They arrived at a small gate and Francesco went through it, and then turned and leaned against it so that Penny couldn’t. She wasn’t expecting it, and so wound up bumping up almost nose-to-nose with him. She looked at him.

‘How do I stay optimistic in matters of the heart …’ Francesco replied, his voice lowered.

Her stomach lurched. He made it feel so easy. He was so comfortable in his own skin, wore the pressure of their date so lightly. Maybe he didn’t feel any pressure at all.

‘Yeah,’ Penny said. ‘Because your optimism is … attractive.’

‘Oh?’ said Francesco, so close now that Penny could feel his breath on the space between her top lip and nose. She realized she had tilted her head to the side, just slightly, ready to be kissed by him. They held themselves millimetres apart, and Penny stopped breathing altogether. She waited for him to lean the tiniest bit forward but instead he held his position, the top corner of his mouth rising up into a half-smile, and Penny realized he was waiting for her to kiss him. She had to go the last half-inch. And so she held onto the fence and pushed her weight to the front of her feet, towards her toes, to make herself reach him. She gently edged herself up towards his mouth so that her lips met his, and there they stayed, tasting one another, giving in to each other’s breath until a man coughed loudly and deliberately and said, good-naturedly, ‘Pardon me but, do you think I could get past?’

They pulled apart and burst out laughing.

‘Sorry,’ said Francesco, moving out of the way to let Penny through, and then the man with his Bedlington Terrier. ‘There you go.’

‘Enjoy yourselves,’ the man said, and it made them look at each other and laugh again.

‘Did that answer your question?’ Francesco said.

Penny grinned. ‘I can’t tell if it answered my question or posed about eighty thousand new ones,’ she countered.

‘I see. Well. Only time will tell …’

‘That’s very true.’

After that they walked hand-in-hand, happy in their mutual silence. What else was there to say? Penny was happy. In that moment, everything was perfect.

4

And so their love affair began. ‘It almost feels too good to be true,’ Penny told her sister on one of their Personal Podcasts. ‘But, easy doesn’t mean bad, does it? Maybe easy just means right?’