I chewed on my bottom lip, unbidden tears burning the back of my eyes. Damn that Pimm’s on an empty stomach. ‘It wasn’t that. We’d only been together for a while but I suppose I thought it was more serious than it was.’

‘Oh,’ John said, rounding out the word and stretching it into oblivion. ‘I see.’

‘But who knows what would have happened if I’d stayed?’ I added. ‘He didn’t want to do long distance and I took it fairly badly, so my friends don’t like him. Standard ex stuff. That’s all there is to it.’

‘That’s the reason they don’t like him?’ John asked. ‘Because you left for a job in another country?’

I paused and took a drink.

‘It’s possible they didn’t all get on terribly well before that,’ I replied. ‘But, you know, your friends don’t always get on with your boyfriend. None of us are exactly in love with Creepy Dave.’

‘No, but I’ve never heard Adrian call him “Twat-Faced Wank Chops” either,’ he said. ‘Seems to me they don’t think he’s good enough for you.’

Oh good, I groaned inwardly. He was going to mansplain my own friends and their opinions on my break-up to me. His poor, beautiful, giant of a wife. Imagine having to put up with this all the time.

‘How long has it been since you texted him?’ John asked, fitting a pint glass into the top of his cocktail shaker. ‘One day, two days?’

‘He texted me on Tuesday, I texted him on Wednesday,’ I replied, watching as he shook his drink into next week. Now, there was some proper Tom-Cruise-level cocktail crafting, I was almost impressed. His biceps bulged against the stiff cotton of his shirt with the strain of his effort but his face was completely impassive. Maybe I could start an exercise class using cocktail shakers as weights. Get a workout and a drink at the same time, what could go wrong?

‘Three days,’ he said, squinting at the maths. He knocked the cocktail shaker against the bar to loosen the pint glass he had wedged in the top and poured the frothy pink liquid into four waiting glasses.

‘It’s fine, it’s whatever,’ I said hurriedly. ‘He’s probably not going to reply.’

‘Oh, he is,’ John replied. ‘He’ll text you tonight, ask what you’re doing later.’

‘And how do you know that?’ I asked, suddenly panicking that he was about to pull off some incredible mask and reveal that ah-ha, he, John the mild-mannered bartender, had been Patrick all along.

‘If he messaged you in the week, he would have had to make real plans with you.’ He topped off the cocktails with prosecco and added them to a silver tray already laden with drinks. ‘This way, it’s a far more casual, no-obligations situation. A no-pressure hang-out. Classic arsehole behaviour.’

‘Is that right?’