Page 122 of Rafferty's Rules
I love her
I want to be with her
I’ll do whatever it takes to walk through life holding her hand
Lissa’s eyes search mine but don’t lighten into my much hoped for smile. My heart seems to be beating somewhere in the vicinity of my windpipe, leaving a gaping cavity in my chest. The moment seems to last forever as I hope with all I have that I’m reading this wrong— that she’s still thinking about saying she’ll at least think about there being an us.
As she takes the paper into her fingertips, my heart drops from my throat to my toes. She folds it one, then tears it town the middle, repeating the process three more times until the paper confetti is tumbling from her fingertips.
‘Right. I see. I—’ My words draw to a halt as she jumps against me, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my thighs. I stagger backwards, not because she’s heavy, but because I wasn’t expecting to be jumped. I fall against the bed and she’s on top of me in an instant, her knees either side of my waist.
Is she going to try to strangle me? Put me out of my misery?
‘You know what else your mom said?’ Her dark eyes glitter manically, her face so close yet we’re not kissing, more like sharing the same air. ‘She said Rafferty’s rules means no rules.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘It means if we’re going to do this thing, we make our rules up as we go.’
‘No rules suits me,’ I reply with a burgeoning grin.
‘Good, okay. But first, I’ve got a question for you.’
‘Go for it, bite sized.
‘Rafferty Phillips, will you be my real boyfriend?’
Taking her face in my hands, I kiss her hard. I kiss her with heart. I kiss her yes.
THE END
