Page 70 of Game on, Love

“Yeah?”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

She turned back to me, a bold expression on her face. “Like you want to kiss me.”

I did. But I hadn’t realised I was wearing that look, and knowing she’d already seen it, I didn’t back away either. “And what if I do?”

“You can’t kiss me with your mum only a couple of feet away.”

Thatwas her concern?

“She won’t mind. By the looks of it, I think she might be more thrilled than anything.”

She tried to stop the smile from reaching her lips, but I saw it because, in the past hour, it was evident that Mum absolutely loved her. I think the giveaway was the small flick to my head for not mentioning her earlier in our weekly calls, but how could I tell her that everything that Raina gave to me, I wanted to keep it to myself?

When Raina didn’t reply, I took a small step forward, angling my body so that she could only see me. Her eyes widened a little, but she didn’t take a step back.

I kept eye contact as I leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on the spot just above the corner of her lips, lingering for a movement just as she took a soft breath.

When I pulled back, she was looking at me with a rare expression, the one I’d later grow to be familiar with, and I smiled. In that moment, I decided that I’d let her take the first step, but I also wanted to make sure that she knew how I felt, even if the gesture was small.

“Oliver,” She said my name again as I leaned back, but her voice was softer.

“Raina,” I whispered back, matching her softness.

“Look at the canvas.”

“Okay.”

She shook her head slightly as I turned, and everything in me stilled.

The piece before me was chaotic, yet it… fit. There were swirls of stormy clouds, with an array of gold crashing through it, while there were waves of red and blue with soft edges as they all clashed but somehow were anchored by a single steady arc in the middle. It felt like looking at everything all at once, and it made me feel…alive. Like it wanted to depict the chaos of the storm that was tied to the calmness of the ocean, and I couldn’t help but think of how much it made me think of her.

The longer I looked at it, the harder it was to look away. But when I felt the heat of her stare, it was easy to give her my attention.

“What do you think?” She asked, her eyes trailing over my face like she was trying to capture my expressions.

“It would look perfect on that wall,” I replied, and I didn’t have to wait for her to connect the dots with my earlier comments because her eyes softened in a way that told me it was what she thought of too, and I felt a tug in my chest.

Something broke the moment as awareness ran through her, and I blinked. Through my peripheral, I saw Mum walking towards us, and I glanced at the wall, searching for the artist’sname. I barely spotted it before Mum spoke. “You two find something you like?”

“Maybe,” I replied, and she smiled, nodding.

“Well, we better leave now if we want to make it to our dinner reservation.” I nodded, and before I could even ask, Mum said. “Raina, would you like to join us?”

Raina looked at me with surprise before turning to Mum. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude—”

Mum waved her protests off before giving her a smile. “Nonsense! I want to know everything you’ve been up to. That is only if you want to join us, no pressure.”

She smiled as she said. “I’d like that.”

As they walked together, already in another conversation, I trailed behind them. I just had to do one thing before I caught up with them.

22

Raina

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