Living With Stranger Boy

Chapter Twenty-Three

My heart stopped as my stomach dropped in anticipation. Curiosity overwhelmed me broadly, and I froze as I waited for him to go on. Seconds felt like an hour worth of wait, and each moment went by painfully slow.

Ryan looked down nervously, and then looked deep into my eyes. I could see and feel the nervous air around us, why was he so nervous?

"Well, are you gonna tell me?" I said, trying to joke and lighten him up.

He shakily nodded his head and opened his mouth to say something, but closed it.
He did the same step again, and I gripped his hand. "Ryan, I don't know what you want to say to me, but whatever it is, you can say it," I said encouragingly.

He took in a shaky breath, and looked me in the eyes, as the words finally left his mouth.

"I like you."

I blinked, once, twice. What did he just say? No, I'm serious. I zoned out, and didn't hear him. All I heard was a faint mumble in the background of my thoughts.

"I'm sorry, could you say that again?"
He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, "What.." he faintly mumbled.
"Um, I zoned out, I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?"
"Riley, that took me so much time, courage and effort to say! You want me to repeat?" he exclaimed.
My eyebrows raised, "I'm sorry! Geez, woman."

He huffed out in annoyance, "I said that..." he let out a breath, "I like you."

My mind stopped working, as I froze in place for the second time. I was sure I was dreaming again, like last time. I pinched my arm, hard, as I closed my eyes, hoping to wake up from this wonderful, yet extravagant, dream.

"Did you just pinch yourself...?" he asked me in confusion. "Yes. I'm sure this is a dream like last time."
"Like last time? What.."

I looked at him in frustration, "Remember the last time you said you liked me? It was only a dream! I'm sure this is one, too. No way you'd really like me."

He placed his both hands on my shoulders, as he said to me, "Riley, this isn't a dream. I really do like you. And as for last time.. Um, I don't even know what you're talking about."

I looked at him with wide eyes, "So... wait. You like me?"
He nodded his head as he let go of my shoulders.
"I like you," he confirmed.

Should I tell him now? Well, he did just tell me he liked me. I should just tell him. Woah, woah, woah. When did I tell that to myself, first of all?

Right now, idiot. Okay, that's a point.

I took in a deep breath and let it out, as I prepared myself to say those words back to him.

Looking him dead in the eye, I finally let go of these words. "Ryan, I like you, too."

A huge smile broke onto his face, as he let loose a sigh of relief. He closed the gap between us by hugging me, and almost killing me in the process, but hey, it's all good.

"Thank you," he breathed.
"For what?"
"For liking me back," he smiled and I mimicked his expression, "I really like you, Riley. A lot."

The atmosphere suddenly got very quiet, the lights of the lanterns illuminated on our faces. His eyes fell on my lips, and I froze. Was he going to kiss me? I didn't have much time to think about it because soon, he started coming closer to me. He grabbed the sides of face with his hands, and tilted his head as he came closer. My eyes automatically closed on its own.

Suddenly, the gap between us seemed painfully apart, and he was taking forever to kiss me. I closed the gap between us by thriving my lips towards his, and finally our lips melded together.

The softness of his lips made me want to kiss him forever, to never stop kissing him. He deepened the kiss by tilting his head. The kiss was soft, yet held passion in it. I was incapable to think of anything but his lips on mine at the moment.

The kiss broke apart, and we stood there staring in each other's eyes. His dark brown eyes held so many questions in them, but nothing negative. "What are you questioning?" I asked him.
"How I got so lucky to have someone like you to like me back," he answered. "And now," he continued, "I have yet one more question to ask you." I nodded my head, but my eyes never left his.

"Riley Miller, I've liked you for a while now, it just took me some time to realize it. You're different than any girl I've ever met. You're weird," he said, "But a good weird. Funny, loving weird. You wear onesies like you can rule the world in it, and you make up threats like it can scare a bodybuilder. There's so many things that I love about you, the little things make a huge view for me. You didn't pity me when I told you about my past. Instead, you told me what me what I needed to hear. I thank you for that because now that I think about that incident, I don't continuously blame myself for it," he took a step closer to me, "Now, I want to ask you a very important question. It's important because, well, first, I've never asked anyone this before. Second, you've never been asked this before."

"Just ask already!" I exclaimed. Even though his little speech was very sweet, this guy was testing my patience.

He chuckled, but finally asked. "Riley, will you be my girlfriend?"

A huge, broad smile settled on my face, as I said my answer, "Of course, I will."

He held a genuine smile of happiness on his face, but that soon broke into a smirk, and I knew my good ol' Ryan was back. "Who can resist this, anyways?" he asked rhetorically, while motioning to himself.

I decided to play along, and pouted playfully, "Definitely not me." We broke into laughter as he came closer to hug me.

That's how we were for a while. Just hugging and holding onto each other, not thinking about anything else, but just happy to be together, and have each other's company.

"You just proposed to me wearing a horse onesie," I pointed out.

He half-smiled, "Well, aren't we a weird couple."