Memories

|22| • Stones and Innuendos •

"Alright," Brian chuckled and began to push the wheelbarrow the few metres to the terrace. "So... do you want ice cream? Or not? I have to admit I'm slightly confused."

"I don't blame you, don't worry. We can wait a bit longer before we eat something again. I have to seem like all I think about is food.."

"Well..." Brian chuckled, smirking a little. "Maybe a little. But that's fine. I said that before, but it's true. I can definitely see that now. You look incredible, and you can definitely eat as much as you want. I'm not going to judge you."

"I'd probably feel less strange if you're eating with me."

"I'll have some ice cream with you, sure. I won't say no to that either, don't worry," he told me with a smile. "But first I want to drink something. You said you put that here, right?" He asked, parking the wheelbarrow before he walked onto the terrace.

"Yes, yes, it's here," I told him, going ahead so I could pour him something to drink. I didn't want to leave every single little thing to him. "Here you go," I told him, handing him one of the glasses.

"Wow, ice and lemon. How fancy, thank you." He smiled at me and leaned down to quickly kiss my cheek. For the first time in years.

And honestly, if I say I felt like I was going to faint then that wasn't a lie. Taking a deep breath, I held on to the table to stabilise myself. "Uh... no problem.." I needed another second to calm down before I felt able to move again. "It is your stuff," I added, hoping Brian hadn't caught on to what the kiss on my cheek had done to me.

"Yes, but still... I like if you do stuff for me, even if it's just taking my stuff and giving me something to drink."

"You're a strange person, you know?" I asked him, looking at him with a smile. I leaned against his terrace table, letting my eyes wander up and down his body. Strange, but handsome. Very handsome. A very intriguing combination somehow.

"Isn't that exactly what you like?" He asked, smirking at me. It seemed as if he almost positioned himself right in my field of view on purpose.

Not that I was complaining, I was still enjoying the view I was getting. That wouldn't change anytime soon either, I hoped. "Mh, yeah. I enjoy it to a certain degree. A certain degree of strangeness. But your strangeness is still reasonable. Actually it's probably exactly what makes you who you are so I like exactly that. It would be boring if you weren't strange."

"Alright," he chuckled, resting his eyes on me. He wasn't the only one who had positioned himself strategically.

I knew - or at least I hoped that he was enjoying his view as much as I was enjoying mine. We didn't say anything for a few minutes, both of us simply enjoyed the cool drink and the hot view.

"Should we get started on collecting the stones?" I asked him when I had finished my second glass of water.

Brian nodded and refilled his glass again. "Sure, yeah, let's get going."

I was a bit confused by that to be honest, because why would he say let's go and then refill his glass? But that confusion was washed away quite literally when he simply dumped the water he had just filled into his glass on my head. "Oh my god," I gasped, closing my eyes. "What was that for?" I asked him, wiping my eyes so I could look - glare - at him.

Obviously amused, Brian shrugged. "I like making you wet..."

The way he said that, the way he bit his lip and looked at me definitely told me that he wasn't referring to the innocent meaning of that sentence. But he wasn't going to trip me up that easily. "Dumping a glass of water on my head isn't going to make me wet in the way you want me to be," I simply told him. "It takes more effort than that." Only for a moment I met his eyes before I walked past him, going back to the wheelbarrow that was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

It seemed that I had definitely managed to say something that Brian hadn't expected. He was still standing there, looking at me. The shock on his face slowly turned into a smirk before he joined me. "Something tells me that it takes less effort for me than for other guys," he told me cheekily, starting to push the wheelbarrow along the path that led away from the terrace.

That was something that I hadn't expected. I just stood there for a moment, completely dumbfounded. Had he really just said that? How was I supposed to react to that? I honestly had no idea. He probably wasn't even wrong, but that didn't mean I'd just tell him that. But what he had said was so obviously not innocent that I couldn't just pretend he hadn't said that. Or could I? Did I want to?

Not really. In any case I had to follow him. But I could have a little fun with this. I didn't go up to him, I walked a few steps behind him, which didn't go unnoticed by him. About halfway, he turned around and looked at me, smirking. Still. "I'm not gonna hurt you, you don't have to keep distance."

"I'm just enjoying the view I'm getting from back here," I replied, winking at him. "It's the least you can do after dumping your water on me, so go on, keep walking," I told him, making shooing motions with my hands.

Brian laughed and shook his head. "Well... alright, if you want that, then I'm not going to deny you that possibility." With that he turned around again and continued to walk through his garden.

I did what I told him I would, I stayed behind a little and looked at him, his back, his legs, simply everything. Even so, I noticed that he wasn't going back to the hut, so of course I was curious what he was doing. That was why I jogged up to him. "Where are you going?"

"I thought we'd try to find some stones, so while you've been staring at me, I've been looking at the ground to see if there are any lying around here."

"Staring at you?" I asked, pretending to be surprised. "I was enjoying the view, don't get too cocky." I smirked at him and shrugged.

"You know, I don't want to say I can read your mind, but I know that I was the main focus in your view. So that's not being cocky, that's simply telling the truth. Something that you could start doing a little more, you know?" He glanced at me and winked before stopped and bent down. "Do you think that's the kind of stone we should try to find more of?"

Raising my eyebrows I looked at him, then at the stone, and then at him again. What was he doing? Was he just going to pretend that whatever was happening between us wasn't happening? If he could do that then I definitely could to the same. "Yeah, I think that's exactly what we should look for..." A big part of me was disappointed that he had turned the conversation around like that, that he was steering away from ambiguous, or unambiguously suggestive comments to stones. But I didn't want to make it weird by insisting on innuendos so I did the same as he did, I started to walk around, my eyes fixated on the ground, trying to find as many of those stones as I could. We would need quite a few.

We didn't say anything for quite a while. I wasn't sure why he didn't say anything, but I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure what to say. The way he had simply changed the conversation topic left me quite insecure what was going on between us. Friends certainly didn't talk about what we were talking about. I didn't know of any friends who told each other they'd like to turn the other on. I mean, that was something I usually found kind of awkward to talk about things like that with my boyfriend at first, I needed to be really comfortable around someone for that. And I was really comfortable around Brian. Comfortable enough to talk about getting turned on.

"You know," I found myself saying before I had really figured out how I was going to tell him what was on my mind. But now I had started, so I had to continue. "If you enjoy making me wet so much, it's really not necessary to shower me in water each time. Really. I'd appreciate actually if you could refrain from emptying glasses over my head.. there are other ways."

It took a moment before Brian replied. "There are? And what might those be?"

"You're a guy, be creative. Where would the fun be if I spelled everything out for you?" Trying to seem casual I shrugged and glanced at him for a moment before I bent down to pick up another stone. "What do you think, how many more should we try to find?"