It's a lovely morning, as mornings go. The breeze is fresh and the birds are going nuts in the trees lining our street. It's not quite as hot now as it is bound to be later today.

I wasn't really aware of the existence of lovely Saturday mornings, as my Saturdays usually start around noon... which is lovely enough for me. 

Delia and I make a right turn, walking into the street containing our school, and I can already see it a block away. I so don't want to go there... especially not dressed like a cast member from a Japanese high school anime. This skirt is too short; each time the wind picks up a little speed, I have to grab it and hang on for dear life.

I'm not surprised when Simon falls into step with us, smoothly removing Delia's backpack and giving her a kiss. He meets us around here every morning on our way to school.

"Hi," he says, and we greet him back.

I suddenly find myself imagining an Ethan and Kira version of what I've just witnessed. It involves a lot of tripping, dodging, and shoving each other into the puddles left from the rain we must've had somewhere during the night, as well as some light verbal abuse... mostly from me. 

And now I'm giggling, and the perfect couple is giving me weird looks, so I swallow it fast.

"I don't know about this, Dell," I say when we enter the school grounds and finally arrive at the rugby fields. There are many games being played today, but we're heading to the main field, with the fancy bleachers, where the first team, Corbin High's pride and joy, will be playing.

I can see Ethan hanging out with his teammates along the first row of seats. He is talking, and his mates are laughing at what he's saying, and there is a girl leaning up against him, hanging onto his shoulder. Dell was telling the truth; that girl, Wendy Dawson, and all the others over there are dressed just like us. I am 100% sure that Dell doesn't usually show up to her brother's matches dressed like this. I appreciate her solidarity with me in this humiliating venture.

I watch Wendy snuggling up to Ethan, and now I'm really losing my nerve. I have seen them hanging out together on occasion. They've never formally dated, but that's never stopped them from being touchy-feely in public. Ugh!

Oh, great! There goes rule number one already...

I'm about to turn tail and run. Perhaps Ethan changed his mind about all this craziness after he sent me a good morning message at about 5 am. 

Seriously! I know roosters who get up later than that!

I'm surprised to see him gently but firmly extract himself from Wendy's hold, stepping away from the group to create a little bit of distance between himself and the clingy girl. He's doing it so smoothly that if I weren't focused on it, I wouldn't have noticed. I doubt that she did. If she did, she's not showing it; she simply transfers herself to the next available shoulder.

"Come on; it's going to be fun, you'll see," Dell tells me, and now Simon is looking at me, frowning.

"Something wrong, Kira?"

Does he mean aside from the fact that I'm here, dressed like Apple Pie Annie, about to watch my man play rugby?

"She's just nervous meeting her boyfriend in public for the first time." Delia mercifully answers for me.

"You have a boyfriend?!" Simon is genuinely surprised, but I'm more surprised than he is. I thought Dell told him everything about two seconds after it happened. I give him a smile, but I can feel that it must look more like a snarl. If he doesn't know about the whole Ethan deal, he must be very confused about my presence this morning. He is just too much of a gentleman to question it.

"Yup, she sure does, since last night."

"I hope it is a good guy..."

"The best, right Kiki?" Delia grins, and I cannot stop myself from rolling my eyes. "Ah! He saw us, and here he is coming now."

"No," I say. I also saw Ethan noticing us. He did a double and a triple take looking at us, and now he is laughing at me... probably at his sister too. He must know how much I hate looking like a jock groupie, and he is having the time of his life.

I spin around on my heel; I am going home!

"Wait! She's dating Ethan?" I hear Simon say, and I'll leave the explanations to Delia because I'm off now. I have a bed to go crawl back into!

I don't make it very far before a pair of strong arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me against a hard body, making me squeak in fright.

"Hey, where are you running off to?" Ethan says into my neck, and I think I'm going to faint now.

"I can't do this; I'm sorry."

"Please don't say that," he whispers, turning me to face him.

He is not laughing anymore, he is looking quite serious, and though he is lightly holding onto my hands, I get the distinct impression that I'm not going to be able to escape from him. 

"You look really cute; it's a nice touch," he grins, "but I swear I would've been fine with you showing up in your favourite denim shorts and that 'I'm a turtle, hear me roar' t-shirt you're always wearing. That makes absolutely no sense to me, by the way."

