I cover my face with my hands and he pulls them away, pressing his lips to the tips of my fingers, his eyes on mine. God, those eyes. If I could keep just one part of Rhys, it would be his eyes. And, OK, maybe his mouth too. Basically his whole face. I’ll keep his face.
Maybe we should go out for drinks, Rhys suggests, releasing my hands so we can talk.
I hold up one finger. One, I’m seventeen. I hold up two fingers. Two, do we have enough left of the ￡10 for drinks?
Rhys reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of change. He stretches out his palm and counts the coins, nibbling his bottom lip between his teeth. He looks up at me. Do you think we could find a bottle of wine for ￡3.47?
I roll my eyes. I think you’re taking the ‘less than ￡10’ game a bit far with that. ‘Cheapskate,’ I add, sticking out my tongue.
Challenge accepted! Rhys grins, eyes lighting up. Come on. He stands, holding out a hand to me, and I take it happily. We’ll get some cheap wine and decide what to do next.
We walk in silence, swinging our knitted hands between us. I am squidgy with happiness, warm all over. This is love, I think, and I am in it. I have it. No wonder everyone goes on about it so much. It’s really nice.
Rhys stops at an off-licence and I wait outside while he goes to find an impossibly cheap bottle of wine. I dawdle, pretending to read a tour poster on the wall, trying to act like I’m not the underage girlfriend of the boy who just walked in. When he emerges again, he’s beaming.
What did you get? I ask.
He twinkles. Wait and see.
I bet you didn’t get anything, I tease, trying to grab the paper bag so I can look. No way did you find any alcohol that cheap.
Wrong. He waves the bag in front of my face, the weight of the bottle within unmistakeable.
I bet it’s just Coke, I amend. Or lemonade.
He laughs, pulls me towards him and kisses my forehead. You’ll see, he says.
He’s bought us champagne.
OK, it’s not quite champagne. It’s sparkling wine, and it didn’t cost the earth. But it has bubbles, and the cork comes off with a satisfying, heart-pinging pop. He refuses to tell me how much it cost, saying only that his ￡10 challenge didn’t include alcohol. And, anyway, he loves me, and we deserve champagne. Or sparkling wine.
We don’t even have glasses, let alone flutes, so we end up pouring the fizz into the hotel mugs that look like they’ve gone through the dishwasher about five thousand times. When we toast, the mugs clunk instead of clink, but I don’t mind. Everything feels perfect.
To you, Rhys says.
To you, I respond.
He grins. To us. Bronze and Gold.
Bronze and Gold, I agree, then close my eyes to take a sip. I imagine hundreds of tiny bubbles fizzing down into my stomach. When I open my eyes again, Rhys is staring at me, the softest, sweetest smile on his face.
What? I ask, bashful, even though I know what.
He says it anyway. I love you.
I put my mug down on the table by the bed and lean into him, resting my head against his shoulder and breathing Rhysness. He puts his arm round me and squeezes gently.
When I break away, I sign, I love you too.
There’s a pause that stretches out into silence as we look at each other. I am giddy with happiness, light with love. Punch drunk with the freedom of being in this city, in this country, with this boy.
But mixed in with all of this is anxiety, tying my thoughts into knots, making me feel suddenly shy in a way I haven’t felt around Rhys for a long time. Even though nothing has happened yet my heart is pounding, maybe in anticipation, maybe with nerves. What happens now? What happens next? Should I just lean in and kiss him?
Rhys is still watching me, his smile a little more crinkled, as if he somehow knows the confusion of feelings running through my mind. He reaches over to the bedside table, grabs hold of his iPad and hands it to me. Find me a song, he signs. A song that is exactly how you feel, right now.
He’s trying to relax me, and I love him for it because it works. The anxiety dissipates like bubbles in a glass of sparkling wine. Beaming, I open up Spotify, my mind already scrolling through the options. There’s a tap on my wrist and I look over at him. Make it a good one. His eyes are so full. I could look at them all day.
When I make my selection and hear the first few beats, I am not sad that Rhys can’t hear it too, because I understand. He doesn’t need to. How had I ever thought that music was all about sound? It’s not. It’s about feeling.
Look, I sign, bouncing up off the bed. I’ll show you.
The song is ‘You Make My Dreams (Come True)’, which is a song by an old duo called Hall & Oates. It is the happiest song in existence, and it is impossible to listen to it without feeling happy. And if you listen to it while you’re already deliriously happy, it will make you do this:
? play it to your deaf boyfriend when he asks you how you feel
? dance around the room to bring it to life
? sign the lyrics as you jump from one foot to the other, spinning, twirling, laughing
? sing along unselfconsciously as you do this, because you are so happy you can’t believe you could ever want to be silent