‘We know, Eaves. It’s only the fifth time you’ve mentioned it,’ Laurie teased affectionately, equally drunk.

‘I just love Bridget so much,’ Evie said. ‘Just thinking about her makes me happy. So goddamn happy!’

‘I’m happy, too. But also very, very tired,’ Florence said.

‘Me too, actually.’ Evie yawned.

Laurie giggled, tripping over her own left foot as she pulled the group towards a booth by the window. They fell down into it, tucked up against each other. Evie was crammed against the window. She rested her cheek on the hot, sticky table and closed her eyes, drifting into an alert slumber. Dreaming of everything that was to come now that she, Evie Berry, was the star of her own movie.

Her ears pricked up at the sound of soft, tinny music playing from outside. It was the same Van Morrison song which had been playing in the background when Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy kissed at the end of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Evie hummed under her breath, imagining herself standing half-naked in the snow, her arms outstretched to all the possibilities before her.

There was a knock on the window next to her and Evie opened her eyes and she looked up. To her great surprise, there, standing stock still directly outside the window she was pressed against, was Ben. He was wearing his black puffer jacket zipped right up under his chin and a bright yellow beanie which Evie had always thought was adorable. He held his phone up against the window so Evie could almost feel the vibrations of the same song she’d been humming.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Evie yelled through the glass.

Ben held his hand up to his ear in reply, signalling that he couldn’t hear her.

‘Come inside!’ Evie gestured for him to enter through the doors of the Globe. A few people from inside had started to stare.

Ben shook his head, gesturing for her to come outside.

‘It’s bloody freezing! Come inside!’ Evie moved her hands in a drastic beckoning motion.

Ben did the same.

‘Just go outside, already!’ said Laurie. ‘Don’t leave the poor bugger waiting.’

Now also alert, Florence and Georgie added to the chorus, chanting, ‘Go outside! Go outside! Go outside!’

‘Fine!’ Evie exclaimed, pushing past her new friends and the bar’s onlookers.

This time, as she stepped outside, the cold didn’t assault her body. Something about seeing Ben standing there filled her with all the warmth she needed.

Evie crunched across the snowy pavement towards him, saying, ‘Ben, what the hell? How’d you know I was here?’

The three women knocked on the window and Evie turned around, stuck out her tongue, and then turned back to Ben.

He smiled, the music washing over them. ‘You can thank the big boss, Florence Ivers, for checking you into this location on Facebook.’