Undone(48)

‘Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you.’ I nudge his arm with my elbow and he looks delighted. Meanwhile I’m thinking, I bet Sasha was some kind of frisbee fiend. You, on the other hand, are about to make a complete fool of yourself, Jemima.

But I don’t. Somehow I don’t. I have to concentrate really, really hard, but somehow I manage. I think God must have temporarily granted me an ability to catch and throw that has been lacking my whole life – much to the disappointment of Noah, who’s always trying to get me to throw a rugby ball with him in the back garden. If Noah could see me now he’d be the proudest brother in the world.

Lucas throws and catches the frisbee the same way he seems to do everything else in life – with ease. As if he was born knowing how to do everything. It makes me want to hit him, so I do the next best thing, which is aim for his perfect face. But he ducks out of the way and manages to catch the disc with an easy swoop of his left hand (even though he’s right-handed). ‘Whoa there! Are you trying to kill me?’

I grimace. ‘Sorry!’

‘Maybe we’d better quit while we’re ahead – or before I get maimed for life!’ He jogs towards me.

‘Good idea. I wouldn’t want to break your sunglasses . . . they look pretty expensive.’

He pulls them up, rests them on top of his head and then looks over his shoulder. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but these are fakes. My sister got them for me on her gap year.’

I like it better now that I can see his eyes. Talking to someone with sunglasses makes me nervous – you can never tell where they’re looking. ‘Nothing wrong with that. I’d be more worried if you’d spent a hundred quid on a pair, to be honest.’

Lucas laughs loudly. ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me! You’re like the opposite of Sasha or something.’

I look away and then back at him, fixing him in my gaze. ‘Is that a good thing?’ My voice is lower and quieter.

‘That’s definitely a good thing.’ He bites his lip and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’d find the lip-biting thing pretty damn adorable if I actually liked him. But there’s a calculated cuteness about it that I can see right through. It’s a move he’s used before to great effect, probably to get a girl focusing on his mouth, wondering what it would be like to kiss him. I’m wondering too, because I know it’s going to happen. It’s only a matter of time before it happens.

Lucas takes a step closer to me and he’s definitely invading my personal space now. I have to fight the instinct to take a step back. I stand my ground and look up at him. It’s getting awkward – neither of us has said a word for a few seconds. I do not know Lucas well enough to be sharing comfortable silences with him. It’s a deeply, deeply uncomfortable silence – for me at least. He seems to be enjoying himself.

He leans down and I’m sure this is it. I am going to kiss Lucas Mahoney right here in this park in broad daylight. There are heaps of people around and they’re going to see us kissing. Some of them might think it’s sweet, some of them might think we should get a room, most of them probably couldn’t care less. But whether they realize it or not, they’re all about to witness something impossible happening.

I tilt my head back a little, so that he knows I’m OK with the idea of him kissing me. He leans even closer and I’m just about to close my eyes in anticipation when something entirely unexpected happens. I feel something on my head – a flat and plastic something.

Lucas has not kissed me. He’s balanced the bloody frisbee on my head!

I don’t move, so the frisbee stays in place. ‘Er . . . what are you doing?’

He smiles. ‘Frisbees are the height of fashion this summer, don’t you know? And this one really suits you. Wait, let me take a picture on my phone.’ As he fumbles in his pocket I whip the frisbee off my head and whack him on the chest with it.

‘You’re an idiot.’ He laughs and cowers under the onslaught of frisbee blows. I can’t help laughing too, mostly to cover my embarrassment for thinking he was going to kiss me.

And then he grabs me. And kisses me.

I drop the frisbee on the ground and I am kissing Lucas Mahoney. My lips are touching his and his hand is pressed flat against my back and I don’t know whether to gag or push him away or just go with it. It repulses me, the thought of doing this. But the actual doing this, the actual kissing, is sort of OK. Conflicted doesn’t even begin to describe the way I’m feeling.

The kiss lasts maybe five seconds before he steps back and looks at me like he’s just done a very bad thing. ‘I’m sorry.’

I wonder if this is part of his usual routine, pretending to feel bad about kissing you. It would be very endearing if you liked that sort of thing. ‘Why sorry?’

He shrugs. ‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted to . . .’ He seems embarrassed – he’s not used to having to explain himself.

I smile with a confidence I definitely do not possess. ‘Don’t worry about it. If I hadn’t been OK with it, you would have known about it. Trust me.’ Who is this person who looks like me and thinks like me and speaks with my voice but says ridiculous things like this?

The easy smile is back on his face and it’s dangerously close to a smirk. He likes this false me. She’s feisty. ‘You’re different, you know that?’ He steps in close again.