I can’t bear this grim, icy tension when all I want to do is hold her and tell her I’m sorry. Before I can weigh up whether this is actually a good idea or not, I’m rushing across the room to do it.

‘Ben, what …’ She wriggles out of the hug, and looks at me with her brow furrowed. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I just wanted to give you a hug. Sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. It’s just …’ She tails off and shakes her head.

I step away from her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She fiddles with her topknot, and avoids my eye. ‘I’ve just got stuff on my mind, that’s all.’

‘About us?’

She gives a short, impatient sigh. ‘About lots of things.’

I kneel down and take hold of her hand. I’m trying to keep my voice steady, but the words come gabbling out manically. ‘Well, let’s talk about it. We can sort it out. I’m sorry for how rubbish I’ve been lately. Whatever’s gone wrong, we can fix it, and—’

I’m about to tell her how much I love her when she pulls her hand away, cutting me off in mid-flow. ‘Not right now. Let’s just get through today. We can talk about everything else later.’

I’m desperate to put my arms back around her. To promise her that I’ve changed and everything’s different now and it’s all going to be OK. But I can tell this is definitely not the time. After all, she’s put up with years of me acting like a selfish arsehole – sulking and moaning and clamming up. I can’t expect everything to magically fall into place just because I appear to have woken up in an uncharacteristically upbeat mood.

It’s actions that count, not words. I need to prove to her that I’ve changed, and I can’t do that in five minutes.

I stand up and walk back over to the counter. I take a sip of my coffee, and ask, ‘How was last night?’

‘It was fine.’ She swipes a finger across the iPad screen. ‘Bit boring, but OK.’

‘Any gossip? Anyone get off with anyone?’

She shrugs. ‘Rich got very pissed and insisted we all try out Sarah’s new karaoke machine. Nadia and I did “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa. Went down pretty well. That was about as wild as it got, really. You didn’t miss much.’

‘You’re not hung-over, then?’

She yawns, and covers her mouth with her wrist. ‘No, just tired. What did you do?’

‘I went out for a drink with Harv. Once I’d, erm, done the tree and stuff, obviously.’

‘Oh, right.’ She raises her eyebrows, her gaze still fixed firmly on the screen. ‘I thought you’d stayed in for a drink.’

‘How d’you mean?’