I give him the edge of the map to hold and move my finger along the lines. “Look. A road atlas would tell you that this road in Yorkshire leads to this town. But our map tells you so much more. It tells you that there’s also a footpath that leads you to a small war memorial and then, further along, the remnants of an ancient barrow. If we move west, we’ll also find some abbey ruins.” I shrug. “Treasure. There’s something wonderful about walking along one of the ancient roads in the sunshine, tracing the path of people who walked there thousands of years before.”

I look up and go still at the intent look on his face. “What?” I start to say, but he shuts me up with the simple act of leaning forward and kissing me. It’s an innocent kiss with no tongues and no touching anywhere apart from our lips. But his lips are soft and plush, and even though there’s an inch or two of space between our bodies it feels like he’s surrounding me. When he pulls back, I blink, and he smiles. It’s wide and so warm that it makes my heart beat faster.

He looks down and a smug expression crosses his face. He taps my hand. “I think you’ll need to buy that map now,” he says happily.

I look down and see that it’s now creased in my hands. “Gah,” I mutter, and he grins, looking impossibly young somehow.

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” he says softly. “I’d like to visit that barrow one sunny day.”

“It’s a date.” His smile widens, and my heart skips a beat. “Come on,” I say. “We have the first part of the date down. Now we need to get to the second part.”

He follows me like an impossibly hot shadow as I pay for the map, and we emerge onto the bustle of the street.

“This way,” I say, tugging his arm and feeling the muscles and heat of his skin. I pull him along the road past the small street market that is always here on a Friday. We walk past an old book stall, and we both automatically slow to examine the covers on the shelves. It makes me smile. I can’t walk past books, and it appears he can’t either.

Then he exclaims and darts over to the stall, plucking a book from the pile. “I’ll have this one,” he says to the woman behind the counter, and she smiles at his look of excitement.

“What did you get?” I ask as we move away.

“Here,” he says, pushing the paper bag at me. “It’s yours.”

“What is it?” I pull the book from the bag and stare down at it. “A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.” I look up at him. “Why?”