The End, Not Quite||An Anna and the French Kiss Story

Chapter 13|| Lola and Cricket

It's 10:30 am and Lola and Cricket are sitting at the table in our kitchen. Cricket is totally freaking Isla out by just staring at her stomach. I mean the stare isn't too obvious, but you can totally tell that he can't keep his eyes off her little bump. Isla is squirming in her seat, but won't say anything and neither will Etienne and I. Lola doesn't notice mainly because she's staring at Cricket's mouth and Josh looks like he's just about ready to scream at Cricket. Etienne and I watch Josh nervously as Cricket babbles on about something. Cricket would never bother anyone on purpose, unless he was just teasing them, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't even realize what he's doing and he definitely doesn't know that Isla is so disturbed,

"Can you stop that?" Josh spits at Cricket right while he's in the middle of telling a story about a watermelon. Cricket looks up abruptly at Josh and Isla tenses up,

"Stop what?" He asks nervously,

"You're staring at my girlfriend and she's obviously uncomfortable," he says, gritting his teeth. Josh is usually a bit of a softie but lately he's been guarding Isla like a mother bear guards her cubs. He's always right at her side except on lazy afternoons when he sits at the table and Isla sits on the couch while Josh draws her and then they're only about 15 feet away,

"Oh. Sorry," he says, blushing. I bite my lip and look up at them,

"Hey, why don't we go see a movie?" I say, trying to soften everyone up,

"That would be great!" Isla says and stands and grabs Josh's hand. She goes up on tip toe and whispers something in Josh's ear making him nod slightly,

"Okay," Lola says and stands. Cricket follows immediately after and we all pull on our shoes and head out the door. Josh is holding onto Isla like she can't walk by herself and Etienne and I exchange looks. I walk over to Isla and Lola and ask them if they want to talk about the wedding while we walk. Lola nods enthusiastically and lets go of Cricket's hand and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. She goes and stands next to me. Josh looks reluctant to let go of Isla's hand but eventually does,

"I'll be three feet away, Josh!" Isla say with a smile, "What's the worst that can happen? I'll die of boredom listening to these two talk about wedding plans?" She asks with a laugh. Josh smiles slightly and lets her walk with us. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. I watch Etienne approach his friend while Lola goes on about wedding dress designs. I couldn't hear what Etienne and Josh were saying because I was actually quite interested in what Lola had to say. But later Etienne told me the gist of it. We were in our room talking in hushed whispers. Etienne said that basically he had told Josh that he has to let Isla have more space and freedom and such and Josh had just shrugged and bit his lip while Etienne talked but during the movie he wasn't plastered to Isla. They sat together and held hands for most of it but so did Lola and Cricket and Etienne and I did too basically. Well my hand was resting on his and I was leaning on him. But anyway, I'm pretty sure that Josh has more of reason for his clinginess. I don't know what it is, and I'm not going to ask him, but I really want to know.