Page 67 of Matched Up

‘The teacups?’

‘Are you kidding me?’I pushed him with a mitten.‘OK, seeing as you’re scared, why don’t we try the Ferris wheel first?It’s super slow and almost never gets stuck.’

‘Almost never?’He raised his eyebrows.

‘I mean, there was this one time Meg had to climb down a few carts but she was fine.’

‘What?’

The shock on his face was hilarious.

‘I’m sorry!It was too tempting!I’m taking the piss.I promise we’ll be OK.Do you trust me?’

‘I really don’t know now,’ he replied.

I pulled him towards the Ferris wheel anyway and we sat in one of the little carts.I pulled the bar down slowly.

‘I feel sick,’ he said.

I pulled off a mitten.‘Do you want to hold my hand?We can get off if you want, you know, if you really don’t want to.’He looked so scared I’d started to feel bad.

‘No, I’m doing this.It’s time.’He laced his fingers through my de-mittened hand and held on tightly.

And we wouldn’t have had time to get off anyway because right then it creaked forward, the music started, and we floated into the night sky.

‘So if you’re not going to uni, what do you want to do next year?’I asked, curious because uni had always been the only option for me.

He shrugged.‘I dunno.Stay at home, get a job.I’m not actually sure.I kind of thought about getting into coaching.

‘Of course!That makes so much sense, and I happen to know first-hand that you’d make an amazing coach.’

He looked so genuinely pleased, his eyes as wide as his grin, his lips just asking to be kissed.So I kissed him, releasing my hand from his and tracing the outline of his jaw with my fingertips.

‘Hey, look,’ I said.

I pointed across the lough.A perfect moon was shining on the water like it had been the night of Zoe’s party.

He looked at me instead.‘I can’t.’

‘It’s really beautiful,’ I said.

‘Not as beautiful as what I’m looking at.’

I smiled a big dorky, open-mouthed smile that made me want to punch myself in the head.

‘You have the most expressive face I’ve ever seen,’ he said.‘I love it.’

I didn’t see any more of the view on that time round.Or the next one, nor the next.And he was right – what could be more beautiful than this?

‘Well?’I asked him as soon as we got off, leaning into him as we walked aimlessly, undecided about where to go next.

He laughed.‘It wasn’t that bad.’

‘Wasn’tbad?’I said, mock outraged.

‘The kissing helped,’ he admitted.

‘Oh really?’I stopped him right there, where the fairground music blasted in our ears and people rushed past us.‘Where next?’

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