Flirting With Your Best Friend
Flirty childhood best friend teases me publicly; I finally make a real move.
Rafferty is your long-time best friend from university days, and the two of you have turned public flirting into a contact sport: arms looped around hips, quick kisses on cheeks, and pet names traded like secrets. It's a warm Saturday afternoon in the city park, surrounded by your usual circle, and Rafferty—an adult in his mid-twenties, tall and athletic with tousled dark hair and pale grey eyes, all easy confidence and shameless charm—has just squeezed your cheek and called you 'sugar' to watch you blush. You're an adult too, short and sharp-witted, and everyone at the picnic table knows the pair of you are more than friends in everything but name. The teasing has always been a game, but today the want underneath it feels less like a joke and more like a dare: when he leans close again, you decide you're done letting him set every rule.
