"I don't think my heart has ever beat that fast." Rudy said, staring at the sun barely peeking out above the ocean while sitting on on his best friend's roof. Louise turned to face him, her arm brushing against his.
"Get used to it, Rude. If you want to stay friends you're going to have to commit to a life of crime." she replied, squeezing the last of the water from her hair. "I didn't expect you to be so good at creating a diversion."
"Was that a compliment?" Rudy asked, raising an eyebrow, and Louise rolled her eyes.
"Don't look too much into it. It's a one-time thing."
Rudy shrugged, putting his hands down beside him. His fingers brushed up against Louise's for a second, but neither thought anything of it.
"Somehow I always knew that Louise Belcher would find a way to ruin Lobsterfest." Rudy remarked.
Louise punched his arm affectionately, not hard enough to hurt. "Well, you're not exactly innocent in the matter, mister Rudolph Steiblitz. I believe there were police reports filed that you were...hmm...skinny-dipping in the butter fountain?"
Now Rudy's cheeks turned red. "I was wearing underwear." he protested, and Louise rolled her eyes.
"Come on, learn to take a joke." she said.
"I bet you wish I wasn't when you had to spray me down with the hose." he teased, and her face became ghostly pale. "Louise, come on, I'm messing with you."
"Yeah, of course." she said, clasping and releasing her hands a few times. "I'm just overthinking it, as always. Damn my constant readiness for evil plans!"
Rudy sighed, noticing some butter dripping from his hair onto the roof.
"I wouldn't call tonight's plan evil." he said. "You saved a lot of innocent lobsters."
Rudy smiled, and he could have sworn her cheeks turned slightly pink.
"I ruined a town holiday." Louise argued. "Completely evil."
"Admit it," Rudy said, poking her cheek. "You have a heart. You have a soft spot for animals."
"I do not have a soft spot. I hate to break it to you, but my family owns a burger restaurant, Rudy." Louise sighed, laying down on top of a few loose shingles, before abruptly sitting back up. The shingles slid off the roof onto the sidewalk below, crashing against the concrete and splitting into several pieces.
"You have a soft spot." Rudy said, and he watched as Louise's dark eyes shifted over to meet his.
"If you tell anyone I'll kill you." she replied, and Rudy laughed.
"Why are you so scared?" Rudy asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"It's not exactly like I have a lot to hold onto. I'm just Tina and Gene Belcher's tough little sister. If you take 'tough' out of the picture, it's like I don't even have an identity." Louise murmured, balling her hands up into fists and then letting go.
"For someone as smart as you are, you're really stupid." Rudy said, and Louise's eyes narrowed before meeting his.
"Excuse me?" she asked, and Rudy put a hand under her chin, tipping her head upwards.
"You're not just Tina and Gene's tough little sister. The only people who would think that don't even know you, and that's a sad shame, because you're amazing. You're smart, you're fearless, you're pretty, you know, in your weird, dorky way, and you're always up for a challenge." Rudy said. "Uh, I mean, um...you're brave, dude."
Louise rolled her eyes, and Rudy watched a smile form across her pink lips.
"You're not cool enough to say dude, dude." she smiled, punching his arm. "And don't get all weird on me now that we're in high school. You're my best friend and I'm not suffering through four years of hell alone."
"I wouldn't dream of it." Rudy said. He meant it. In that moment he watched as a little gust of wind blew a few pieces of her pink-striped hair around, and he reached over to brush a piece away from her face. She smiled and laid down, avoiding the loose shingles and closing her eyes.
It had never been weird to Rudy that he was friends with a girl who had pink stripes in her hair, or who wore ripped jeans as a fashion statement. He assumed the feeling was reciprocal towards his mop of curly hair and his crisp polo shirts. They'd grown up together.
His mother couldn't stand her, calling her 'strange' or 'rebellious' and sometimes downright 'defiant'. She couldn't stand her parents either, simply because 'they allow their fourteen-year-old to go out of the house with pink hair and all of those holes in her ears'. His mother always complained about how Louise had the potential to be so pretty, but by that his mother meant conventionally pretty. She wasn't wrong, but that's exactly what made his best friend Louise Belcher. She wasn't one to conform to societal standards. And if Rudy was being honest he thought she was prettier than most of the conventionally pretty girls at their school, simply because she didn't care.
Her laugh, her big brown eyes, even the horrible perverse puns she'd whisper to him in English class were cute. He looked over, watching as she snuggled up in a sweatshirt he'd left at her house about a week before.
Had she always been cute? Rudy couldn't remember a time he'd thought about it as a kid. Thinking about it now, he realized that he'd never been able to say no to her, that he'd been resisting naïve urges to pull her pigtails, and suddenly it all made sense.
"Hey." Rudy poked her shoulder, and Louise groaned.
"Go away." she mumbled, not even bothering to open her eyes.
"Okay." Rudy said, checking for loose shingles and leaning back against the roof next to her.
He doubted his mother knew he wasn't at the library, but he should probably be getting home soon.
For now, he was going to stay here on the roof.