chat about the upcoming exams, the school holidays, and the rugby matches still to be played this year. They are both very enthusiastic supporters, and I see them at almost every match.

Kira silently waits and watches the intricate process of buying ice cream and making conversation. She doesn't once try to pluck her hand from mine until I let her go to take the sugar cones piled with ice cream.

That's a good sign, right?

After saying goodbye to the girls, we leave the shop and walk to a bench overlooking the ocean. The sky is painted in vibrant pink, orange, yellow and blue as the sun gets ready to dive into the darkening sea. Sitting here with Kicks, having some awesome ice cream and feeling the breeze stir pleasantly in my hair, I cannot imagine anywhere I would rather be.

I slowly become aware that she is watching me and not the pretty sky colours, and I turn to look at her, wondering what she's seeing. Her expression is filled with so many emotions I've never seen altogether on her face and in her eyes at one moment before.

I smile, taking in her familiar features. Every time I look at her she's more beautiful than the last time. Her eyes are sparkling in the rays of the softening sunlight, and her hair is stirring almost seductively around her sweet face. Her cheeks glow softly, and her lips scream to be kissed.

"If you want a taste, you just have to ask," I grin, not sure whether I'm talking about ice cream or lips. Yes, I want to taste Kira's lips; that's a given, but I guess I need to stick to ice cream, or this date could go seriously wrong. "Make sure you get enough of both flavours for the full effect," I tell her, holding the cone out to her.

Blushing a bright, adorable red, she leans over and licks my ice cream in ways that make me envious of the chocolate and peanut butter. I'm feeling extremely hot all over... and a few other weird emotions I cannot even try to put into words.

"Hmmm," she smiles dreamily, making my blood thunder loudly in my veins, ringing in my ears. "That is really good. Wanna try mine?"

Yes, I do!

I want to taste whatever she wants to throw my way, even if it's just her ice cream. To stop myself from leaning past her ice cream and licking her face instead, I close my eyes and savour the coffee cream and salted caramel mixture instead. I groan softly as I try to get my mind and my heart under control and on the same page as the rest of me, who plans to be a good guy and protect Kira from wolves who want to devour her.

I'm starting to feel a bit like a wolf now.

"Pretty good," I say, restraining myself from sucking up her entire ice cream. "You know what will be really good?"

"All four together?"

She knows me so well, and Kicks and I are usually on the same page when it comes to ice cream and other yummy things.

I have a plan to make exactly that four-flavour thing happen, and it will help me catch my breath and get some oxygen-rich blood back to my brain. I leap from the bench, hand my cone to Kira and run back to The Float Shoppe.

Lucy and Alice have no problem giving me an empty four-scoop tub when I ask them for one, and I'm soon back at the bench, surprised to see Kira glare at the tub as if it just gave her the finger. Perhaps she thought I was going to bring more ice cream.

She'll be happy soon.

Sitting down, I take my cone from her and tip the ice cream into the tub. Catching on to what I'm trying to do, Kira does the same with her ice cream. We use our cones to eat the ice cream, scooping bits of each flavour per bite, and they complement each other so well that it is the closest thing to heaven we can have right now.

I carefully keep pace with Kira to make sure that she gets enough. Seeing how much she's enjoying it makes it easy to stop myself from slurping up the contents of the tub, both sugar cones and Kira, as I would really like to do. I think this is more fun than that stupid thing with one can and two straws.

Kira looks happy, and that warms my heart.

"I had my doubts about the coffee and peanut butter combination," she says when we're finally scraping the bottom. I lean into the backrest of the bench and pop the remainder of my cone into my mouth, watching Kira enjoy the last bit of ice cream. "But this is my new favourite combination."

This is my new favourite combination too. Kira, a sunset and a sea breeze; I don't even care if there's ice cream in the mix or not.

"Yeah, we should do this again," I agree, stretching my left arm along the bench's backrest. When she's finished, I take the empty ice cream container and put it out of the way on my other side so I can slide my arm from the wooden slats and wrap it around Kira's shoulders. I pull her against me and she doesn't resist, she even leans into my side a bit.

