Page 65 of Falling for You

For some reason, this makes me laugh even more. I shake my head and turn my back to him.

‘Oh God, now you can’t even look at me!’ he exclaims. ‘Am I that bad at dating? I’m just sitting here!’

I take a deep breath and swallow the mouthful of kebab. It chugs down my throat in a big, congealed blob. ‘Okay,’ I say, turning back to face him. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Are you going to tell me what you were laughing at?’

‘No,’ I grin. ‘Try your kebab.’

He holds my gaze, challenging. ‘Not until you tell me what’s so funny.’

‘It’s nothing.’ I roll my eyes, laughing.

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

I unscrew my bottle of Coke and take a swig. ‘Okay, fine. I was laughing at how unsexy I was, taking a huge bite of kebab and groaning like I’d never eaten before. It’s probably not the best way to behave on a first date, and it just made me laugh.’

We both look round as the door swings open and three lads bustle in.

‘I thought it was sexy.’

I’m pulled back to the moment, and I catch Nate’s eyes. I grin. ‘There isn’t a sexy way to eat a kebab.’

Nate peers down at his open carton of food questioningly. Before I can register what he’s about to do, he picks up the kebab and takes a huge bite, rolling his eyes to the back of his head and groaning. The three guys at the counter look round and I reach forward and thwack him, a squawk of laughter shooting out of me.

‘Oh my God,’ Nate manages, covering his mouth with his hand. ‘This is really chewy. How do you swallow this?’

‘You took a huge bite!’ I cry.

He holds up a hand to me and chews frantically, before eventually swallowing.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I get it. That wasn’t sexy.’

I beam at him, trying to work out why it felt like the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Nate

I’ve found her. I can’t believe I found her. She’s even better than the version of her that I’d made up in my mind. She is funny, she is gorgeous, she’sfun. And somehow, she seems to find me fun, too. It wasn’t just a fluke on the night we met that I felt like our conversation was the best I’d had since I got to London. It feels easy with her. It feels like the most normal thing in the world.

She takes another huge bite of her kebab and catches my eye, immediately giggling madly again.

God, I love the way she laughs.

She waves her hand at me and turns her back on me again.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s fine, I’m not laughing at you. I told you, I think it’s sexy.’

I see her back hunch over as she laughs even harder and I battle with the urge to make her laugh as much as I can without making her choke.

Eventually, she turns around to face me.

‘You’ve barely eaten yours,’ she says, looking down at my damp kebab. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘No comment.’

She gasps. ‘How can you not like kebabs?’