"I'll be back in a while!" I yelled as I walked across the living room with my duffel bag in one hand that contained my swimming gear. In the other hand I was holding the coat hanger that had my dark blue suit, my white shirt, and the baby blue necktie with all the nice patterns.

"At what time do you think you'll be back?" Patty asked.

"I'm not sure. You don't have to wait up, because her family is out of town so I'll probably be back late. Maybe after midnight." I walked over to Greeny. He was busy with a coloring book. I patted him on the head. "I want you to be well-behaved with the girls, okay, buddy?"

"Okay, Spiny. Where are you going?"

"I'm going over to Lilia's house to spend the evening with her. When Kathy or Patty says it's time to go to bed, I want you to listen and do as they say. Okay?"

He smiled, his green-blue eyes shining. "Okay, Spiny!" I have to admit that Greeny's very cute. Well, my whole family is. They even wanted to do a cover story about us in several celebrity magazines.

"I'm going now." I went over to Patty and kissed her cheek. "Bye now."

"Bye, Spiny. Have a nice evening."

"Thanks." I went over to Kathy and kissed her cheek. "See you later, sis."

As I went past Robert, he said, "Enjoy yourself, Spiny."

"Thanks, Robert."

Larry was reading on the couch near the window. "Goodnight, Spiny."

"What do you mean goodnight? I'm not going to sleepover at her house."

"Oh no? I bet you $25 that you're going to end up sleeping over at her house."

I glared at him and stuck my hand out. "I accept that bet."

He shook my hand. "Start talking to your bank accountant to withdraw my money so I can collect."

"Yeah, well, we'll just see about that. Bye, dear family!" I stepped outside and walked down the driveway and across the street up to Lilia's door. I, uh, decided to take one last look around me and even behind some bushes and trees. Just wanted to make sure that there were no reporters or stalkers watching.

After securing the surroundings I rang the doorbell and waited on the porch. Man, it sure was hot! The sun was really hurting me. And the dryness in the air just suffocated any moisture in the air.

Finally, Lilia came and opened the door. She had her hair in a waterfall braid and was wearing jean shorts, a black spaghetti-strip tank top with a white coat. "Well, he-llo, gorgeous!" I said.

"You look pretty good yourself," she said. She leaned over to peck me on the lips. "Come on in."

"Yeah, before I dissolve from the heat." I stepped in and…ahh! Air conditioning! Believe me, the heat was that bad. Lilia led me into the living room. "Here, put your stuff over there by the TV." We sat on the couch next to each other.

I put my arm around her and pulled her closer. "So do you want to go in the pool now or later?"

"Well, how about a little bit later? Just wait till the heat gets down a little. I was watching the news and they said it's 95. But it feels like 100."

I whistled. "How about a half hour, right around sunset? How does that sound?" I suggested.

"That sounds fine."

I sat back in the couch and she rested on my arm. I started to get really drowsy. I could feel her body relaxing as she sighed sleepily. I was just about to doze off when she exclaimed. She jumped up and ran out of the living room.

Huh. What's with her all of the sudden?

Before you could say…well, I don't know. The point is that she came just as suddenly as they'd left. She came with a silver tray with a large white plate on top. She had something on it. "Hey! What's that?" I said, admiring its great smell.

"Heart-shaped homemade fudge brownies," she responded grabbing a piece of brownie and holding it to my mouth. "Open up!" she said. I smiled and opened my mouth. My stomach growled at feeling the warm, gooey chocolate on my taste buds.

"Hmm! They're pretty good!"

"You really think so?"

"Oh, yeah! It's perfect."

"You don't think it's too sweet?"

"Of course not."

"It's not too much fudge or baking powder?"

I laughed. "Lilia, it's divine! It's perfect." I set the brownie on the plate and pulled her closer to me. "Just like you," I whispered to her.

She turned pink and when she smiled, her cute dimples started showing. She put arms around my neck and kissed me briefly. "I love it that we're a couple!"

"Well, I'd be a fool not to. Look at all the great treatment I get." We kissed again; a longer, deeper kiss. I felt my stomach get tingly again and we melted in our embrace.

It would've been a perfect kiss…if the stupid doorbell hadn't rung. I ignored it. I moaned and pulled away just a few centimeters from her lips, my eyes halfway open. "Baby, could you get that? I'm busy."

She kissed me a few more seconds before she said, "So am I."

I pulled back further. "Oh yeah, that's right? Well, then in that case, how about we both go to answer," I said, purposefully trying to sound dumb.

