She sighs, then picks up her bag and takes it through to the bedroom. There’s a small box of Guylian Seashell chocolates on the bed, along with a teddy bear holding a heart.

Lewis puts his hands on her shoulders and turns her around. ‘See, I am trying.’

‘Yes, you are,’ she laughs.

‘What? Did I get it wrong?’

‘No, you got it perfect.’

‘But, you’re laughing at me. What did I mess up? I asked the girls at work and this is what they said they’d like.’

‘You asked the girls at your work? Those nineteen-year-old dolly birds who run the Zumba classes?’

He looks a bit hurt. ‘I’ve never done this before. You’re expecting too much of me too quickly.’

‘Too quickly?’ She picks up the teddy. ‘We’ve not just met, have we?’

‘No, we haven’t. But I’m doing my best,’ he says. And she believes it, because his word is still all she has.

They spend much of the day hunkered down in the hut, waiting for the weather to clear. In the afternoon Lewis drives to the nearest supermarket for food and brings back a bottle of whisky in place of champagne and a reduced lemon tart in place of a birthday cake, but it doesn’t matter. She’s happy to be here with him, even if he does spend too much time on his phone in the bedroom, talking to his brother about business. Yvonne, while keen to know the latest mess-up with her flat, refuses to answer when she sees her contractor’s number flash on the screen and shoves her phone between the cushions of the sofa.

‘I found another blanket,’ she says as he comes back to sit with her, thankfully phone free.

‘Sorry about all this,’ he says. ‘It’s constant at the moment. Why can’t things just go to plan?’

‘Because that would be too easy.’

He scrubs his face with his hands and pulls the blanket over his legs. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

‘It’s not that bad.’

The rain batters the roof and he shakes his head. ‘I can’t wait till I can take you abroad, somewhere nice, rather than here.’

‘I love it here.’

He looks out of the window, at the sheets of rain which put an end to their hopes of riding bikes into the forest. ‘I want to be financially secure, to be able to spoil you. I don’t want my girlfriend picking up the bill all the time.’

‘Girlfriend?’ she cringes at the word. ‘Please.’

He smiles at her, ‘What do you want me to call you? Lover? Partner?’

‘Anything but girlfriend. I’m almost thirty.’ She crawls on top of him and feeling how cold his hands are pulls the blanket around them both.

‘Maybe one day I’ll be calling you something else.’