‘Earth to Charlie,’ the Holly of today, with longer, darker red hair cascading over her shoulders and a look of amusement on her face, chimed into his thoughts, and he started slightly, realising he’d been spending entirely too long staring at the fridge. Her hand, placed lightly on the crook of his arm, just on the bare skin underneath the sleeve of his T-shirt, sent a shock of electricity through him. It was a playful gesture, but Holly’s eyes widened a little as they met his gaze, which snapped him back to reality. Why did he feel as though they were on the cusp of something?

‘You’ve changed a lot since that photo was taken,’ Charlie injected a note of lightness into his tone to hide how jolted he was by her touch.

Did he imagine it, or did Holly’s face colour slightly at his comment?

‘A lot can change in fifteen years!’ Holly replied, seemingly equally lightly. ‘Come on, the first course is already on the table.’

She still had her hand on Charlie’s arm, and as he turned to follow her, his heart skipped several beats as her hand slipped down his arm to nestle in his own. He felt a rush of blood to his head, and other regions, and mentally told himself to get a grip. It was almost as if he was a teenager again, reacting so strongly to the slightest of physical stimuli. It took all of his self-control not to pull her to him and kiss her.

Lunch passed amiably, with Charlie answering the questions from Holly’s parents politely and with a rather adorable dose of humour that Holly found herself beginning to really like. After the dishes had been cleared away, with Charlie helping her parents and on his best behaviour, they sat round the dinner table finishing off the wine. Unnerved as she was by Charlie’s sudden interest in the old photos on the fridge, the fact he hadn’t identified their previous connection came as a relief. After all, the past was the past. She’d learned that there was no point in looking back, in thinking of what might have been. When all was said and done, it was more important to be present in the moment, to take every day as it came.

‘…And when I woke up, I realised I was about seventeen stops past my home town, and spent the next three hours on a platform in the middle of nowhere to get the next train back!’ Charlie’s voice zoned back into her consciousness and, with a pang, Holly registered that she wasn’t actually living in the moment right now, however lovely that moment was.