“At the end of the day, I’ll be gone from his agency soon,” I say out loud. “And I’ll become that funny story he tells about his old member of staff at dinner parties he throws with his very perfect boyfriend.”

The thought is peculiarly painful, so I do what I always do. I push it to one side and focus on being friendly. I’m going to make him happy this week.

“I’m going to behave and not let him down so I’ll be more of a pleasant memory to him,” I say solemnly and my face looks back at me carefully. I let that settle, and by the time I reach the car and hop in, I’m smiling more or less naturally.

Zeb

I watch him worriedly as he gets into the car. I don’t know what happened earlier. One minute he was full of life, fairly glowing with fun and a simple sort of joy that seems to hang around him like glitter. Then he visibly shut it down, and I can’t work out why. Catching hold of him is like trying to cup water as it runs through my fingers.

The only thing I can think of is his peculiar insistence on getting changed. I’m slightly disappointed in this buttoned-up version of Jesse in perfectly ironed shorts and shirt. I preferred the earlier Jesse with that shiny hair held back by a bandanna and that ridiculous T-shirt. It was so him. So vibrant. Now, he seems almost colourless.

I can’t say anything, though. I’m his boss, I think desperately. It seems like I’m clinging onto that lately like it’s a raft that’s slowly disintegrating underneath me.

“Where are we going?” he asks, thankfully interrupting my thoughts.

“Bourton-on-the-Water.” I steer the car down the drive. “It’s pretty, especially in the summer,” I say somewhat desperately.

“Sounds lovely,” he says politely.

I shoot him another quick glance and open my mouth to speak but he reaches over and quickly switches on the radio.

I fall back into silence broken only by his increasingly cheerful conversational asides.

He brightens up, however, when we get to Bourton-on-the-Water. It’s a pretty, quintessential Cotswolds village with beautiful golden-bricked cottages and little stone bridges that span the River Windrush that runs all the way through the village. And tourists. Hundreds and hundreds of tourists.

“Why is everyone in the world here today?” he marvels as we step around what feels like twenty thousand pushchairs and wandering children to get out of the car park.

“It’s pretty,” I say, grabbing his arm to steer him around an old couple.