My reply to this message was flippant, but when I read that he was ‘falling for me’ my heart did such a massive leap I thought either there was a kangaroo hiding out in my bra, or that I was having palpitations and needed an air ambulance. Or that I was falling for him too.

Of course you’re not in love, I lectured myself. Not in the least. I’m not discombobulated in any way, shape or form. After all, I always floss my ears, run a comb through my teeth, spritz my pits with hairspray and bouffe up my hair with a spray-on deodorant offering twelve-hour protection.

But, if what Brody and I were doing was so, so wrong, then why did it feel so, so good? Falling in love is like going to the doctor and being told that you need to put on weight. And who wouldn’t love that?

In the tender light of Brody’s gruff adoration, I felt luminous. The doctor seemed to treasure me, despite my pathetic journalistic career writing stories more likely to litter the ground than break it. He seemed to cherish me despite my citing the ‘five ingredients’ cookbook as my culinary bible. He liked me even though I was a paid-up member of Underachievers Anonymous. He even liked waking up next to me in the morning, when my hair was sticking up in all directions, with yesterday’s mascara smeared under my eyes. The deranged idiot seemed to adore me in spite of everything.

‘I feel like a rescued mountaineer clinging to a Saint Bernard dog, with its brandy barrel,’ he said, one day, post coitus.

‘A dog. Thanks. That’s an analogy I’ll treasure,’ I taunted. ‘I’m also very handy for sniffing luggage at airports.’

‘No, what I mean is, you’ve rescued me from cynicism. I’d stopped believing in people. I’ve been betrayed too often, and by people close to me. I’ve seen too much. Man’s inhumanity to man and all that. The fickleness of fate on the front line is grim – cuddling dying babies, or stitching up mutilated bodies only for them to be put back into the battlefield to get blown up all over again. It takes its toll. I kept a kind of mask on at all times. But somehow you got under my defences, Ruby Ryan. I don’t think you realise what a huge thing it is for me to trust you.’

Something cracked open in him then, and I saw straight through to his heart.

‘I dunno,’ he continued. ‘I feel as though life is making something up to me; that the universe is apologising, sort of. It sounds self-absorbed, I know, but it’s as if god’s kinda quickly glanced up from all that warmongering in Syria and Afghanistan to throw me a bone.’

Fondness spilt and rippled across his face. With his tender fingertips, he then played me like a keyboard.