He is smiling now, and it is his I'm-a-human-being smile, not his I'm-a sex-god smile. This smile always works on me because there's something a little vulnerable in it that softens me up and makes me give in. It is also a rather rare smile.

"Thanks for coming," he says, tracing a finger over the pebbles of his necklace, which I am dutifully wearing around my neck. He is not wearing mine, of course, and I'm glad. That necklace would not survive a rugby match.

"This is too weird, Ethan."

"That's only because you're being weird; just be you," he smiles.

If I were being me, I wouldn't be awake now...

"What are you doing, Ethe?"

Oh, great, the Flintstones have arrived. Ethan's three moronic friends: Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus and Homo Neanderthalensis. The only one of his friends I actually like, mainly because he never speaks, is a guy called Burlap... because his surname is Hessian. James Hessian. I can see him sitting on the bleachers, where Ethan just came from.

He is wearing the school's red, white and black rugby uniform, but he is doing the unthinkable right now. He is reading, and I think I recognise the cover because I have the same book. It is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens!

Well, I shouldn't be surprised, I've seen him in the library a few times, and he wasn't there to look at dirty pictures in sexual health education books.

"I'm welcoming my girlfriend," Ethan tells the three hulking giants crowding us. He drapes an arm around my shoulders and turns to face his friends. I don't like this. This is so strange. I have no idea how to act. What was our mission here again? Am I supposed to convince people that we're dating or... no... I don't think that was it...

His friends exchange surprised glances, guffawing loudly, and I wish I could dissolve, like an antacid tablet in water.

"I get it now," Jet says, and I wonder what it is that he's getting.

If he's going to mock me, I'm going to kick him in his no-no place and run home. I'm not here to be made a joke of. 

"When I said she's kinda cute and I might ask her out, you punched me in the arm really hard and told me to f#ck off... I thought it was because she's Delia's best friend, but I get it now. You could've just told me that she's yours, you know? I couldn't catch a ball properly for two days."

What?!

"And when you said you beat Cole up for messing with her because she's like a sister to you, I actually believed you," Lurch chuckles. "You dog! I don't remember you ever dating your sister, though."

I swivel my eyes to look at Ethan and am surprised to see him looking like he wants the earth to swallow him. He gives a self-conscious laugh and shrugs, making bug eyes at me.

"When did you..." My eyes widen as realisation sets in. "I thought Cole had a skateboarding accident."

"He did," Barn laughs a rich roar of a laugh. "Ethan hit him with his skateboard. Told him if he so much as looks at you again, talks about you or says your name or even thinks it too loudly, he was going to feed him his board next time."

No, Jet, Lurch and Barn are not their actual names; those are nicknames; I have no idea why they're called that; maybe they forgot their real names. I've certainly forgotten them. Right now, I'm forgetting my own name too. I give Ethan a sideways glance trying to see if he still remembers his.

"What? He said some really bad shit to you; I was just supposed to let him get away with it?"

Ethan wasn't even in class during that humiliating incident!

"So, when did this happen?" Lurch wants to know, and I'm about to answer and explain the situation to them, but Ethan hears me start and covers my mouth with the hand of the arm he has draped over my shoulders.

"We've been working up to it for a couple of days now; she finally said yes last night," he smiles, and then he swivels his eyes to look down at me and winks. It looks flirty, but I get the message.

He doesn't want these guys to know about our deal.

"We'd better go," he says, and his friends look around, seeing their teammates gathering at the side of the field. 

"Wish me luck," Ethan says, and I wonder if he is talking about kissing again because a few of his teammates (including Lurch and Jet) are being artificially resuscitated by their girlfriends. In fact, Jet seems to require input from multiple air donors. Bleh!

I give Ethan a look, pulling a face. There's no way I'm doing that!

"Break a leg," I say, pumping a fist in front of my chest."

"Really?" he asks, looking horrified, and I search my mind for a sports-appropriate term, but I'm coming up blank.

"Or don't... don't break anything... just... you know... go score some goals!"

"Try, Kicks, it's called a try," he snorts.

"Yeah, okay, go try... really hard."

Ethan chuckles, and then he leans over so suddenly, I barely realise what he's about to do until his lips touch mine in the briefest of kisses, and then he is running off, and I am dying because I've forgotten how to breathe.

♂♀