“Yeah you too, Sarah,” he replied, giving her his charming smile. He held out a hand to my stepfather. “Brian, how was your trip?”

Brian shook Clay’s hand with a warm smile. “Great, son, it was great. Shame to come back, but to be honest I don’t think I could have stood for anymore of Riley’s whining!” he joked, jabbing me in the ribs playfully. I just rolled my eyes, tipping our popcorn into a bowl. My mom just giggled like a school girl.

“Whining? What about?” Clay asked, obviously confused, looking at me quizzically.

Brian laughed. “You for goodness sake. ‘I miss Clay! When are we going home, I want to see Clay! Why won’t my cell phone work, I want to text Clay’,” Brian said, mimicking a girly voice, laughing. Clay just laughed too and put his arm around my shoulder.

“Shut up, Brian! I wasn’t whining. I just missed my best friend that’s all. A month is a long time you know!” I countered, throwing a bit of hot popcorn at him. He caught it and ate it, still laughing to himself. In reality I know I’d been a pain, but in my defence a month is an extremely long time to go without one of Clay’s hugs.

“Well, have a good night. We’re now off out for dinner,” Mom said, giving us both a kiss on the cheek.

Just then the doorbell rang. “Pizza’s here!” Brian shouted from the hallway. I ran towards the front door, grabbing my purse as I went past. “No need, I’ve got it,” Brian said as he passed me the pizza and kissed my forehead.

I smiled gratefully. As stepfathers went, I knew I got a great one. He loved my mom and me like crazy. I was only seven when they got together; he raised me and treated me like I was his own. Brian was the only dad I had ever known. My own father was no more than a sperm donor who wasn’t interested in being in my life and skipped town when he found out my mom was pregnant with me. My mom and Brian had tried for a baby but then they found out that Brian couldn’t have kids. He spoilt me like crazy.

As usual, Clay and I took the food and popcorn up to my room. After stuffing ourselves with pizza, we caught up on everything that we had missed for the last month. We finally put on the DVD at about nine thirty. Clay changed into his pyjamas - which basically meant that he just took off his jeans and T-shirt, he always slept in just his boxers - and jumped into the bed next to me.

The movie was scary, really scary. At one point I had my face pressed so hard against his chest that my nose was going numb. He already had his arm around me, so he brought up his other arm to hold the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my hair.

Finally, the movie was over. I looked up at him, expecting the laughter that always came after we watched a scary movie. But he didn’t laugh; instead, he just looked at me, staring at every part of my face. My breathing started to speed up because something just seemed different, I couldn’t put my finger on it but for some reason I was suddenly noticing how handsome he was. How his skin felt against mine. How his hand tightened in the back of my hair making my stomach flutter. The air seemed charged with something, getting thicker somehow, making my breathing shallower.

What the hell is wrong with me? I know I haven’t seen him for a month but jeez, this is freaking crazy!

Suddenly, he snapped out of it as if he came out of some sort of trance. “I’ll get the ice cream,” he muttered, jumping off the bed, stopping the movie before heading out of the room.

I sat up, rubbing a hand over my face, slightly dazed as to what was going on. What on earth was wrong with me today?

He smiled as he walked back into the room. “So, what’ll it be, Riley Bear?” he asked, holding out the two cartons to me. I forced a smile, deciding to ignore the confusion that seemed to be settling over me. He obviously hadn’t felt anything because he was behaving normally so maybe I was just tired or something.

“Hmm, I’ll go for the strawberry sorbet,” I chose, taking it and digging in.

He plopped down next to me, talking animatedly about his football practice. “So, I’ve got something that I wanted to ask you,” he said, suddenly looking serious. I immediately tensed up; Clay was never serious. I raised one eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if… well... now that you come to my school, I thought…. well I wondered if maybe you would wear my number?” he asked, stumbling over his words as he looked at his ice cream.

“Wear your number, what are you talking about? What number?” I asked, frowning and taking my opportunity to steal some of the ice cream from his pot.

