"BIKINI!"

Helga jumped at the yell, but smiled beneath the straw hat she had plonked over her face.

"Hey Dan." She waved a hand in the general direction of his voice. "What's up?"

"With you lying here half naked?" She could hear the laughter in his voice, "You don't wanna know." The rug underneath her shifted as Dan sat down next to her. "Arnold home?"

She shook her head, shifting the hat enough that she could see Dan's face. "Nah… out with Maya."

"Last minute shag-fest before you two fly out?"

She snorted, "Probably, yeah."

Sitting above her, he hadn't realised she could see him, and she watched him watch her. Suddenly conscious of the sweat beading between her breasts as his eyes slowly wandered across her. Only the slightest breeze wafted through Dayna's garden, and while it stirred up the scents of flowers and freshly turned soil, it did nothing to cool her skin.

Sun-bathing always, always made her amorous.

Their eyes finally met, and he just smiled, totally nonplussed that she'd just been watching him perving at her. There was something so sweet and open about the guy, despite his annoying tendency to overstate his attraction to her.

"How do you feel about that, anyway?"

Helga just stared for a second, taken by surprise by the question. Dan wasn't normally one for talking about feelings. "What do you mean?"

"Jealous?"

Now that was really weird. She shook her head again, the hat falling off further. "Envious, maybe… seeing as I haven't had regular sex in over a year…" she trailed off, conscious of where a talk like this with Dan might lead.

He got it straight away though, and as if to prove a point, his gaze broke hers to trail back down to where her breasts pushed against the thin fabric of her bikini top. The next words out of his mouth, however, were not what she expected.

"You're into him, aren't you?"

"Into who? Arnold?" Incredulous.

"mmm-hmm" he affirmed, and while Helga watched him gaze hard at her chest… she realised that he wasn't looking at her because he was perving, but because he didn't want to meet her eyes when she answered. He was shy!

"You sound like the jealous one, Danny boy…" she tried to sound like she was laughing him off, but her voice came out too soft, too gentle… and by the way his eyes flicked to hers for just the slightest moment, she knew that he knew that she felt sorry for him.

He shrugged. "You know I like you." His voice was just as quiet, and he started fiddling nervously with the hem of his T-shirt.

They were quiet for a long time. Helga closed her eyes, trying to ignore how awkward this was, and concentrate on the feeling of the sun on her face, the buzzing of bees in Dayna's flowers…

"You know, if you'd wanted to, Arnold would have taken care of that regular sex problem for you."

Oh no. She cringed. "Yeah… nah… we're not like that."

His eyes flicked to hers again, but he didn't say anything in return. Just sat there.

"You OK, man?" She shuffled up, moving to sit up.

He shrugged again. Then sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just feeling sorry for myself."

When Helga said nothing, but waited patiently for him to continue, he hesitated, but after another hefty sigh, he rushed on.

"I figured the reason you never gave me a chance is because you're secretly crushing on Arnold or something. I mean, for a while we all thought you guys were sleeping together and just keeping it on the down-low. So, like, while we've known for a while that you and Arnold aren't together, I still didn't know if you like him or not? And, and now I suppose it's just kinda obvious that the reason you aren't into me isn't because you're into someone else, but that you just don't, uh… that I'm not good enough for you…" He paused. "Not that I'm trying to make you feel bad or anything, and it's not like I ever though you'd actually, like, date me. But it… I dunno… I suppose it's just a bit shit that you're not even keen to be friends with benefits or anything. Cos, like, I know you're not against that kind of thing?"

Once she figured out what he was trying to say around all of the "likes", Helga felt awful. "Aw man… I'm sorry." What the hell am I supposed to say here?

"Nothing to be sorry for. As I said, I'm just feeling sorry for myself."

There was a long pause… Helga wished she had something to cover up with, she felt weird talking about this kind of stuff at the best of times. It was ever weirder with his eyes continually tracing her curves. Maybe we could just… She cut that thought of. Dan was right, she wasn't into him, and it would be both selfish, and completely stupid, to fool around with him just because she was feeling a little frisky.

"To be honest, Dan. If you were just some random dude I met, and not a friend… I might very well be, uh, keen to fool around with you." She grimaced at how his face lit up, and rushed to cut him off before he could say anything. "But we are friends… and more importantly, you're friends with Arnold. I don't have some massive secret crush on him, but I'm also not going to put my, uh, drives, before his friendships." She hesitated, wondering if what she said had made any sense. "I know you like me… which is why we can't do anything. It would get weird, quickly. No one's good at casual sex, Dan. It always turns to shit, someone's always more invested than the other person… and it would be really, uh, selfish of me to make yours and his friendship all awkward." She took a deep breath, trying to figure out her own thoughts. "If I was… OK. You're right, I don't want to date you… but if I did, I would have to be really sure of you if I was going to do something that would potentially cause a whole heap of drama…"

"Is that why you and Arnold never hooked up? Because you don't want to ruin your friendship or whatever?"

