ATTICUS IS AS ENCHANTED with Dan’s house as Dan was with his. There’s not as much to see, though. Dan is neat and tidy, contained. Fitz’s personality is more prevalent. His red parrot chew toy is on the living-room rug. In the corner of the kitchen, his basket is full of balls and the driftwood he brings back from the beach in his gentle mouth, like the retriever he is. He takes Dan’s odd socks from the laundry to hide and for Dan to pair again later. There are drifts of hair on the patches of floor he likes to lie on, by the patio window, where he guards his garden, on the end of the sofa, by the front door, where he waits for hours for his owner. For his daily reunion, a dog’s form of holy sacrament.

As for clues about Dan, a vintage Star Wars mug and a framed film poster lend a splash of colour to the living room. He has a sheepskin cushion, which his sister bought him, on his grey woollen sofa, and a framed photo of himself and his dad finishing a run together sits on his mantelpiece above a wood-burner, lined on both sides with perfectly stacked kindling and logs. It is so beautiful, so satisfying to look at, that Dan isn’t even embarrassed at the amount of time it obviously took. ‘Like a piece of art,’ Atticus says, nodding at the neat rows, and Dan blushes with pleasure.

Dan offers Atticus coffee from his beautiful machine. Atticus asks if it’s new and Dan says no. Atticus says, ‘I thought you were a tea man,’ and Dan says, ‘Maybe my taste is changing.’

He wonders if Atticus is going to kiss him again, although he’s just drunk an espresso, and maybe his mouth will taste weird. ‘Back in a sec,’ Dan says, and he runs upstairs to rub some toothpaste into his gums, just in case.

When he comes back downstairs, wearing a new T-shirt to suggest he was just getting changed, Atticus is reading a message on his phone. ‘Someone called “Luke Solo” just texted you. Apparently, you’re supposed to be meeting him at the windmill for a ten-mile run.’ Atticus frowns. ‘Is that code for something better, and who is this Luke Solo, who plans to “angry truck-man your ass all the way to Woken, Tennessee, Wallace and Gromit style”?’

Atticus looks from the phone to Dan, the skin above his eyebrows rippling like a wave. ‘Not much surprises me, Daniel, but this is most unexpected. Even I don’t know what Wallace and Gromit style is.’