Friendly Dating - Kira

Chapter 19 - Honey and Moons

Ethan insisted on carrying me all the way home. He didn't even take any of the shortcuts, he just stuck to the main road, past the school and around the corner, all the way down to my front gate.

I was ready to get down and say goodbye when we arrived, but he refused to let me go and carried me on his back right into my bedroom, unceremoniously dumping me on my bed. Putting me down gently would be way too proper for him to stand.

"Why, thank you, my trusty steed," I giggle, trying to get myself into a seated position and regain at least some of my dignity while he falls down on the foot-end of my bed, lying on his back, pretending to be dying of exhaustion. Hmph!

I slap him on the shoulder, pressing my lips together, narrowing my eyes at him, and he just laughs at me and sits up.

To be honest, I'm touched and grateful because, despite all my talk of it being just a scratch and nothing to bother about, the little cut has started to burn and throb quite unpleasantly and might not have been fun to deal with, walking all this way. 

"I think we should put this on the list of ideal boyfriend tasks," I tell him. "You can just carry me everywhere I have to go."

Ethan snorts and leaves the room, returning a few seconds later with the first aid kit we store in the cabinet in the bathroom across the hallway from my room. He sits down next to me on the edge of my bed and, bending over, takes hold of my ankle and yanking it into the air, topples me, once again causing me to land on my back with my legs in the air.

Seriously! This guy!

"Wait! What are you going to do?!" I squeak, trying to resist the assault on my person.

"I'm going to clean and disinfect it and put some ointment on it, and if it needs a band-aid, I'll stick one on too. Why? Did you want me to kiss it better instead?"

I reward him with a spectacular eye roll. "No, thank you. This just suddenly feels like déjà vu, and in the incident I'm reminded of, I ended up in worse pain than I'd been in before you started taking care of me."

Ethan is frowning at me, clearly not remembering the occasion.

"Turn onto your stomach; it will be easier to reach."

"No! You're going to torture me!"

He laughs, easily flipping me onto my stomach, bending my leg so that my foot is pointing at the ceiling, giving him easier access. This dude has never heard of the word gentle!

A sudden mental flashback to being held in the pool is making a liar of me; he'd been extremely gentle then. 

"I think I know what you're talking about, and I did not torture you that day because I tried to look after your injuries,' he informs me, opening the kit to retrieve some torture devices from it. "I tortured you because you made me carry you on my back from Dobson's Park, about a gazillion miles away, all the way here, because you stepped in thorns and were apparently dying of pain."

Oh, right, the memory is becoming clearer to me now too. I shouldn't have brought it up while I'm at his mercy.

"You refused to let us stop to get rid of them for you, saying that they're in too deep and we'll need tweezers to get them out," he is really remembering way too much detail. "I had to carry you to your room so Deli could have a look. And she did..."

"I really thought I stepped in thorns!" I try to defend myself, but my giggle is giving me away now, just as it had that day.

"Right," he snorts.

"I seriously did! I could feel them building nests under my skin."

"Weird-ass thorns on your planet," he chuckles. "Besides, wiping my sweat on you doesn't officially fall in the category of torture."