Friendly Dating - Kira

Chapter 49 - So, is this Romantic Yet?

Note:- @K_Blackwood Introduced me to this lovely song that sets the mood for this chapter. Thank you!🧡

♀

"I'm not going to the dance."

Something strikes my bottom with a sharp, stinging crack and with a startled yelp, I roll onto my back and sit up, blinking at Delia standing next to my bed with one of my slippers in her hand. She is poised, ready to strike again.

"I swear, Kira-Marie Croft, I'll put you over my knee and spank you the way your father used to when you were small and being a little brat!" she threatens, and I scoot up to the headboard of my bed, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms protectively around my legs. An armed Delia is a frightening phenomenon.

"Daddy never spanked me," I protest, not understanding her sudden violence, and I stick my lower lip out, pouting like a toddler.

"Yeah, clearly a lapse on his part because just look at you now! You've been lying here on your stomach, wearing your PJs, saying nonsensical things for way too long while you're supposed to get ready for the dance."

That is not true! 

I've been lying here on my bed thinking about the things Ethan told me on the beach. We didn't get another chance to talk to each other, and his words have been going round and around in my head, driving me nuts. I've finally come to the conclusion that the only way to avoid complete insanity would be to stay home tonight and avoid the dance and ultimately avoid Ethan. I need to do a lot of avoidance.

"I'm not saying nonsensical things, Delia!" I correct her. "I cannot do this dating thing anymore."

"Why not?" she asks, dropping the slipper and, sitting down on my bed, she crawls closer until she's on her knees directly in front of me. She's not completely threatening anymore, but I don't like having her this close to me if she's planning on being all violent and scary.

"He deserves to be happy," I tell her the truth that's been burning in my heart while I lay here across my bed, feeling like I'm going to die.

"Well, duh!"

I sigh, turning my head until I'm looking past Delia, my eyes travelling to the mirror of the vanity across from my bed, where my two newest blocked photographs are reflected. Daddy put those on the wall above my bed this afternoon when he returned from the beach. He said Ethan gave them to him this morning before we left for the yacht race and asked him to put them up for me when he got a chance.

Every time I see them, my throat closes up, and my eyes spring a leak. They are so beautiful. He wrote the date and place on the back of each image. The one was taken at the waterfall after Saturday's rugby match. He must've taken it while lying on his back under a canopy of leaves shimmering in various shades of green with fractions of sunlight sparkling like jewels through the openings between them. 

The other is one of my favourites among the pictures he'd taken of the mud on Sunday. Thick, cracked, fudge-like mud, partially covered by rippling water, glistening moistly in flickering sunlight. He lay on his stomach to take that one from a close-up angle as if the viewer is part of the mud.

He truly has a good eye for colour, light and composition; I was stunned into silence when I saw them hanging above my bed. It is such a thoughtful gift, and what have I given him? Sweet nothing!