Pushing myself to my feet I began to curse whatever teenage boy had ordered a pizza to the flat as a prank. It was the only logical explanation I could think of to why someone would come around here.

As I opened the door I was even more surprised to see standing outside. 'Heya ,' he said, smiling. 'Is around?'

'Uh... Nope. He's been out all day,' I replied and looked confused.

'But he just rang me and asked me to meet him here.'

'Well he'll probably be here in a minute or two. Why don't you come in and have a seat while you wait for him?' I stood aside and let through. While he settled himself on one of the couches I went to grab a couple of drinks from the fridge. Returning, I passed him a can of Coke and sat down opposite him. We started talking, and an hour and several phone calls later, it became apparent that was going to be a pretty long time.

Hours passed and several cans of soft drink each later, still hadn't shown up and and I were beginning to resemble hyper five year olds who've had too many Smarties, constantly in fits of giggles. We were exchanging funny stories and seeing how many different ways we could interpret comments off the TV, many with seemingly hilarious results. I'm sure if anyone could see us they would be calling the loony bin any moment. Eventually we got into a pillow fight over whether the little bird in the Peanuts comic strip was called Woodstock or Woodchuck.

'It's Woodstock!'

'Is not!'

'Is too!'

'Is not!'

'Is too!' I chucked my cushion at him, and he chucked one back at me. Within moments we were in the middle of a fully-fledged war, with anything we could reach being chucked at one another. Soon ran out of things to throw. 'Aha!' I yelled in triumph, surrounded by potential missiles. 'Admit your defeat and surrender!'

'Never!!!' yelled back as he jumped over the couch he had been using as cover and launched himself at me. I half-shrieked, half-laughed and leapt out of the way and started to chase me around the room for the next 15 minutes or so. Finally I tripped over one of the cushions, lying scattered over the floor and crashed onto one of the couches. seized his chance and began the evil process of ancient Chinese tickle torture.

'Ahh! ! Nooo! Please!!' I struggled to catch my breath. I was laughing so hard; tears were streaming down my face. As I tried to get away I knocked him of balance and fell forward, landing on top of me. My heart began to beat frantically and I felt a wave of heat rush through my body as I gazed up into his eyes; we were so close...

'Hello.' murmured quietly, smiling.

'Hi...' I replied, just as quietly. We gazed at each other for a few moments, and then did something completely unexpected. He leant forward and kissed me slowly and softly. It took me a few seconds to realise what was going on before I returned the kiss. After what seemed like an age, we broke apart.

'I... err...' began.

'Yeah...' I didn't know what to say and had to settle for turning an unattractive shade of beetroot red. Carefully, we moved so we were both sitting up, and had another go at explaining.

', you're a really special girl, especially to me... And... Well... I've wanted to do this for so long!' He leant over and kissed me again, more intensely, while I pulled him closer, kissing him back. 'I've fallen for you, ,' he whispered when we broke apart again.

'I've fallen for you too,' I told him and wrapped his arms around me, smiling and holding me close.

'I'd hoped so...' Turning his head, he whispered in my ear, 'is not.' I grabbed a cushion and battered into submission.

'It's Woodstock, dammit!'

-----

peered into the flat he shared with through a gap in the curtains and grinned when he saw her and cuddled up together. 'It worked!' he told , gleefully and grinned back. 'Anyway, since it look's like 's not going anywhere tonight, do you mind if I crash at yours?'