A/N: This should be interesting, as I've never been in a relationship before, and therefore am guessing at most everything that follows. But it's cute enough.

Disclaimer: Valentine's Day has come and gone, and I still don't have Riley and Ben. I didn't even get the National Treasure 2 DVD like I wanted =/

Yo-yos are a simple contraption. They're just weights attached to a string, really. You could build one yourself if you wanted to. The tricks you can perform with a yo-yo are the things that make it so special, so unique.

Unfortunately, life isn't like a yo-yo. Relationships, definitely, are not like yo-yos. There is nothing simple about loving your best friend, who is also a guy. There is nothing simple about being afraid to tell him so, even when I know he feels the same. Or at least I think so.

It was upon those thoughts I was meditating late one night. I had woken in the middle of the night and had found that I was completely unable to return to sleep, and those thoughts had plagued my mind. I quickly found that my computer was unable to distract me, and so I pulled out my yo-yo and sat on the back of the couch, watching it fall down and return to my hand.

Down, up, down, up, down, up. It was becoming a trance to my sleep-deprived mind.

Down, up.

Down, up.

Down, up.

"Riley?"

His voice shocked me, and I dropped the yo-yo. "Ben?" I asked. "What are you doing up?"

"You weren't in bed," he explained. "Why are you playing with a yo-yo in the middle of the night?"

I picked it up, a little embarrassed. "I couldn't sleep," I muttered, stuffing it into the pocket of my hoodie.

He sat next to me. "Why couldn't you sleep?"

"I don't know," I admitted, looking at him. "I just couldn't get my mind to turn off."

He nodded, and neither of us said anything for a while. It was actually nice, at first, but I couldn't keep my lips together.

"You know, I won a talent contest at my school eighth grade year yo-yoing," I told him.

"Really?" he asked, interested.

"Yeah. I actually got a date out of it," I laughed quietly.

He didn't have anything to say to that, so we returned to silence. Finally he spoke again. "So what's wrong?"

"What makes you think anything is wrong?" I asked, a little defiantly.

"That's the third night this week I've woken up and you've been gone. Clearly something is on your mind," he said, laying a hand on my back.

Damn. He had me. I stayed silent, hoping he'd lay off.

"Ri, come on," he said. "Tell me what's wrong."

I stood and began to pace nervously in front of him. Finally, I stopped. "Have you… have you ever been with another guy before me?"

His eyebrows raised for a moment, then relaxed again. He pondered his answer for a moment. "Clarify 'been with.'"

I sighed. "Let's start with kissing. Have you ever kissed another guy before me?"

He grimaced. "Once. It was in college. We were drunk. I don't really remember it."

I bit my lip. "How far did it go?"

"I passed out before we could go any further than that," he said, before adding, "I was a lightweight."

I paced again. "And you?" he asked.

I frowned. "Once. In high school."

He looked skeptically at me. "That's all the details I'm getting?"

"You want them all?" I asked.

He nodded. "Every last one."

I retook my spot next to him. "It was more than kissing," I warned.

"I thought so," he agreed.

I sighed. "His name was Josh Carter. He was the starting quarterback on the football team; he was totally gorgeous, notoriously single, and completely unattainable. We were chem. partners junior year, and he had no idea what he was doing. We were studying at my house one day, and one thing led to another…" I shrugged and, pulling the yo-yo back out, let it fall from my hand.

"What happened?" he asked, prodding me gently forward.

"We were sort of together for a while," I answered. "He didn't want anyone to know, of course, but soon enough there were whispers about me, so he left before it got out who I was with. I don't really blame him."

He glared at me, as if he wanted to say, "I do." But he didn't. Instead he asked, "Did you love him?"

I should have known he knew the whole time. "I thought I did," I answered.

"And now?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"How'd you know that was what's been bugging me?" I asked, exasperated.

"Your first question," he replied. "And I basically make my living off crazy guesses. But I still want to hear the answer to my last question."

I bit my lip and looked away, trying to decide how to word it. Frustrated, I paced again. "You know that anxious feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when you're excited?"

"Otherwise known as butterflies?" he asked lightly. "Yes."

I took a deep breath. "I get that all the time when I'm with you. Not just at a certain moment, but all the time. It's like the butterflies, as you oh-so-eloquently put it, are having a never-ending party down there. And I never felt that way with him." I tacked the last part on as an afterthought, hoping he would get the point without me having to say it out loud.

He chewed his lip in contemplation. "So what you're saying is…?" He let the question hang in the air.

"You can be really stupid sometimes," I muttered. More clearly I said, "What I'm saying is I think I love you, but I'm not sure."

He blinked once—twice. "You're not sure that you love me or you're not sure what love is?" he asked.

"The second one," I confirmed.

He nodded, then stood. Crossing over to me, he wrapped his arms around me and placed his lips gently on mine.

Fire erupted in all my veins, as it usually did when we touched. For the few moments we kissed, he was all I could see or think of.

Then, just as abruptly as it started, it stopped, but he never moved his arms from where they were. I leaned my head into his chest and breathed deeply, loving how well I fit there. Even in the middle of the night, he smelled like the musky cologne he wore during the day that I loved.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked quietly.

"How good you smell," I admitted.

I looked up to him, and he smiled. "That's love," he said.

I stepped back. "What?"

He laughed quietly. "You just kissed me for, what, two or three minutes? And thirty seconds later you're thinking about the way I smell. That's love."

I thought about it for a moment. Had we really kissed for two or three minutes? And he was right. Softly I asked, "What were you thinking about?"

He smiled. "How much I like your haircut."

I took his hand. "I think I can sleep now."

A/N: So… was it okay? I didn't think it sucked. …review, please?