Dan knows what his body is physically capable of, the extent to which he can push it, yet at the same time, he has no idea at all. His body is a stranger that’s never been used for sex, to give or receive pleasure. ‘Please don’t let me be shit at it,’ he chants silently, as he runs. ‘Please don’t let me disappoint Atticus.’ He wonders who he’s praying to, wonders if this is what the sky will look like the first time he has sex. Will those tiny fluffy clouds still be hovering in the last of the light? He wants to take a photo. Keep this moment as a solid piece of evidence in his wallet.

They finish on a sprint so punishing that he can think of nothing except breathing.

‘Aren’t you going to cool down?’ Luke says, when Dan doesn’t drop to the floor for some yoga-like limbering. ‘Not like you to forget.’

Dan blushes and says, ‘I was just about to,’ and drops into the most painful warrior pose possible.

Fitz and Wolfie toss out a sun salute and a cobra.

‘Don’t make it too obvious, but there is an S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L at ten o’clock,’ Luke hisses, from the side of his mouth.

There is nothing Fitz and Wolfie love more than to chase squirrels, for hours if they can. But Dan needs to be getting back home, to Atticus.

‘Hey, Fitz, what’s this, boy? What’s this?’ Wolfie bounds over immediately. He’s never learned that Dan doesn’t carry treats in his pocket, he just pretends to. Fitz, however, is a wiser sort of dog, and instead scans the vicinity. He knows Dan often uses diversionary tactics when there are foxes about, or badgers, or …

Fitz’s barks are a staccato Morse code to Wolfie, who looks to eight o’clock, nine o’clock. Fitz barks again and finally Wolfie spots their ginger-and-grey nemesis. And they’re off. The squirrel, which Luke names Jerry, waits until the last possible moment before shimmying up a nearby beech tree.

Atticus is still in the kitchen when Dan and Fitz get home. He’s lit the candles Dan keeps in the fireplace by the burner, and laid the table. Dan can hear the sound of the bath running. Atticus must have been standing by the window, waiting for him. For the first time, Dan acknowledges how very lonely he has been.

After the meal, they wash up together, occasionally bumping hips or brushing arms, and Dan doesn’t know how it happens but suddenly they are on his pristine sofa, cushions askew, kissing. Buttons pop and zips purr as half-undone clothing is hurriedly tugged off.