‘Let’s get you a drink,’ I suggested once he’d had a chance to say hello to everyone and Karen had prodded him to check he wasn’t an apparition. ‘Are you in the car?’

‘Nope. Already dropped it off at your mum’s and got a taxi in.’

‘Thank you.’

He was so thoughtful. For obvious reasons, I felt very strongly about drinking and driving. For me, it was either drink and don’t drive or drive and don’t drink. I didn’t care that there was a legal limit because I knew from personal experience that I could have three glasses of wine and feel perfectly in control, or have three sips and feel tiddly and unsteady. So why risk it? Just abstain! Scott was always supportive about it.

‘I reckon it’s my round as a forfeit for being late,’ Scott said. ‘What’s everyone having?’

He disappeared with instructions to get another bottle of prosecco and a pint for Drew.

‘So that was the elusive Scott,’ Karen said when I sat down next to her again. ‘He is real after all.’

‘I can’t believe you prodded him to confirm it. That’s outrageous! What do you think of him?’ I knew that Mum and Logan had really taken to him, but it was important to me that he also had Karen’s approval.

‘Marks out of two? I’d give him one.’

‘Karen!’ cried Mum, as Karen and I creased up at the phrase we’d picked up in our late teens.

‘Sorry, Julie,’ Karen said. ‘I think he’s lovely, Jem. Very gorgeous and obviously completely smitten with you. I approve.’

Mum leaned across the table. ‘I meant to ask you this before. Scott always says he loves you only…?’

‘Oh yeah! I noticed that.’ Karen frowned. ‘He loves you only amongst his harem of twenty?’

‘There’s a context. I promise. After we’d been together for a month or so, I decided it was time to properly induct him into the world of teddy bears so I introduced him to the hug.’

‘The hug?’ Tiff asked.

‘It’s the term given to a collection of teddy bears,’ Leah said. ‘Don’t you listen to anything we tell you about bears?’

From the colouring of Tiff’s cheeks, she obviously didn’t, but that was fine. They weren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

‘Do continue,’ Mum prompted.

‘I explained the differences between the fabrics, joints, eyes etc. and probably bored him senseless. I kept going on about how much I loved different bears. He picked one up and said he loved the expression it had, but what he really loved was me.’

A chorus of ‘Aww’ went round the table.