Nineteen.

Lloyd's POV.

"Hey, Lloyd."

I grinned nervously. "Hey, Natalia."

We were standing outside of the ice cream place in the center of Ninjago City. I'd never eaten there before, but I'd heard it was good. Besides, how can you go wrong with ice cream? Greetings over, we went inside, hit with a blast of cold air as soon as we entered the building. "Whoa!" I shouted. Natalia laughed.

"What do you want to get?" she asked.

"Um..." I scanned the menu. "Chocolate?"

"Great idea." She walked up to the counter and put down her money. "One dish of chocolate, please."

I did the same. "And one for me, please." We sat down on the big purply-red counter-stools. While we were waiting for our desserts, I opened my mouth a couple of times, but could never seem to think of anything to say.

This seemed to amuse Natalia. "You nervous?" she asked.

"Nervous?" I scoffed. "Me, nervous? Why would I be nervous? I'm a ninja! I beat up bad guys! Why should I get nervous, haha?" Unfortunately, my "haha" did not sound at all convincing. It made me sound more like a shy idiot than a confident, swaggering, bad-guy-bashing ninja.

"You're totally nervous."

"I'm totally not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Say something, then."

"Uh...you look really cute," I blurted out. Holy mackerel.

She grinned. "Thank you, Lloyd," she replied, "so do you."

Suddenly, even though the building was kept at about forty-two degrees (probably colder), my face felt really hot. I'm pretty sure my ears were turning redder than Kai's Spinjitzu! "Th-tha-thanks," I stammered. Why did I say that she looked cute? I mean, she did. She was the cutest girl I'd ever seen. Of course, I never really thought much about girls before Natalia, but that's beside the point. I definitely thought she looked cute, but that didn't make it any less weird that I had said it.

Then our ice cream came. She took a bite first. "Mmm."

I tasted mine. It was delicious. "Yummmm." We slurped down the dishes in no time, both of us getting chocolate all over our faces. "Yum," I said again.

"Mm."

"Delicious."

"Your face is a mess."

"I know."

Natalia reached over and started trying to get the chocolate off my face, which really, really tickled. Like, so much that I almost fell off of the chair. She shook her head and sighed dramatically. "You're so...goofy," she said fondly.

"I know," I gasped through my unstoppable giggling.

She smiled, the little smile that I thought was so adorable. "Totally goofy," she repeated. "And you know what?"

"What?"

"I kinda like it. I like it a lot, actually."

By now I had gotten used to my heart speeding up a lot around her. "What else do you like about me?" I said slowly. Lloyd, you have not been thinking before opening your mouth today.

"You're goofy, and awkward."

"That's not a good thing..."

"It is, though. It's cute. And you're kind of nerdy, and super funny, and of course you're a ninja. What about me, Lloyd? What do you like about me?"

"Well, you're cute. But I said that already. You're funny too, and you're way less awkward than I am. And I like that you enjoy stuff like playing foursquare and reading comics, and you're not afraid to get dirty having fun."

"That's sweet, Lloyd."

"I guess. I don't really mean it to be. I mean, not that I don't want to be sweet, I just..." That came out wrong. I shrugged. "It's just true. I like all of that about you, and a lot more."

"I do, too." When the waiter came to collect our empty ice-cream dishes, we both slid off the counter-stools. "Well, I should probably go home. Thanks for inviting me."

"Thanks for suggesting this place! It was delicious."

"See you at school Monday?"

"Sure thing."

"Great." Then, she did something completely unexpected. She kissed me on the cheek. My hand immediately flew to my face, like I had been burned or something. I turned even more red than I had before! Natalia skipped off, out the door. "Bye!"

"B-b-b-bye? Bye! G-goodbye!"

Whoa.

Whoa.