Page 103 of The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love

I’ve fallen into an actual romcom musical and I’m not hating it.

I’m loving it.

At the end of the song, having made several rounds of the shop so that he’s now back at a different stack of albums, he bows good-naturedly while people applaud, and then he goes back to thumbing through albums, like it never happened.

After a few seconds he looks up to discover that I’m standing in front of him, hip cocked, arms folded and staring.

As I raise my eyebrow he grins again and says, ‘Rock choir. For a solid four years. It was a form of therapy and exercise to help, you know, keep my lungs and this thing’—he taps his chest where his heart is—‘healthy.’

‘Do you belong to one over here?’

He frowns and shakes his head.

‘But you must,’ I insist.

‘I already told you; my heart is fine now.’

‘No, George, that wasn’t what I meant at all. I only meant – you’re good and you looked really happy when you were singing. If you enjoyed it, why not keep doing it?’

He does the cute pushing his hand through his hair thing that shows me he’s feeling awkward and conflicted and I don’t want to ruin the happy place he found himself in so I tell him, ‘Well, just so you don’t feel too special, know that I too have an exceptional voice and got to shine in my school’s production of High School Musical. Check these bad pipes out,’ I draw in a breath and burst into my rendition of a High School Musical medley and it is … completely awful.

So awful.

Enough awful that people cover their ears which just makes George laugh harder.

When I come to a stop, he says, ‘That’s quite a voice you have there.’

‘Thank you. My brother says I sing like a braying donkey on helium.’

‘He’s not actually wrong,’ he replies but then looks totally ashamed of being so rude until I reach out and briefly lay my hand on his arm to show I’m really not offended. ‘You know what talent you have that’s better than being able to sing?’ he adds.

‘What?’

‘You can laugh at yourself.’

‘Hey, with a singing voice like mine, it’s easy to stay humble,’ I say hoping I’m not glowing too much.

‘Yeah, but how many people can’t poke fun at themselves, especially when people are filming. You’re not afraid of entering into the spirit of something or of having fun. I’m realising how serious I’ve kept things lately. Doing this, this afternoon … I feel so much lighter for having a good laugh, so thank you.’

My heart skips a beat. Ever since I left Best Home I don’t think I’ve once been able to poke fun at myself or make light of a flaw. I need to celebrate this progress. ‘Come on, ice cream time.’

* * *

‘So, I was thinking,’ I say, as I grab my pistachio cone from the guy behind the counter. ‘How about we name the Ficus: two words, five and five “So good they named it twice”?’

George has already eaten his chocolate and vanilla cone while laughing at how long it’s taken me to choose a flavour. He thinks for a moment and then snorts. ‘You want to name the Ficus: Ficus-Ficus?’

‘What do you think?’

‘What do I think? Hmmm.’ He regards me and then leans towards me and wraps his hand around my wrist. I feel his thumb press gently against my pulse point and heat pools and I think my ice cream is going to melt on the spot and then I can’t really think at all because what is he doing so close that I can see the flecks of brown in his blue eyes?

In the next second, he’s audaciously taking a long lick of my ice cream and all I can do is watch his tongue slide out and over in slow, considered concentration. My gaze tears itself away and lands straight on his heated gaze.

‘I think not,’ George says, after a moment, his gaze never once losing mine. ‘No to the pistachio, which, yuck, and no to Ficus-Ficus.’

I’m left trying to put my eyeballs back into their sockets so that I can stare down at my ice cream cone.

I totally misread what just happened, right?

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