Twin dragons and infinity heart design

They had the centre board of the big ride to finish before the Shrewsbury lot arrived. Two dragons, facing each other across the mirror, their wings lifting and their necks bending until the tips met over the gate. Idris had drawn the wings in pencil a fortnight back and she had hated them from the first sketch: too much flare, too much show. She had wanted the necks to do the work. He said a heart needed a bit of drama. She said a heart needed to sit still.

By nine the generator coughed and died, and they worked by a head torch clipped to the stepladder. The purple had to go on in one pass or it would streak, and the old Mallow tin was the only one that matched the ride's original gloss, so they took turns with the brush without speaking. At some point, while she was lining the first loop of the infinity ribbon beneath the dragons, she noticed that the outline of the two necks under her torchlight had already been drawn in faint chalk, and every curve of them met hers exactly.

He had traced her sketch over his own. He had done it, she realised, the night she'd stormed off. Last panel went on the lorry at dawn. The tin scraped empty, and Idris pressed the lid down with his thumb, leaving a purple print on the rim that she didn't wipe away.