A Burning Thing {Avi Kaplan fanfic}

-3-

It was late by the time everyone rolled out of bed and into the kitchen the next morning, and there was no sign of Ellie as Mrs. Brown put heaping plates before us.

"Your sister has already gone down to the lake for a swim," she said, pouring coffee into our mugs. "I told her you might all join her after breakfast."

"Chris and I have to get going and we're giving Rob a ride, but tell her we said bye, will ya?" Adam said to Austin.

"I can stay," Tim and I replied in unison, then laughed sheepishly. Austin looked back and forth from one to the other of us.

"Well, I guess if both of you are there then at least neither of you will try to get away with anything," he muttered, stabbing at his eggs.

I threw on swim trunks and a t-shirt and came out just as Austin was loading a bag of towels and a cooler into the back of the purple truck. It was a short but scenic drive, very different from my own hometown and not even much like the parts of Georgia I'd seen before. This was more like the kind of country you see in a country music video.

As if to reinforce that image, we pulled off a small dirt road to see a huge tree with a tire swing dangling over sparkling blue water. A grassy clearing held a large blanket and a book, open face down.

As we walked into the clearing, I noticed a small blonde head and pale shoulders sticking out of the water just downstream.

"Ellie! You shouldn't be in the water when you're all by yourself," Austin shouted.

Ellie stood up to reveal she'd been lying in about two feet of water. "Seriously pal, you have got to get over this. I am perfectly capable of NOT killing myself without you around."

Fortunately Austin was too focused on arguing with his sister to notice that his two friends were openly staring at her, as she stood dripping in her teeny blue bikini. She was surprisingly curvy for such a small girl, and watching her pick her way through the shallow water was proving too entertaining to be ignored.

Tim snapped back to attention and elbowed me, gesturing towards the truck.

"We'd better keep our heads down and pretend we don't have eyes until she covers up or we'll never hear the end of it."

"That won't be easy," I confessed.

"I hear ya – at least you won't get accused of being a dirty old man," he laughed. "Seriously though, they like to joke about her having a crush on me but I'm not the one she was watching last night. If she's set her mind on you, you'd better be ready … that girl is a force of nature."

I pondered what that meant as we made our way back with the towels and cooler. Ellie had put a thin sundress over her bathing suit, but it wasn't doing much to hide her wet body. I started to feel an unwelcome stirring below my waist and quickly made my way over to the water before my interest became all too obvious.

"No, you have to use the swing!" Ellie shouted. "Here, let me show you!"

She pulled her dress off again and went over to the tire swing, pulling it backwards then hopping on and swinging out over the deeper part of the water. She let go and plunged in, then resurfaced with a whoop.

"Your turn!"

Not to be shown up, I followed her lead and soon found myself in the water, shuddering and gasping for air. I could hear the guys laughing from the shore.

"I guess I forgot to tell you that the water's still a bit cold in April!" Ellie said with an evil smile.

"I don't … think I can … breathe," I sputtered, shocked by the icy water. I was even more shocked when I felt a small pair of arms sneak around me from behind.

"You're not going to drown on me are you?" she asked, pressing her warm upper body to my back.

"No but Austin might drown me himself if he sees you doing that."

She laughed but let go and swam around in front of me.

"Mattie is a bit ridiculous, isn't he?" she smiled. "But it's mostly because he still thinks I'm 15. Also because he's never actually met any of my boyfriends who were worth knowing. I think he's relieved that I haven't had a boyfriend in a while."

I smiled, probably a bit too eagerly, then covered it up by diving under the water. Tim and Austin joined us and we played a game that was some sort of cross between water polo and volleyball.

Lying on the blankets a while later, I peeked at Ellie through half-closed eyes, eavesdropping while I pretended to be asleep. She joked with her brother, but when Tim got up to find a suitable tree to pee behind, Austin was suddenly serious.

"Bitsy, I don't think you realize the effect you have on poor Tim."

"You have got to stop worrying so much," she said exasperatedly. "Tim is like another brother to me. You're the only one who seems to think something's going on. If you don't shut up about it then I might just as well get up to no good – no fair getting punished without at least having some fun first."

"Elisabeth! Don't even say things like that in front of me!"

"Then let it go, sweetie! I'm not your Itsy Bitsy baby sister any more and you have to believe me when I say that I can handle myself," she said sincerely, laying her head on Austin's shoulder. "I'm going to graduate from college in a year, it's not like I'm getting on the school bus for the first time! Besides, I may not have found Mister Right yet, but I'm pretty sure I know a good man when I see one."

I wonder if she's met any good men recently, I thought, then mentally facepalmed. Why does my mind keep going there?

Tim came back and I yawned and stretched, sitting up.

"Oh no, you're a lobster!" Ellie cried, poking me in the shoulder.

"Ow! What the hell?!" It dawned on me that I'd been in such a rush to get in the water, I hadn't taken time to put on sunscreen.

"Mom has an aloe plant, we should go back and get you fixed up."

~~~~~