Page 67 of Begin Again Again

“Nothing.” He walked behind her to push. “Hold on.”

She was so light, the smallest pushes kept her in the air, and soon she was swinging as high as the chain allowed. She giggled like crazy as she soared, her coppery hair flying all over the place. The moonlight and the scotch he’d drunk seemed to make the whole night glow. He could have stood there, pushing her forever. He missed doing stuff like this with girls—goofy, inexpensive, fun things. Maybe they could go to the movies next. The zoo. The aquarium.

“Are you looking up my skirt?”

“No.” Byron glanced up. He couldn’t see Beth’s underwear, but he could see a decent amount of leg.

“I canfeelyou looking.”

“Why are you so paranoid? Are you wearing a G-string?”

She clamped her legs together, laughing. “Let’s do something else. I could push you?”

“Yeah, go on.”

They swapped places and Beth shoved him in the back. He swung about ten centimetres and both of them laughed.

“How tall are you?” she demanded.

“Six-three.”

“And you weigh…?”

“… about two of you?”

“Maybe something else then?” Beth moved toward the plastic castle, gesturing to the green slide. “Climb up with me?”

They climbed up the slide and sat at the top of the castle, Byron leaning against a plastic wall, Beth between his legs. The stars glimmered faintly above them, flecks of silica in a tile floor. It might be worth living in the country just for the stars, he thought. He could start his own electrical business. Learn to surf. Play the guitar.

“I do miss home sometimes,” Beth said. “I miss the mountains. The lakes. The air.”

“Yeah, New Zealand smells amazing.”

She shifted between his legs. “You’ve been?”

“Just a snowboarding trip to Queenstown when I was in school.”

“Ah,” Beth said, as though she’d watched him snowboard with his mates, sleep in a luxury lodge and post Instagram pictures of himself eating Fergburger by the lake. ‘We’re not rich’ he wanted to say, but that depended on who you asked. ‘I know I’m lucky’ was trite. ‘Have you ever been to Queenstown?’ was stupid.

“I liked the mountains,” he said. “I thought Lord of The Rings was playing it up, but they undersold it.”

“Totally. Queenstown’s so beautiful. You’re lucky you went pre-COVID.”

Byron wrapped his arms around her, kissing her jawline. She smelled amazing, sweet and tangy like the oranges he’d eaten at half-time as a kid. Beth shivered, and he knew he could lean forward and kiss her, but he stared up at the sky.

A little longer. I just need a little more time…

“I’ve decided I like how quiet you are,” she announced.

“It doesn’t make you paranoid anymore?”

She poked his side. “A little, but I don’t think I was paranoid because of what you were doing. Whenever you give insecure people a blank space, they fill it with paranoid thoughts.”

Byron frowned. “You don’t seem insecure to me.”

“Then my mission has succeeded.”

He waited.

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