I couldn't even be mad at Mother Nature when it started bucketing rain. It was pelting down to the point of almost hailing. It didn't bother me but I had to look after my girl. Just as I decided this she squealed and jumped away from me. She was soaked through and her dress was clinging to her. She laughed and yelled "Come on!" before grabbing my hand and dragging me under the shelter in my backyard. 

Which was looking very clean. Everyone had done a super job at cleaning up. They were legends. Said legends were standing on the porch as well and Leah was the first to notice. 

"Oh my god you're soaked!" She exclaimed, but we were too busy laughing and not caring. 

"It was so worth it," I grinned, not taking my eyes off Rylie. She was so little!

"Wait, what?" Tessa kinda half squealed half-sounded-like-a-dying-chicken. "Did something happen?"

I was about to say not only yes, but hell yes! I'd been waiting for this day for what felt like far too long and I wasn't about to deny it. Of course, Rylie had other ideas. 

"Oh my god! How many times do we have to tell you that nothing is going on between us?" 

Everyone laughed but I wasn't amused. I hid my frown until everyone went inside, and then it was just me and her. 

"Before you say anything," she said, holding her hands up to me with an irremovable cute smile. "Everyone's saying I'm unobservant so I want to see exactly how observant they are!"

I shook my head but couldn't help my laugh. "You are so weird." She was, but she was kind of cheeky as well. I pinched her nose out of habit than anything else and then led her to my room. I grabbed her some of my clothes and yes, I was aware that she had her own but she would be way more comfortable in mine. Plus, I just kind of liked that she was mine and could do that stuff now. 

"Here," I said, throwing the clothes I'd gathered for her. They'd still be too big but she'd rock it anyway. "And there's a towel in the bathroom."

"What you don't want me to get changed in here?" She teased, the smirk I always wore on her lips. 

"Yeah," I said, then realized my mistake. Shit. "I mean, I uh... No, um."

"Awh you're so cute!" She squeaked, reaching to pinch my cheeks. I batted her hands away and frowned. 

"Just go get into something warm or you'll get a cold."

She left then, into my bathroom with the door closed. I quickly stripped off my wet clothes and chucked on a pair of boxers and sweats. I had to hang out my nice clothes otherwise Mum would get mad when she had to dryclean them. I put them on the hooks on the back of my door and was just getting a t-shirt when I felt a pair of eyes on me. 

Her eyes were looking me up and down, her cheeks going a cute pinkish colour. I just enjoyed her checking me out and thought that I could definitely get used to that. 

Besides, she wasn't the only one checking the other out. She was wearing my clothes that swallowed her and her dark hair was damp and curly and hanging down her back. Damn...

"Will you put a shirt on?" Were the first words out of her mouth. I was expecting something different. Weird girl. 

"Unbelievably distracted by my body?" I teased, my smirk growing with every moment her cheeks flushed more. 

"No." That meant yes in Rylie-speak. 

"Don't worry, you can tell me. We're on the same page anyway."

"Unbelievably distracted by your body too?" She asked with a frown. I couldn't figure out if she was teasing or not, but I shook my head.

"Nope. By yours."

She rolled her eyes, not accepting the truth. I seriously had to focus on our totally innocent conversation to keep less innocent things entering my mind. 

"What does your tattoo mean?" She changed the subject like a pro but I was confused at her question until I realized she might not have seen it before. 

I pulled my black t-shirt on and told her, "It means strength," and then led her downstairs to where everyone else was. I would have liked to stay hauled up in my room forever - or just for the night - but that would make loopholes in her plans. Plus, no one was as unobservant as she was and they'd be able to figure out what was going on. 

Everyone was sitting in a circle in my lounge room, some on the couch and some on the floor. What's best is that they were all dry and in dry clothes.

"We should play truth or dare!" Seth exclaimed as soon as we walked into the room. There was a gap in between Seth and Nate so Rylie and I took it, closing in the circle. e

"Can I start?" Isaac asked. No one seemed opposed to the idea of the game or Isaac going first, so he went. 

"Okay, Max. Truth or dare?" He asked me. I was almost too distracted playing with Rylie's fingers to notice his question. Whoops. 

"Truth," I said, the lazy guy deep within me taking over. 

"Uh," Isaac said while he was thinking. He didn't look prepared for that. His boyfriend was, however, so he wrote something on a note and passed it to him. "Okay. Have you ever made an ass of yourself in front of the girl you like?"

Was that even a real question? "Every day." Obviously.

Everyone looked at the girl to my right but she pretended not to notice. Or she actually didn't notice. You never knew with her. 

"Leah," I turned the attention away from Rylie. "Truth or dare?"

"Dare, obviously." I shouldn't have even asked. I sifted through memories of all the dares I've seen or had to do myself and picked one of the gross but easy ones. 

"I dare you to eat a teaspoon of salt," I said, standing up and heading to the kitchen. I had to sift through the pantry for our non-rock salt and then I returned to the room with salt shaker in one hand and spoon in the other. 

"Ew," Tess scrunched up her nose. 

I smirked as I handed Leah the teaspoon with a little mountain of salt on top. Leah just smiled like a crazy woman and put the spoon in her mouth. She didn't even scrunch up her face which I should have guessed. She only put the spoon on the ground when she swallowed, opening her mouth so that we could see it had gone down. 

"I'm impressed," Nate said, slinging his arm around her. Couldn't argue with that. 