She giggled. "Okay." We both stood up and straightened our clothes. "But you'll walk me back to the couch, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sure." I grabbed her hand and walked to the door after it rang for a second time.

"Who do you think it could be?" she asked.

"I don't know, but however it is is going to be embarrassed when they find out what they just interrupted."

She gasped and put her hands on her hips. "You wouldn't!"

I laughed and peeked through the peephole. Blonde-haired girl with black sweater, torn jeans and backwards baseball cap. I opened the door. "Hey, Darla."

"Hey, guys!" she said enthusiastically. She was accompanied by a boy. He seemed to be our age and had jet black hair and brown eyes. I'd never seen him before. "Are we interrupting anything?"

"Yeah. We were necking."

"Spiny!" Lilia slapped me across the arm.

"Can we come in? It's scorching."

"Oh, sorry. Sure, come on in," Lilia said. Darla and her…companion walked inside. "Who's your friend?"

"Oh, this is Devon McClain. He's in the Chess Club at school."

I stuck out my hand. "Nice to meet you Devon."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Spiny."

"You're in the Chess Club? That's weird because I'm also in that club but I don't believe I've ever seen you."

"Well, that's simple. I'm in the morning class. You're in the afternoon."

Of course, Spiny. You could've figured that out yourself. Congratulations, you just made a fool of yourself in front of your girlfriend.

"So, what brings you two around here?" Lilia asked.

"We're looking for a special dish. Do you have any homemade lasagna?"

I scoffed and pointed at Darla. "Ha. And people say I'm a nut."

Darla ignored me and repeated the question.

To which Lilia said, "Homemade lasagna? No, but I've got some fudge brownies I just made. They're still warm and nice."

Devon and Darla looked at each other. Then they shook their heads and said, "No! Goodbye!" They headed for the door.

"Wait! Wait you guys!" I yelled. "At least have some lemonade or something."

"No, no, no. We're on the hunt for homemade lasagna and this is our 5th stop."

Devon nodded in agreement. "Yeah and we swore not to stop until we found some." Then he snapped his fingers. "Why didn't I think about it?"

"What? What?" Darla said.

"My aunt makes the best homemade lasagna of all time!"

Darla clapped her hands in triumph. "Great! Where does she live?"

"Florence, Italy," he said plainly.

Darla stood there, her previous smile frozen in time. "Well…we'll just go to Arnold's and get the Italian Dish Delight. Well, we're going now. You can resume your necking and we'll resume our lasagna hunt."

Darla and Devon said their goodbyes and ran outside, singing about lasagna. I shook my head and smiled, closing the door. And locking it. Security reasons. I sighed and looked back at my girlfriend. "Walk me back to the couch?"

"Sure." She held my hand as we walked back to the living room.

We sat back on the sofa and Lilia put herself in my embrace. We were quiet for a while, with no sound other than our slow breathing. I had my finger playing with the end of her hair when she said, "What do you think of that?"

"About what, honey?"

"About Darla. And Devon. And Roger."

"Well…Darla's a tomboy, Devon's a guy, and Roger's a friend."

"No, I'm serious. I mean…think about it. Now Darla's dating another guy and poor Roger's all by himself and depressed."

I shrugged. "Well, I'm not sure. But, like I said before, it's their problem and we shouldn't get involved. I mean, Roger and Darla aren't exactly the most compatible match in the world."

She sighed, but didn't sound all that convinced. "Guess so."

After a while she sat straight up. "Well, I guess we should get into the pool before it gets dark, right?"

I nodded. "Right. I'll go change into my swimming trunks in the bathroom."

"Okay." I got up and grabbing my duffel bag, stepped into the bathroom to change into my swimwear.

I changed them walked out into Lilia's back yard. She hadn't come out and yet and told me to wait for here there by the pool. I want to take advantage of the moment to say that I DO NOT have a ridiculous or silly-looking swimsuit. It's just a simple, dark red pair of swim trunks.

Not one of those stupid-looking white-and-striped ones that cover the entire body and make you look like you just came in from a visiting circus with poor comedians or comic relief.

Anyway, I sat on the edge of the pool and dipped my feet into the cool, refreshing water. Ahh! That felt so good! I couldn't wait to relieve my entire body from the heat in the revitalizing water.

Lilia was taking quite a while so I decided to stand up and pace around a little. Just to kill time.

