Somewhere Only We Know

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Authors: Erin Lawless
digs.
    "That sounds like a pretty great idea," she told him, turning on her heel in the direction of home. "A walk on Clapham Common of a summer's evening. Lovely!"
    "Cool," Alex smiled, turning and falling into step beside Nadia as they moved off towards the green expanse ahead of them. "But I'm not going to lie to you, Nadia. When I reach Tooting, I am going to have the biggest, most disgusting kebab going."
    Alex
    "Oh, hang on." Nadia said, suddenly breaking off their conversation. "I've just got to ." She handed him her half-finished drink along with her little handbag and moved purposefully towards a small children's play area.

    "I think it's locked up," Alex warned her, immediately noticing the shiny, large padlock holding the area's gate firmly in place. Nadia shot him a look over her shoulder as she reached with her foot for the top of the fencing. Alex glanced away politely as the hem of Nadia's dress rode up her leg, and by the time he looked back she was standing inside the small play park grinning at him.
    "Well? Are you coming?"
    Alex moved towards the fencing, dubiously. "Are we likely to get in trouble for this?" he asked.
    Nadia shrugged, reaching over the fence and taking both drinks and her bag out of his hands. "I never have before."
    "Before?" Alex studied the – admittedly very low – fencing carefully, testing its strength by putting his weight on it briefly. "Do you make a habit of breaking into playgrounds?"
    "Just this one," Nadia told him solemnly. "Now stop being a baby, come on."
    "I imagine it's locked up for a reason," Alex insisted, as he nervously swung one leg into place.
    "Yes, to keep out dogs and teenagers," Nadia assured him, watching as he clumsily vaulted the barrier. "And we are neither." Alex surreptitiously checked his suit trousers for snags and rips as he pretended to dust them down. When he straightened, Nadia was looking at him with a little smile on her face. Without comment she handed him back his drink.
    "Would you care for a seat?" she asked him, gesturing behind them as she dropped her handbag to the grass.
    "More of a swing, really," Alex pointed out. Nadia ignored him, and sat down on the left-most swing, scudding her wedge heels through the tight-packed wood chipping that lay beneath them as she started swinging back and forth. Alex set his drink down to one side before settling on the second swing, holding on to both chains. Nadia wasn't even holding onto one; she smiled at him as she brought her drink up to her mouth.

    "What's the matter?" she asked him. "Don't you know how to swing?"
    "That sounds like a chat-up line from the seventies," Alex retorted. "But of course I know how to swing." Nadia raised an eyebrow at him and kicked off the ground a little harder, making Alex's stomach go all nervy about the fact that she still wasn't holding on.
    "I always wanted to go over the bar when I was a kid," Nadia told him, looking wistfully up at the pole above them.
    "That can't actually happen," Alex scoffed.
    "Yes it can!" Nadia insisted. "I've seen it on YouTube."
    "It defies the laws of physics," Alex argued.
    "God!" Nadia laughed. She finally submitted to her perilous height by looping the arm that held her almost-finished drink around one of the swing chains. "Let's just put it this way. I sure hope my kids are the sort of kids that want to go over the bar, rather than automatically believe it's impossible."
    "Are you saying that all of humanity splits into those who want to go over the bar and those who don't?" Alex teased. “That’s deep, man!”
    "No," Nadia shook her head emphatically. "But maybe I'm saying that humanity splits into those who dream about going over the bar and those that are too scared to try for it."
    "Well." Alex laughed shortly. "That's a pretty damning assessment of my personality. And we've only just met!"
    Nadia laughed too, looking sideways at him as she pushed herself higher and higher yet. "Okay, so that's a little black and white. But,

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