Page 65 of My Tiny Giant

“They should try less, because there is nothing funny about mocking a friend. You are their friend, aren’t you?”

He let go of my ear, sitting down on my shoulder again.

“You know what the sad part is, Emma? Had the tables been reversed, I might’ve been right there with them, poking fun at the tiny guy sitting on a girl’s shoulder.”

“Would you think you’re being funny, too?”

“Probably, yes. I can see how comical my situation could appear to someone from the outside.”

I gripped the rope handles of my canvas purse that I carried over my other shoulder. Protective feelings grew even stronger inside me.

“I see nothing funny about what happened to you, Agan.”

“That’s because you’re on the inside, here with me. Your size hasn’t changed, but you’ve been with me from the very beginning, and you understand .”

He fell silent for a moment as I pondered his words. Ever since the incident in the lab, I’d been feeling closer to Agan, taking his problems to heart as if they were my own. The professor’s experiment had not affected me physically, but I acutely felt the consequences of it on Agan.

“Anyway.” He shrugged off the gloomy mood. “It’s not easy to be tiny, but as long as you don’t mind me being ‘pocket-size’...”

“Agan.” I smiled, shaking my head. “You could never be truly ‘tiny’ even if you tried. Your size may be small, but everything else about you remains bigger than ever.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Your confidence, your loyalty, your optimism, your courage, your personality,” I glanced sideways at him. “How many men in your situation would have the guts to ask a woman out?”

“Well, it helped that the woman was you. I knew you liked me from the moment we met,” he said with that cocky self-assurance of his.

“Did I, really?” I laughed. “I hate to bruise your ego on that one, but I only really warmed up to you after you were shrunk.”

“So, it’s true what Hahlut said then, some women like tiny men?”

“Or maybe I’ve just developed a soft spot for you, personally.” I stroked his thigh with my finger, adding softly, “My tiny giant.”

Chapter 13

“T AKE ME TO BED, EMMA ,” Agan demanded shortly after we’d had dinner at my place that night. “I want to make good on my promise to make you scream.”