I was coming back around for the 5th time when I heard a splash in the water. I stopped and stared intensely at the pool. I walked to the edge and leaned to try to see what had fallen in. Huh. I didn't see anything.

But I know I heard something splash in the water. But there's nothing. But how can nothing make a loud splash like that? But there isn't anything. But there are still ripples! Hmm. I looked around in all directions. Nothing but a well-decorated patio, plants, trees, the pool, chairs, and a fence with a door that lead to the family's farmlands and some forest.

Well, this was sure weird.

Unless I was having a really bad hallucination. They do say that people who work very hard and celebrities can go crazy…and I happen to be both. Whoa! Maybe I'm just a little off my top, but not completely.

If you really want to know what's crazy, then just meet Larry. Or Rudy. Or Dimetroodon. Or Kathy. You know, now that I think about it, out of my circle of friends, the only "normal" ones are Darla, Patty, Roger, Lilia, and I.

But the rest of them were all wacky. But believe me; all the synonyms of crazy combined don't even being to describe the introduction to Larry. He was WAY beyond crazy.

Well, anyways, I was trying to decide whether or not I'd gone crazy and was hearing things when I felt something push me into the pool.

I had no time to be surprised when I hit the surface with a backwards flip and SPLASH! Water flew everywhere while I swam up back to the surface, my hair and face drenched. I heard…laughter?

She was standing on the edge of the pool laughing so hard she wasn't far away from busting. I looked annoyed at her. "Oh, so it was you, huh?"

She looked at me innocently. "What did I do? You can't prove I pushed you into the water?"

"Oh, so my word isn't good enough?"

She tilted her head. "Not if you can't come up with a good theory."

I nodded. "Okay, I will." I swam to the edge and sat beside her. She sat down and looked intently. "How's this: When you came out, you sneaked outside quietly while my back was to you. Then you threw something into the water which would force my attention on the pool and on nothing else. You proceeded to sneak up behind me and push me into the water to which you owe those uncontrollable fits of emotion we call laughter." Then I looked at her. "How's that sound, my Dear Watson?"

She rolled her eyes around like a detective, then said, "Elementary, just nothing but pure elementary," she said, trying to use a British accent, which didn't come out so well, because she'd of Turkish and Italian descent.

I said this to her. To which she said, "Well, in that case, Luce dei Miei Occhi, you flunked your Foreign Language Class."

"What does that mean?"

"What I just said? It means that 'you're the light of my eyes' in Italian."

"Oh."

We grew silent, finally admiring one another. She had loosened her hair and was wearing a strapless baby blue bikini top and matching…well, you know…a matching set! You know what I'm trying to say.

Anyways…

I'd never seen Lilia in a swimsuit. But as I began to notice her…wow! She just took my breath away. I mean, it's not that she had lots of curves (ahem!) but she had a beautiful body. Like an angel. Actually, no. More like a goddess. A goddess of innocence, purity, chasteness, beauty, and young love.

The way she was smiling, how close she was to me, the way her hair was all loose over her shoulders…it was unlike anything I'd seen before. Before I knew what I was doing, I raised my hand to her cheek and started caressing her face. I leaned closer until our noses were touching.

"You're so beautiful," I whispered.

She blushed and smiled in that sweet, tender way that only she knows how. She laid her head on my shoulder. It felt…I don't know different. Both of us, in our swimsuits cuddled up together. My heart started lurching and my stomach got all tingly.

Then…I fell for the oldest trick in the book. She pushed me and…well, you can predict what happened.

That's right.

Splash!

But…heh heh…I managed to grab her by the arm and pull her in with me. She didn't escape from the consequences.

We swam around for a while, doing tricks and figures in and under the water. I even stood on my head under the water! Let me tell you, that is a lot harder than what it sounds. But we had a fun time. We stayed in the pool until after it got dark and turned on the pool lights. We played Marc Polo, Water Polo, Dolphin Relay, and Poison Pool Toss.

We finally grew tired (and wrinkly from being in the water so long) and we swam slowly to each other, illuminated by nothing else than the pool lights, the moon and the stars. I looked deep into her beautiful honey-brown eyes. I put my arms around her waist and she put her hands around my neck.

We embraced each other and kissed. A deep, passionate, affectionate pool kiss. She even used her tongue a little! Wow! That was new! It sent shivers all the way down my back to my feet. Then, in a quiet voice, she said, "What time is it?" I told her it was almost nine. And just like that, she jumped out of the pool and ran inside.

HUH?! What was with her now?