"Tessa. Truth or dare?" Leah asked with a smile that was definitely not from the dare. 

"Truth," she said like she didn't have to think about it. 

"Most annoying thing right now?" 

"Rylie being unobservant."

"Hey!" Rylie protested with a pout. "I am too observant." She sounded like a four year old arguing that she was really the smarterest kid eveer. 

Everyone kind of rolled their eyes or did something of the sort except for Nate, who just looked at me like he couldn't be bothered keeping the secret anymore. "Can I tell her?"

I nodded, keeping my eyes on Nate even though I could feel Rylie's eyes on me. 

"You are so unobservant that you don't even know that Max likes you." There was a suspenseful silence where no one said anything. I just rolled my eyes. If he was going to say it he could at least get it right. 

 "Actually, I'm in love with her but whatever." Everyone kind of looked at me like I was crazy. I changed my mind; I liked this plan. 

"No, I knew that!" Rylie exclaimed like she was proud of herself for knowing something. 

There were a bit of a chorus of responses.

Seth was first with "Really?"

Then it was Nate with "I don't believe you."

And Isaac with a shake of his head and "Yeah me neither."

Rylie groaned, leaning her head against my shoulder. I slid my arm around her waist and enjoyed everyone's eyes on us. 

"You don't believe us when we say we're not together. You don't believe us when we say we are!"

I was such an idiot. 

"Prove it then," Leah said, her whole face radiating disbelief. 

"How?" Rylie asked, taking the words right out of my mouth. How the hell did we prove we were together?

Olly was the one to figure it out, scribbling something on his notepad and giving it to Isaac to read. "Why do you like each other?"

Rylie didn't give me any time to answer first. She thought about it for maybe two seconds and then sighed. "Fine. He knows me better than anyone else and I can trust him more than anyone, too. He can make me laugh when laughing is the last thing I want to do and he doesn't ask questions that I don't want to answer. And I mean, have you seen him?" 

Everyone laughed, but I was a melted puddle of human being on the floor. 

"Max?" Tessa prompted me. 

"Uh, I-I just." I couldn't even form words. I hoped Rylie knew that I was blaming her. It was all her fault. Then I looked at her and she smiled, so she was kind of to blame for me being able to speak again. But I couldn't look at her as I spoke. 

"I honestly liked her from the first day. I was so used to all these girls chasing after me but she shot me down. And continued to shoot me down. It was refreshing that she didn't put up with my shit so I started to fall for her. Then I actually got to know her and she is the best person I have ever met. She's so generous and so beautiful, and she doesn't even know it. Everyone she tries she is amazing at. You give her a pencil and she gives you a picture. Give her a piano and she'll give you a song. Give her your heart," I paused to smile at her "and she'll give you love."

The smile on her face was totally worth making an ass of myself. 

The girls 'awwh'ed and the guys cheered and Rylie hid her face in my shoulder. 

"Do you believe us now?" I asked, rubbing her back.

"Pretty hard not to," Nate smiled. Then yawned. Then Leah did. And Tess. And basically everyone. 

"Alright, I think it's time for bed," Leah said while getting to her feet. Everyone followed her lead and within a few minutes, we were all heading for bed. 

"Did you really mean all that?" I had to ask after I'd closed the door to my room, heading to my bed. I fell onto the mattress and pulled her down beside me. 

"Of course I did," she grinned, running her hand up my arm, ending up at the bottom of my neck. I did what had become routine and looped my arms around her waist, gently kissing her as if she'd break. Then I remembered something that had been bugging me since I found out about it. I had to know, and I had a feeling she'd tell me.

"Hey, I have a question," I said, sliding my hand under her shirt but not for the usual reason. I ran my fingers across the scar that ran from her hip to her ribs. "How did you get it?"

She hesitated with this, looking down. "Well, I got it a couple of years ago. I blacked out from a sleep headache and I was driving. There was a huge shard of glass that pierced my skin and they had to remove it and stitch it up. Thankfully it just cut the skin and not my stomach or lungs or anything. But yeah." She huffed out a breath while my mouth gaped open, unintentionally. I took my hands away from her scar straight away, wincing at the image of Rylie in a car crash. 

"Max, it's okay." She was reassuring me, or trying to. It wasn't comforting. 

"But you still have sleep headaches."

"Yeah but I'm not stupid enough to drive with them." 

"Rylie-"

"Max," she cut me off, squeezing my arm. "I am fine, okay?"

I sighed. "Promise?"

"I promise."

***

A/N: Yes, it's been ages but I swear I have good reasons. Well, sort of. Actually, I'm just a) writing other things and b) super duper lazy! Seriously guys, I am ashamed at how lazy I am. By the way, have any of you seen Home? The new animation? RIPPED MY HEART OUT AND THEN PUT IT BACK IN I SWEAR TO GOD. Anyway, moving on! There have been a few questions as to how I will do the Epilogue and the accurate answer is 'mehidunnoreallyhehe'. I haven't thought about it. I don't see much point of doing it from Rylie's POV but if that's what you all want? Just let me know, okay? BY THE WAY I'm in Thailand right now so I won't update til I get home. Or I will. I dunno I'm just going with the flow, but please don't ask for another update until seven days have passed. Then pester me all you like! 

Sorry for that mininotsominibutmajor ramble but I'm tireeeeed and realllyyyy warm so my brain is fried but yeah I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Two to go, probably? Yeah, yay! Happy Reading xx