Decked out in a sequinned strappy top—with just the right amount of cleavage showing—and low-rise skinny jeans, Evie surveyed herself in the mirror of the cinema’s staff bathroom. She decided on minimal makeup and then fiddled with her annoying bangs, before giving herself a little nod of encouragement in the mirror.

With plenty of time before she met up with Hugo, Evie left the cinema and meandered down Gloucester Avenue, thinking about how to approach things with him. One of the benefits of being a thirty-year-old in a twenty-year-old body was that she at least felt a little more experienced in the dating game. Over the past decade, she’d learned that people loved it when you showed an interest in them. She just needed to be natural and warm, curious and thoughtful, without being too eager and gushy. Easy!

Evie had spent so much time wondering what it would be like to really get to know Hugo, and now it was finally happening. She already knew they had very similar tastes. Sure, she’d cheated a little with Mila 18 in the coffee shop, but she genuinely did love it. Plus, the thing she enjoyed most about reading Henrietta’s Gift was how well Hugo wrote his female characters—something she’d rarely come across in contemporary fiction by males, who usually wrote about ‘heaving breasts’, ‘strawberry-flavoured lips’ and ‘impossibly tiny waists’. Hugo’s sex scenes were realistic, relatable and, as a result, incredibly sexy. Evie wondered what it would feel like to be held in the arms of the man who wrote, and clearly understood so well, such intimate things.

Arriving at the leafy entrance to Primrose Hill Park, Evie headed up the winding path. Alongside her, children careened down the hill on bikes, and she only narrowly avoided being run into by a skateboarder. She found herself smiling at all the couples picnicking on the slope or strolling by holding hands. She forced herself to temper her excitement—she mustn’t get ahead of herself. She’d done that too many times in her twenties. Sure, she wanted things to go well, but if tonight was all the time she got with Hugo, she would make herself okay with that.

As she approached the top of the hill, she spotted Hugo sitting on the grass off to the left. He gave her the most radiant smile as she walked towards him.

‘I’m so glad you could come at such short notice,’ he said, standing to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Me too. And it’s such a beautiful evening,’ Evie replied as they settled onto the grass and he produced two wine glasses and a bottle of rosé from a wicker picnic basket behind him.