When we’d parted with the usual promises to definitely stay in touch for real this time, no lie, for serious, Oliver slipped his arm around me. “I hope I wasn’t too unhelpful,” he whispered as we wandered off. “That seemed quite intense, and I was concerned I’d be intruding.”

“Yeah, it was kind of. Intense and…” I gave a nonspecific hand wave. “Blah.”

“Ah, yes,” Oliver agreed. “The blah will get you every time.”

“I guess…” Apparently my mouth had more words to release. “I guess I hadn’t really thought about how big the whole Miles thing was. How many people it affected who weren’t, y’know, me. I was too busy getting wasted and feeling hard done by.”

“I understand getting wasted and feeling hard done by are what your early twenties are all about.”

I gave him a sceptical look. “I suppose you spent yours studying for the bar and, I don’t know, developing a deep sense of altruism.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Lucien.” His lips twitched. “I’ve always had a deep sense of altruism.”

The annoying thing was, he probably had. “Yeah, and I bet if your boyfriend had sold your sex life to a newspaper, you’d have been all ‘It’s okay; you have hurt me but you are entitled to make mistakes.’”

“I’m not sure any newspapers would want to pay for my sex life.”

“Hey”—I poked him in the shoulder—“don’t do yourself down. You’re a saucy legal stud, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

He considered this. “Of course, prior to 1967 I’d have been a saucy illegal stud.”

“Very illegal. You’d have been minus twenty.”

“I meant for reasons of orientation rather than age.”

Well, that was embarrassing. “Oh. Right. Yeah.” Pausing our wedding circuit, I tipped up his chin and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Fine. You’re a better gay than me.”

“It’s not a competition, Lucien,” he said loftily. “But. Yes. Yes I am.”

I kissed him again. “I think you’re a better most things than me.”

“You know that’s not true at all.”

“Name…” I was about to say three, but then I remembered the way Bridge had outmanoeuvred me. “Five.”

“Only five?” he asked. “Very well. You can eat a dessert without feeling unnecessarily guilty about it.”

“Wait.” In my head, Oliver had just laughed it off. But in reality he’d gone for it. Of course he’d gone for it. “You don’t have—”

“You have a good relationship with your mother. You don’t blurt out insulting things at people you like.”

“Have you met me? That one doesn’t count.”

“Fair enough. You don’t need a live-in boyfriend to remind you what work-life balance is.”

“I think,” I said, “you’ll find I do. It’s just the other way round.”