Thunder & Lightning: A Collection of Rilaya One Shots

Unofficially Official

Maya's POV

College is the time to figure yourself out. To make mistakes, live, love and learn from every experience. And I loved every single second of it but now it was senior year and the time for playing games was coming to an end. In just a short few months I'd be an woman with a master's degree in education and a minor in art, ready to step foot into the real world. 

But I wasn't ready at all. 

There was still so much to figure out, including my feelings for a certain brunette lying beside me. 

When Riley and I had told our parents we were going to the same university no one had been surprised, almost as if they expected us to remain attached at the hip. But after four years away from our family and friends, we were more than attached at the hip. 

We had hooked up once. It was after a party, both of us were really, very drunk and we had decided that it meant nothing. Just a part of the college experience we had insisted. 

And then it happened again. 

It was after I was dumped by a guy in my still life class, the idiot I wasted over a year and my virginity on. We'd been on a break the first time I hooked up with Riley and after our official break-up I was driven right back into her bed. The difference this time was that there was no hint of alcohol in our systems. We'd hooked up totally sober and coherent. And it did mean something. 

I haven't had a boyfriend since and neither has Riley. Both of us in this committed but unofficial limbo. Our friends knew, I was sure our families suspected and yet neither of us could get our shit together and ask the other for a commitment. And as graduation looms, the pressure is only getting worse. 

I had already accepted a job at the local high school where me and Riley once went while I knew that she had bigger plans. She wanted to go on and get her masters do that she could go on and become a professor someday in history, just like her dad. And I was proud of her but her school of choice was Vanderbilt. Doable, distance-wise but not if we were to remain in this limbo. 

I needed that commitment. And the courage to ask for it. 

"How long have you been up?" Riley asks groggily, wiping the sleep from her eyes. I shrug. I had no idea exactly how long I'd been up, just that that after I was up there was no falling back asleep on account of my racing thoughts. "Babe, I don't think you've gotten a good night's sleep in weeks. What's going on?" 

I sigh, propping myself up on my elbow. "Just thinking about the future, I guess."

"The future? Or our future?" She asks causing my eyes to widen. She offers me a gentle smile as her hand reaches up to caress my cheek. "You talk in your sleep." 

"I-what?" I ask, stunned into silence. Riley chuckles, moving to smooth over my hair. 

"You talk in your sleep. You've woken me up more than once this week saying all sorts of things but more often than none, you say over and over again how much you love me. How you'd do anything to make me yours." My heart pounds in my chest. "You know, I was planning on asking you officially to be my girlfriend at graduation. Make it a huge spectacle but I'm glad I didn't. This is much more us."

"This?" My girl laughs, sitting up and looking at me fully. 

"Yes. This moment, right here" she says, taking my hand in hers. "This moment when, in this bed that we've shared, you ask me to be your girlfriend."

Suddenly, despite wanting this more than anything, the words are caught in my throat and instead of just doing the logical thing and asking her to be my girlfriend, nonsense leaves my lips instead. "But what about Vanderbilt? Your degree?"

"You don't think we could withstand a little distance? It's another state, not another country" she reminds me gently. I remember when I thought I was losing her to England; how horrible that had been. 

I scoot closer to her. "We can withstand anything." I reassure her. "And I want, more than anything, for you to be my girlfriend Riley Eleanor Matthews." 

Her lips break into a grin and then I'm tackled onto the bed with her climbing atop me. "You don't even have to ask" she replies cheekily before crashing her lips onto mine and for the first time ever there's no confusion or unsteadiness behind the kiss. 

Only love and commitment. Two girlfriends taking on the world together.