48. SHAKE

"Promise me."

It makes her wary. He was so forthright. Always. It made her nervous. It gave her a headache. It had scared her, once.

But no mention of school, he had said. No mention of Philip, thank you very much.

Just us.

Okay, just us.

And so now they were hunched over the table in a restaurant booth, talking about things that made her tremble.

Things like support and trust and love and sharing.

Subjects that she still broached with a furrowed brow and dry, nervous lips.

What did they actually entail?

"I don't understand what I'm promising…"

"The truth, I guess." she swallows "No more lying-"

"I didn't lie."

"Okay no more concealing the truth then. If you're in trouble. If you're upset. If you feel something, anything. You'll tell me? This goes for both of us, by the way."

Eddie was a lot. He was full on. It makes her sigh and roll her eyes in despair because she just knows that despite it all, maybe even because of it, she is completely, irrevocably, head-over-heels, time stoppingly, mind bendingly, eye wateringly in love with him.

How terrifying.

"I need us to take this slowly, Eddie."

"Sure. Slow as you like. So what?"

"So this doesn't sound slow."

"I'm not saying this as your boyfriend, Rachel."

The word makes her cringe a little. She was far too old for a boyfriend. Yet she struggles to think of any other title to do justice to his beautiful soul, his youthful spirit.

"I'm saying it as your friend."

She takes a deep, grounding breath. It reminds her who he is.

"My best friend."

"Okay. Best friend."

And suddenly, she's smiling. He holds out a hand to her, across the empty glasses and it strikes her as a totally different face, a different human altogether, to that who did the very same thing last year, on her very first day at Waterloo Road.

"Best friends."

Eddie Lawson, hi.

Hi.

"Come on, shake on it."