He just laughed and reached over, taking my half eaten tub of ice cream and handing me his. “I don’t know why I even make you choose, you always end up eating mine too,” he teased, chuckling again. I just smiled guiltily and dug into the cookies and cream. “So yeah, what I was saying. You know I’m running back for the football team, right? Well, now that you come to my school you’ll be expected to attend the games. Everyone goes, and there’s always a party after.” He winced, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Okay, I’d love to watch you play. I’ve never seen you play properly before, only in the park,” I replied, smiling.

He just nodded. “Yeah, so, well, the guys have this thing where you have to give your away shirt to your girlfriend to wear, to you know, show support,” he mumbled. “But I’ve never had a girlfriend. So I was wondering if you would wear it for me. You know, be my number one fan. Cheer me on?” he asked, frowning, clearly uncomfortable.

I felt the proud smile stretch across his face. “Of course I will, silly! I’m already your number one fan,” I stated, digging him in the ribs with my elbow.

He looked up at me and beamed. “Thanks.”

I yawned; I still hadn’t caught up from my lack of sleep last night. We hadn’t arrived back home until late, and even then I’d had trouble getting to sleep because of nerves about starting the new school.

“You’re tired. I’ll get the light,” Clay said, taking the almost finished ice creams and dumping them in the trashcan. I turned on the bedside light as he flicked off the ceiling lights. I watched him walk back to the bed and climb in beside me. He really was beautiful, both inside and outside. I really had missed him so much. I shifted over so he could get in and he wrapped his arms around me as usual and pulled me to his chest. We were both lying on our sides facing each other, our bodies touching. He was just staring at me again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked quietly. There was something he wanted to tell me I could tell, I knew him so well.

“About that bet earlier,” he whispered, moving his face a little closer to mine.

My heart sped up. Shit, I’d forgotten about the bet! He didn’t really want me to kiss him, did he? I could feel his warm sweet breath blowing across my face.

“Yeah?” I croaked, nervously. What was I going to do if he kissed me? It was a bet, we never back out of a bet and he won fair and square. He would have kissed whoever I chose if the outcome had been difference.

“I want to claim my prize,” he whispered, rolling forward slightly so that I was now half underneath him, his chest pressed against mine, pinning me to the bed.

“Clay, what the?” I gasped, but he was already inching his head towards me. I froze; I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing.

Gently his lips grazed across mine, so lightly that I could barely feel it. He pulled back to look at me again. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered huskily, his voice sounded so sexy I whimpered.

“For the bet?” I asked, still confused. Why would he even want to kiss me in the first place? He nodded, looking a little sad for some reason. “Umm…. okay.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, he brought his lips to mine, kissing me tenderly, passionately. And my God it felt good. His soft lips fitted mine perfectly, setting my body on fire. He traced his tongue along my bottom lip and I opened my mouth, eager for more. I felt his tongue slip in and massage mine gently and slowly. The taste of him was amazing and I couldn’t help but moan into his mouth. I’d never been kissed like this in my life. I’d kissed a few guys, but this, this was something else entirely.

I brought my arms up and wrapped them around his neck, tangling my hands into his hair, trying to get him closer to me. He made a small moaning sound in the back of his throat that made my body start to tingle. He pulled away, only to kiss along my jaw line and down my neck, making me moan this time. He made his way back to my mouth again; I kissed him hungrily, as if I could devour his soul. I felt his hand snake up my leg to rest on my hip, before gently slipping under my top to trace his fingers across my stomach and sides. My whole body was tingling with a burning desire that I barely even understood.

As his fingers bit into my hip it suddenly dawned on me what I was doing. This was Clay! I was making out with Clay! He had his hand under my top! It was Clay, my best friend. What the heck was I going? I didn’t even like him in that way, did I? I reluctantly pulled my hands out of his hair. I put them on his chest and gave him a small shove.

He immediately pulled back to look at me for a couple of seconds before taking a deep breath and sitting up. “I’m sorry, Riley. I’m so sorry.” He groaned, putting his hands up to cover his face. He looked really upset. I reached out a hand to pull his hands away from his face. I didn’t like it when he hid his emotions from me, we talked about everything, we had no secrets. I needed to know what this was all about.

