He didn’t want to be late, but neither did he really want to meet her at all. Oh, it wasn’t because he dreaded seeing her, on the contrary, it seemed like every time he saw her face, it only left that small hope in him that he’d see it again, and soon. Brice wasn’t sure when exactly that hope had become something more akin to longing, but it was there. He could just see the roof of her house from his bedroom window, farther off across the expanse of lawn between the two homes, certainly not close enough to spy if there was a candle lit in the window, or if there was a girl thinking about him over there. Just some tiles, if the northern Scottish day was clear, but it was enough to have even that simple of a thing remind him of her. Not that he needed an excuse to think of the older Bishop sister. No, his reason for not wanting to see her was the acute knowledge that their summer was about to end. And Brice had considered this summer one of the best in his whole life. Even his mother remarked on it, and the change in him. His smile was much easier now; actually, the whole person of one Brice Burke was more at ease in his own skin. Rarely did he scuttle around the house now, trying to be as quiet as possible with his nose pressed quite tightly against the middle fold of his book. He wasn’t following his mother to her shop at every available moment, sitting on some stool in the corner that was supposed to be used her customers in front of a mirror to see just how they looked in their newest head gear. He wasn’t cloistered in the library, looking up the symptoms of his newest, nervous tick. His mother was much relieved that Brice seemed to have let his hair down, figuratively and literally, his curls were a riot over his ears and were below his collar, much to the chagrin and annoyance of his father, and without Finn to play a buffer between the two. Brice had found that it was much easier to bare the man’s ire without an audience.

He’d found that nothing else really mattered much to him, other than the girl who was walking up the well-worn path between their two houses. The soon to be seventh year Ravenclaw didn’t bother to hide the way his lips pulled back into a grin, and neither did he glace at his feet to try and at least put on some semblance of decorum. They were far away from Daisy’s spying eyes, or his brother’s, as far as Brice was concerned, here at the small wall dividing their properties, it seemed like they were the only two people left on the Earth. But still he tried not to notice how his heartbeat quickened with her footsteps toward him.

“Hello, darling,”

“Hello, Dahl.” He murmured back, looking back over his shoulder when she took his arm and then forward again toward her home before he reached over to the stones where just a lone, bright orange and yellow flower was laying, seemingly in wait for another hand to pluck it up. It was a ball of petals ranging from sunny lemon to pumpkin orange, getting darker toward the center.

“It’s a dahlia for Dahlia.” The curly haired wizard told her, though, just after he said the words, his dark eyebrows drew together, and a small bit of red colored his cheeks. “Merlin, that sounded so stupid. It sounded better in my head…” He’d not let go of the flower yet, and apparently had no intention of doing so because he was trying to pull it back. “Forget it...it was dumb.” Brice finished lamely, on a groan of discomfort, when they started forward with her arm linked in his. But now he was distracted, looking out and thinking on something else that he could have possibly said. He didn’t know it, but when he was deep in thought, his lips moved slightly, and he brought up the hand that had the flower to push the glasses on his face up the bridge of his nose. Pausing for just a minute and presenting it back to her, once he was out of the fog of his own thoughts.

“I tried to find the prettiest dahlia in the garden…but she’s already on my arm.” He held it back out to his friend with a smaller smile than the one he’d greeted her with, the line wasn’t delivered with the confidence that it needed to be pulled off, and Brice was tempted once again to take the flower back and just toss it over his shoulder like it never existed. Instead he looked back out toward the lake to trying to ignore what an idiot he was, and was caught by surprise when the girl with him started running, and not only started running, but started running with her hand firmly grasping his.

She didn’t run so fast that he couldn’t keep up with her. After all, he’d spent the last year entrenched in Quidditch drills, he’d never been soft per say, but the last year had certainly impressed upon him the advantages of daily workouts, and not just his walks to the library. But he wasn’t much concerned about winning, or even running as fast as the girl with him. Because he was probably going to break his neck, as he was only watching her, and not where his feet were landing. All that thick hair streaming through the air, and the way her skirt kicked up those shapely legs. With that thought, he wasn’t even able to smile after her anymore, because he had to swallow down that uncomfortably aware feeling that being near her inspired. And Brice sent out a quick thought that Merlin forgive him, he couldn’t not look down at where her legs were bare. While she was laughing, Brice was barely managing a miserable quirk of his lips in return, trying to think on anything else but how he knew what her bare skin felt like under his fingers now.

Maybe one day he’d be brave enough to ask her to wear one of those strappy, light, summer dresses he liked her in so much. But today was not that day, and tomorrow was just as unlikely.

It was good that Dahlia knew what she was about even with his distraction, bringing out her wand and performing her magics on the boat they’d been using this summer to get away from the shore and their family’s land. Brice wasn’t much for boats, or water but Dahlia seemed to like to perch herself at the stern of it and bask in the rays of the sun, and Brice didn’t have it in him to deny her, her little pleasures. Especially when she seemed so faded lately at any events they’d seen one another at. Here she sparkled, and because she was so close, Brice smiled when his arm was tugged on and slid his hands along either side of her jaw in order to press his lips to hers. It seemed that long, languid kisses were their specialty, and he forgot all about the boat, the water, just about everything else while they stood in the outcropping of trees near the river.

“I’m going to miss this when we have to go back to school,”

Ah, but that feeling of happiness and contentment couldn’t last, as the witch he was with reminded him. Brice pulled back to look in her eyes, trying to read what exactly she meant by that. Was she just saying that they wouldn’t be able to escape like they could at home? She’d miss boating with him? Miss the quiet? Or that once they were back at school, they wouldn’t be kissing at all? And the feeling he got, like he had just taken a punch to the stomach was not unlike the one he got when she was with Warwick at any one of the gatherings over the holidays. It made him a little queasy, and had him pulling away to separate from her and nod, moving to put one foot on the boat to keep it where it was on the shore while he extended his hand to help her inside, preferring to look at where her fingers would meet his instead of directly at the delicate features of her face.

“Me too, Dahl.” He murmured uncomfortably, having to bite back his questions as he shoved the boat away from the shore and jumped aboard at the last moment, waving his arms a bit when his feet hit one of the slats, but safely making it to the oars.

“Where too, Beautiful?” Brice asked, like he always asked, dipping the wooden oars into the water. “Want me to take you to the sea? I bet we could get halfway to the continent before anyone noticed I stole you away, if I rowed hard enough.”