‘Oh no,’ I said, stopping him with one foot already in the stirrup. ‘Sam and Amelia rode the same horse. He… you… sat behind her. Sorry, I should have said… is that okay?’
I was blushing furiously, as though I’d just indecently propositioned him. But he was too good-natured to allow it to show.
‘No problem,’ he said, swinging easily up on to the saddle behind me. ‘Do I need to put my arms around you?’ he asked.
How had I ever thought that this was a good idea?
‘Uh-huh,’ I replied.
Like Nick, I too had slipped off my jacket. The emerald-green cashmere jumper had been easy to find in Amelia’s wardrobe that morning. I’d smiled as I’d released it from its hanger, my fingers skimming over the Saks Fifth Avenue label. All of Amelia’s confabulations had a hint of truth to them, and wearing the expensive Christmas present I’d bought her a couple of years ago was just another element that made what she was saying seem so believable, even though I knew it wasn’t.
The jumper was thin, and through the soft woollen fabric I could feel the heat of Nick’s body as he wound his arms around my waist. The music was loud enough to make chatting tricky, which suited me just fine because the proximity of his body pressed against mine was doing odd things to my breathing.
‘Anything I should be doing for the photos?’ he asked, leaning even closer towards me and talking into my ear.
‘Just look like you’re having a really great time,’ I said, tightening my hold on the brightly painted pole when our palomino began rising and falling as the ride slowly picked up speed.
He said something in reply, but the wind whipped the words from his lips, and I spent the first few rotations wondering if it had beenI feel queasyorThat’ll be easy. I certainly knew which one Iwantedit to be.
*
‘I hope they’re okay. I took quite a few, just to make certain,’ said the woman from the bench, passing me back my phone.
‘I’m sure they’ll be great. Thank you again,’ I said.
The woman’s eyes slid from my face to focus on something beyond my right shoulder, which I guessed meant that Nick was now walking towards us. ‘You two certainly make an attractive couple. Really photogenic,’ she said. ‘You looked like something out of an advert.’
‘Thanks,’ said Nick, smiling warmly at her. She looked totally captivated and for a moment I experienced a fleeting twinge of something that felt curiously like jealousy before common sense kicked that emotion to the kerb.This is all pretend, remember?For this plan to be effective, I needed to keep that fact front and centre of my thoughts at all times, otherwise I was in danger of ending up just as confused as Amelia was.
‘An advert for what, I wonder?’ said Nick as we walked away. ‘May I?’ he asked, stretching out his hand for my phone. His fingers went to the photos icon and summoned up the images of the two of us on the carousel. He tilted the phone towards me but the glare on the screen meant I had to step closer to his side to see it. His free hand settled naturally on my shoulder, drawing me nearer to view the screen. Focusing on the images was a challenge as I stood in his personal space, enveloped by the warm woodsy scent of whatever he’d used in the shower that morning.
Blissfully unaware of my inappropriate thoughts, Nick was happily scrolling through the photos. I could kind of see what the woman had been getting at. Wedidlook good together… or rather, Sam and Amelia looked good together.
‘I think it must be a toothpaste ad,’ Nick declared finally, his eyes twinkling as he passed me back my mobile. He wasn’t wrong. In practically every picture, we were either grinning broadly or laughing. We looked like a man and a woman who were poised on the precipice of falling in love. Which just proved that the old adage couldn’t be trusted at all: sometimes the cameradidlie.
*
We managed to cross both the helter-skelter and the swinging pirate ship off my ‘to-do’ list in record time. Although I doubted the selfie I’d snapped of us on the pendulum ride was worth keeping as a memory, as I was pretty green around the gills when I took it. I definitely needed Nick’s helping hand as I clambered off the ride.
The ground still felt like it was swaying, and I was hanging on to Nick so tightly his fingers were probably going to bear the imprints of mine.
‘Are you alright? You’ve gone a very strange colour,’ Nick said, peering closely at my face with concern. ‘Try taking some deep breaths,’ he advised, his hand moving to my waist to support me as he led me away from the pirate ship.
‘That ride is positively lethal. It ought to be banned,’ I muttered, throwing the swinging pendulum a baleful stare over my shoulder.
‘Let’s find somewhere quiet to sit down for a minute,’ Nick suggested, steering us towards one of the many cafés in the park. We didn’t have to walk far before we found one with a collection of cast-iron tables and chairs outside. Not surprisingly, given the weather, they were all unoccupied. He pulled out a chair and lowered me on to it as though I were his frail elderly grandmother.
‘Wait here,’ he said, glancing towards the entrance of the café. The world was still spinning badly, and I seriously doubted I was capable of getting anywhere under my own steam right then. I nodded. ‘I won’t be long,’ he promised.
The unmistakable hiss of a ring pull being torn free alerted me to his return. I opened my eyes cautiously as Nick set a can of ginger ale down in front of me.
‘Sip it slowly. It’s better for motion sickness than anything with caffeine in it,’ he added apologetically, when he saw me look longingly at the coffee he’d bought for himself.
It took a good ten minutes of slow, careful sipping before I felt like me again. Nick seemed perfectly content to sit in silence, but I was aware of the concerned glances he kept shooting my way.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked eventually, when I was almost back to normal.
‘Yes. Thank you. I’m so sorry about that. I should have just taken a selfie of us standing next to the ride, without actually going on it.’