She snorted at that, derisive. "God. No!" She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "We just… hells, Dan. Arnold and I are friends. Even if I was in love with him, Arnold would never sleep with me! We've known each other for our whole lives, it'd be way too scandalous!"

"Is that really what you think?"

"It's what I know! He's told me himself. And sorry if I'm getting shitty, but I've had to field stupid questions like this since we moved in together. Arnold and I are not, and will not, be an item in any capacity." She sighed, pulling herself together. "I'm sorry, Dan. I really am. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but don't use Arnold as some kind of weird excuse for why you and I aren't happening. The last thing I need is people thinking that we've got some kind of secret love affair going on, especially now that he's got a girlfriend. I've lost friends before because their new partners didn't like me… I don't want that to happen again."

And that was it. The truth. She didn't want to jump to the conclusion that any girlfriend Arnold got would be jealous and possessive and try to fracture their friendship… but she was still wary of it, and she would be as accommodating as possible to Maya to stop that from happening.

"I…" He started. "OK… yeah, fair enough." He struggled onto his feet, and she followed him, keenly conscious of how little she was wearing, and the lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail and was stuck with sweat to the side of her neck. "I should go. I… tell Arnold I said bye?"

"Of course. See you in a few weeks!" They clumsily hugged, and she could almost feel him holding himself back as his hands barely touched her waist. A sneaky, selfish part of her wanted to arch against him, make him want her. As much as she tried to be a good person, she did want to exert the power of his own desire against him… but she stopped herself.

He dropped his hands and studied her face for a second. "You know Arnold would never actually let a girlfriend tell him he couldn't be friends with you, right?"

"It happens all the time, Dan… in spite of best intentions."

He just smirked, "Sure, but it won't happen with Arnold."

"You can't know that."

"Yes. I can. Have a good summer Helga, see ya when you get back."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

"So, Shortman… you excited?"

"For what?" Arnold's head was back against the seat, his eyes shut. He didn't like taking off and landing. He was fine while they were actually in the air – as long as there wasn't turbulence – but the ascent and descent freaked him out.

She reached out and grabbed his hand, earning herself a strange look as he cracked his eyes open. She could hear him breathing through his nose, deliberately slowly.

"To see your lady friend again, of course!" She gave his fingers a squeeze.

He smiled at that. "Yeah, actually… I am."

"Good… just think about her then."

"Instead of plummeting to our deaths?"

"No one's going to die."

"Hmmm." He didn't sound convinced. "What should I be thinking about?"

"Uh… as far as I saw, I'd estimate C cups?"

"Har har. Very funny."

"Well, you asked." She gave him another squeeze.

"Do you really think I'd stop being friends with you if Maya got jealous?"

Whoa. "Uh, Danny?"

"Danny."

"How long have you wanted to ask about that one?"

"About a week… answer the question."

"OK, yeah. I do worry about it. I don't thinkyou're going to, but it's not an impossible scenario."

"It's a totally impossible scenario." The plane lurched, Helga felt her stomach rise and clutched Arnold's hand as he grimaced. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. "I wouldn't want to date someone who didn't trust me."

He sucked in a breath as the plane bounced onto the tarmac, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Helga ran her thumb across his knuckles. "That's the worst of it, Shortman. We're on the ground."

She went to pull her hand from his, but he tightened his grip. "I mean it, Helga. Don't start acting all weird, OK?" His forehead creased as he frowned at her. "Maya's cool. She's really cool. I really want to see where this goes, if… if I…" He sighed. "Just don't worry."

"OK." She pulled her fingers from his and waited impatiently for the seatbelt light to bing off.

They gathered their bags out of the overhead compartments and made their way into the airport in relative silence. Standing, waiting, for their luggage, Arnold nudged her with his elbow. "You pissed at me now?"

"No, not pissed. I just feel a bit stupid." She bit the inside of her cheek. "I wish Dan hadn't said anything. I never wanted you to worry about it, and honestly, if you were dating someone that you really liked, and they didn't want me around… I'd… well, I'd back off."

She refused to look at him while she spoke, staring straight ahead at the crumpled pants of a tired looking businessman instead of at Arnold.

"You would?" his voice was full of disbelief. "Why?"

"Because I want you to be happy. Because if someone was worth that much to you, then they're worth it. I don't want you to feel guilty if you ever have to make that choice."

He didn't reply for a long, long time. Bags started coming out onto the conveyer belt, and Helga amused herself by surveying them all, wondering what was in them, trying to match them to the other airline passengers who were milling about. Her ratty old travel bag emerged and she pushed her way through the crowd to grab it. Grinning triumphantly at Arnold when she dropped it at his feet. But his face was dark.

"You, Pataki, have the singular gift of making me at once very happy, and really fucking mad." He eventually growled.

"It's a talent." She said lightly. "And that's your bag." She pointed to the scruffy blue duffel that had just come out through the black plastic curtain.

He ran a hand through his hair, looking tired and fed up – dark circles under his eyes – exactly like someone who just got off a six hour flight should look. "I love you, Pataki. Even if you are an idiot."

"Yeah. I love you too, Shortman. Now can you please get your stuff so we can go home?"