‘I’ve always wondered what’s in this garden,’ he said, lifting his gaze over my head. I turned as far as I could without letting go of him to see a private park, the tall black railings lined with trees and bushes, obscuring whatever might be hiding inside. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Portal to another reality, probably,’ I replied as he disengaged his arms from around my neck and wandered off to peer into the bushes. ‘That or it’s a secret meeting place for the Resistance.’

He looked back at me with an affectionate smile. ‘You’re an odd girl,’ he said. ‘Do you know that?’

‘Yes,’ I answered before licking my lips thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any more of those cupcakes back at yours?’

‘I bet,’ Patrick said, his strong eyebrows set with determination. ‘If I gave you a leg-up, we could get inside.’

My own eyebrows lifted in disbelief.

‘But it’s private,’ I whispered. ‘We’re not allowed inside.’

He laughed, clearly delighted with my response. ‘And that’s why it’s fun,’ he said, squatting down and linking his hands together. ‘Come on, up and over.’

‘What if we get arrested?’ My head swam with police sirens and flashing lights and disappointed parents and tequila even as I did as I was told. I was one hundred percent that girl who would jump off a cliff if all my friends were doing it.

‘You know, you used to be a lot more spontaneous,’ Patrick admonished. Before he could say another word, I had one foot in his palm, the other swinging over the fence. A sharp pain shot through my backside as I hurled myself over the fence and my skating injury came back to haunt me. With a less than elegant tumble, I crumpled to the floor then sprang back up, determined not to let him down.

‘Amazing,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘There should be a latch on the inside of the gate, there, to your left. Got it?’

I fumbled with it at first; the latch had been painted over with thick, black paint at least hundred times, and the warm summer weather had turned it into something like tar.

‘Got it,’ I gasped as I released the latch and pulled the gate in towards me. Patrick stepped into the garden easily, as though he took an evening constitutional every single night of his life, closing the gate behind him.

‘Wow,’ I breathed, weaving my fingers through his as we walked inside. ‘It’s beautiful.’

And it was. A crisp green lawn was set at the centre of the garden, bordered by tall trees and thick bushes, and pretty periwinkle blue plants, which I was fairly sure weren’t periwinkles, wove themselves in and out of the branches. A bus whooshed by on the other side of the fence but safely behind the black bars of the garden, we were in another world.