“Just look at it.” He gestures at the painting. “Her ladies-in-waiting are prostrate and sobbing on the ground. If that had been me, I’d have been quite pissed off. I’d have said, ‘Ladies, this is really more of a me day than a you day.’ If you can’t have everyone’s attention when you’re being executed, then when can you?”

I stare at him, and he flushes. “Well, you did ask,” he says defensively.

“I really did,” I say faintly. “Okay, what else?”

He sighs long-sufferingly. “Well, look at the executioner. Weren’t they supposed to dress in black and wear a bloody mask? That bloke looks like he was about to go clubbing and got called into work at the last minute because someone was off sick.”

I look at the pouting axeman in his red tights and doublet and start to laugh. “Oh my God, you’re right.”

“I usually am,” he says in his typically modest fashion. “You should hang around me more, Charlie, and you might get some culture by osmosis.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it that. You’re like some sort of anti-art critic.” I take his hand and tug him toward the next painting. “Come on. I want to hear your views on some more priceless works of art.”

We spend the next hour or so wandering the rooms while he enlivens the day with more acidic commentary. I watch him studying a picture, his full lips pursed. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much on a date— The record immediately screeches to a stop. Back the fuck up, Charlie Burroughs, I scold myself. This isn’t a fucking date.

He glances at me and smiles, and I’m suddenly blinded. Like I’m staring directly at the sun. He’s so beautiful, I think wistfully.

“Charlie, you okay?” There’s an anxious tone to his voice like he thinks I’m going to have a turn.

I give his hand a squeeze. “I’m fine,” I say hoarsely. Well, as fine as you can be after realising your best friend is the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen. “Just tired all of a sudden.”

“Hmm,” he say doubtfully. “I think we’ll go and get something to eat. It’s way past lunchtime. We’ve done a lot of walking today, and you’re only just fit again.”

He’s possibly the only person in the world who’d get away with saying solicitous shit like that to me, and the look in his eyes says he knows it. But tiredness is pulling at my body the way it does when I’ve done too much, and I’m sad, because I don’t want to leave this place. I’m having too good a time.