"Thanks, Ethy, that was great," she says in a breathy voice. I might be wrong, but I think this moment of closeness and contentment affects Kicks as much as it affects me. I don't really have any romantic Kira reactions to compare it with, but she is definitely not indifferent or about to tell me she hates me.

"You're welcome," I assure her, wondering why my voice is trying to hide from me now. The dark water spreading out in front of us on the other side of the stretch of white sand, starting at our feet, is spangled with silver and orange. I listen to the soothing sound of the waves breaking on the shore, enjoying the freshness as the cloying heat slowly seeps from the evening air. The sunset takes my breath away, the colours intensified by my love-drenched senses, and I hug Kira closer to my side.

Breathing is starting to become hard. Perhaps sitting here, with Kira so close to me in the after-glow of awesome ice cream and the beautiful display of light and colour, is not such a good idea. I'm starting to forget all my lofty ideals of protecting her, of behaving like a civilized man and not like a depraved savage.

I take a deep breath, trying to steady my galloping heartbeat and re-focus my brain on the goal. I need to show her that being my girlfriend is a good thing, something she wants. I don't want to show her that I'm mostly just a house-trained animal and that I'm losing my mind just sitting here, doing nothing but watching the sunset. Perhaps I should go for a run or build a sandcastle or something.

A swim to wash my brain might be just what I need.

Kira turns her head to look up at me, probably wondering why I'm sighing and squirming, and I look down at her lovely face to tell her that I'm going for a quick swim... fully dressed.

Her eyes are so bright and sparkly, and her lips are slightly parted as if she's surprised. Without asking my permission or giving me even a second to think about it and decide against it, my head bows lower, and my lips find hers.

Every bit of common sense leaves me when I feel the soft coolness against my lips, and she doesn't pull away or resist when I slide my tongue into her mouth. It's like having ice cream again, chocolate, salted caramel, coffee and peanuts, except that it is blended with enough Kira to make me light-headed. I run my fingers through her silky hair, the other hand finding the smooth slope of her neck.

I'm pretty sure this violates the spreadsheet, its twin brother, and any future spreadsheets that could be born in this world, but ask me if I care.

About what?

Kira's lips are so soft, and her skin is so warm. I could do this for this entire lifetime, and I will still want to kiss her throughout the next one. I've been craving this kiss for longer than I can remember. The world drifts away, the sea breeze becomes a vague memory, my blood is humming a dreamy song in my veins, and I unreservedly give myself over to the kind of kiss I've never experienced before in my life.

I cannot remember kissing any other girl ever; I know I have, but it pales and fades in light of this moment of sheer bliss. There's only Kira and me, and I want more of her.

"Ethan," she gasps, pulling away from me. "Don't..."

What? Did I do something I shouldn't have?

The fingers of my one hand are still in her hair, and the other is stroking her cheek. We're sitting side-by-side on the bench. I'm pretty sure I was only kissing her. I hope... Maybe I was the only one completely into the kiss, the only one floating away on a drug-like cloud of love, and she hated it.

"Don't you like it?" I ask, afraid of her answer. If she says no right now, my heart will fall over the horizon with the dying sun. I cannot quite read her expression; the light has faded too much. The people working on the festival preparations were all packing up while we were eating ice cream. They disappeared sometime during the long, long kiss I never wanted to end.

"I do," Kira says, and my held breath escapes on a relieved sigh. "It's too confusing."

Confusing? There was nothing confusing about that kiss. I love her, and I poured every drop of that love into that kiss. It confused her? I don't know how to feel about that.

Well, I guess I am Ethan Fletcher, her dad's friend, her neighbour and her best friend's brother. Maybe she still thinks of me along those terms, which is why she feels confused. I gaze into her eyes, and in the deepening shadows, I can see emotions and thoughts stirring in their black depths.

Kira has never looked at me like this before.

Confusion is good. If Kicks is confused, it means that there is a shift in her mindset. She's not pushing me away; she is still sitting in my arms, her fingers clinging tightly to my shirt. This is good. She is not indifferent or revolted. I can work with confusion.

Confusion means that her heart is opening to mine.

♂♀