“Clay, what was that? Why did you do that? I mean, not that it wasn’t good because it was… but, I mean… what?” I stammered, confused and embarrassed. I could feel the blush burning my cheeks and was silently grateful that there was only the bedside light on so it wouldn’t be too noticeable.

He gulped. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” he begged, looking at me with pure horror across his face.

Wait, why did he look so horrified? Oh my God, was I a bad kisser? Was I that repulsive to him that he is horrified that he’s just kissed me? Immediately I was terrified that this was going to ruin our friendship.

“Clay, don’t worry about it. But it shouldn’t have happened, let’s just leave it at that, shall we? I mean, I don’t want things to change between us, do you? You’re my best friend in the whole world, I couldn’t lose you,” I said, starting to tear up.

He pulled my close to him, and let me cry on his chest. “I couldn’t lose you either, Riley Bear,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.

I pulled back to look at him, my best friend, my angel, the guy I needed to have in my life forever. “Let’s just pretend that this didn’t happen then, okay?” I suggested.

He wiped my face and smiled at me a small sad smile. “Okay, Riley Bear.” He moved and settled down onto his back, pulling me close to his side with his arm round the crook of my neck. He leant over and turned the light off.

I buried my face in his chest and breathed in his beautiful smell, trying to calm myself. I had hormones running all over my body. Part of my mind was screaming at me to grab him and kiss him again, to run my hands over his perfect body, to take off his clothes and run my tongue over every inch of him. But the other part, the sensible part, was telling me to close my eyes and go to sleep and in the morning forget that this even happened. Finally, after what seemed like forever fighting my body’s urges, I drifted off to sleep in his arms, listening to his heartbeat.

When I opened my sleepy eyes in the morning, the first thing I saw was him staring at me. He looked tired. I traced the dark circle under his eye with my finger. “Did you not sleep well?” I asked, trying my hardest to ignore the part of me that was telling me to jump on him and kiss him again. I really had no idea what had come over me, but instead of just seeing Clay as my best friend and the goofy kid that I used to build mud pies with, I could suddenly see the attraction that he held for other girls.

He smiled weakly but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Not really. I was a little worried.”

“Worried? That movie scared you, didn’t it,” I teased, laughing hysterically.

He laughed and tickled me, making me squirm. “No, Riley Bear, it didn’t scare me. You were the one whimpering and talking in your sleep all night,” he replied, suddenly looking sad again.

“Whimpering and talking?” I asked, confused. I thought back to the dream I kept having last night. It was about Clay, he’d said that he couldn’t be my friend anymore, then he’d turned and ran off and no matter how fast I ran after him, I couldn’t catch up. I shook my head, trying to clear it. What on earth had I said in my sleep?

Clay brushed my hair away from my face softly. “You kept saying that everything was ruined. You kept calling for me, and crying,” he whispered, pulling his arm tighter around me. I couldn’t speak. “Have I ruined everything, Riley? Please tell me that we can forget what happened last night, please,” he begged, looking me straight in the eye.

I nodded and tried to smile. I would forget it, I would make myself. I loved Clay too much to let him walk out of my life. “Of course we can, Clay. Why don’t you go back to sleep? We can skip the run today and have an extra hour in bed,” I suggested, putting my head back on his chest. I heard him sigh in contentment and I looked up to see he had his eyes closed and a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.

The next couple of days were a little strained. Clay didn’t touch me much, didn’t put his arm around my shoulder or hold my hand as normal. It was weird, and I missed his contact so much. I didn’t want to say anything about it, so I just went with it. By Friday I couldn’t take it anymore, the loss of contact was really starting to get to me. I was walking to class with Rachel, I hadn’t spoken to her about what had happened between me and Clay, but she had noticed that we seemed to be acting a little different around each other. I saw him walking towards me with Tom so I stepped in his path so he had to stop.