Suddenly the old man lunges at him. ‘That’s hers. I know it is. How fucking dare you wear it?’

He starts to tug at Dan’s Parisian scarf, and it hurts, and he feels like he’s being choked and then Atticus is there too, tugging as well, telling the old man to get off and let go. Dan is being pulled and pushed and called gay, and he thinks he might be having a panic attack but isn’t sure. He spins and twirls and wrenches himself free, and, before the old man or Atticus can get to him, is out of the door and running towards home.

Fitz, who’s been watching from under his bonnet, bursts out of the shop to join him. The bonnet slides off his head and lands in a puddle and he seems to consider going back for it, but he’s never seen Dan run like that, not even when he’s racing Luke, and he decides that nothing else matters.

When the bell rings Dan ignores it. The door opens a moment later and he hears footsteps on the stairs. Fitz lifts his head and wags his tail.

‘Daniel?’

Atticus smells like an evergreen tree in a cold field but his hands are warm when they find Dan’s face, under the covers, where he is hiding from the world. Dan wants to push him away, make him leave, make him no longer exist, but his body is a filthy traitor. It wants Atticus to crawl under the covers with him. Fag. Fag. Fag.

‘It doesn’t matter, what that old man said.’

‘It matters to me.’ Dan talks to his toes, counts the hairs.

‘Why? It’s the twenty-first century. We live in Brighton. Section Twenty-eight is no longer applicable.’

‘I know,’ Dan says weakly.

‘Do you? Do you really know how we used to be treated? How we used to be beaten. Forced to live as recluses. Thatcher lumped us in with the paedophiles. Banned us from having a voice. Made us criminals.’

The words make Dan jump.

‘People have died for being gay, Daniel. People have died protesting for our freedom, for us to be accepted. Respected. Read about our history. It’s your history too, Dan. What we did together, what we do, in your bed, on your sofa, used to be illegal.’

Dan tries to let his words sink in.

‘But it isn’t any more. I refuse to hide, to pretend, to deny for a single second, Daniel. And in honour of all the people who couldn’t, I will be as gay as the day is long. I am not ashamed of my sexuality. I am not ashamed of my feelings for you.’

He takes Dan by the shoulders. ‘Daniel, my sun, I want to be your boyfriend.’

A firework goes off inside Dan. He feels it explode into a million sparkling stars fizzing in his veins. ‘I want that too.’