6They were walking their usual course around the neighborhood, talking.
"How do you get more life or magic?! I'm like dieing!" Kathryn wailed; Zelda, Wind Waker was their current subject and favorite video game.
"You gotta do mini-quests and stuff to get heart pieces and more magic, you know that."
"Yea…but there should be an easier way! Nooooo, life hates me," Kathryn moaned stamping her bare feet on the hot asphalt, "I have to do everything the way its suppose to be done and that takes so long, and its hot out here, and my toes are emo," she paused mid stamp to admire the black nail polish on her toenails, "actually…my emo toes are pretty sexy…" Nick let out a laugh and watched as her eyes flared with an idea upon seeing a sprinkler in someone's yard.
She dashed up the drive way and across the porch to the house with the sprinkler's front door and with ebullient enthusiasm, rang the doorbell.
An elderly man answered the door and listened as Kathryn asked him something inaudible to Nick. Upon receiving a nod and smile from the man, she ran back towards Nick but stopped as she neared the sprinkler. With a wild smile, she jumped through the spray of water and continued to dance in the heavy mist and spurts of cold water until she was thoroughly soaked.
She staggered over to Nick and flung her arms around him, almost instantly drenching him. At some point, her hair had sprung free of its bun and now cascaded, sopping wet, over her shoulders and had already begun to dry into damp glossy curls.
"What are you doing?! You're soaked!" Nick yelled as he pushed her back and held her at arms length, his heart beating painfully fast. She laughed and attempted to wring out her tank top and shorts with little accomplishment.
"Lets go back to my house and you can borrow some clothes while yours dry," he decided, she nodded and pulled her tank top over her head, "Now what are you doing?! Kathryn!"
"What?! Jesus Nick, a bra is just like a bikini and besides, mines pretty!" His eyes dropped to admire her bright blue plaid bra and quickly removed his gaze as he felt his cheeks grow warm, "See! I told you it was pretty!" She told him as she laughed at his response.
"Yea, lets just go."
They walked past the six housed remaining between them and Nick's house, while Kathryn turned cartwheels to leave droplets of water on the road that immediately began to steam in the suns hot rays.
As they turned in to the driveway, she ran and flipped up on to the low deck and, with a flourish, turned and bowed.
"Ta-da!" she exclaimed.
"Beautiful," he told her honestly, she had had flawless form. She smiled and let herself into his house, twirled into his room and stood dripping, waiting for him. He crossed the doorway, threw her a towel from the cabinet, and followed it with a pair of boxers, shorts and a t-shirt.
"I've seen your bra but I'm no sticking around to see if your underwear is just as pretty," he told her with a smile and closed the door to his room as he left. In a couple of minute, the door opened and Kathryn slipped out and walked past him in to the laundry room and threw her clothes and the towel in to the dryer, set the knobs and turned the starting button and the machine whirled to life.
She was swamped in his clothes since they were to big for her and the shorts only remained around her hips with the assistance of her belt. With her cascade of dark brown curls still tumbling down her back, his heart tighten painfully; she looked so beautiful in whatever she wore as her eyes shone with a sincere happiness that it seemed only she could produce.
They both filed back into his room and Kathryn dropped onto the bed as he started up his Gamecube and loaded Zelda. He sat down behind her and handed her the controller as the opening music began to play, she selected her quest and began to continue her journey through the Forsaken Fortress. She leaned back against him as she hacked her way through various monsters and thwarted the obstacles. Nick shifted so that he was facing her and she sat up as the support he had lent her vanished. He let his forehead drop down so that it rested on hers and her beautiful eyes flicked away from the screen and gazed questioningly in to his.
"What," he asked hesitantly, " would you do…if…I kissed you?" Kathryn's lips parted in surprise.
"I think…I'd kiss you back," she told him, it sounded almost as if she was just as surprised by her answer as he was.
He shifted and his lips brushed against hers as he started to pull her into a kiss. Her lips were soft as the caressed his and, his eyes still closed, he brushed the back of her neck to deepen the kiss and felt her tongue brush over his lips.
When the finally broke apart her eyes gleamed and a smile hovered on her fantastic mouth. Nick was staring at her, hardly believing he had just kissed her, when her eyes sparkled and she pulled his mouth down to hers as the Zelda music continued to play in the background and their friendship began to grow into something more.