‘This is the last three years of my life.’ The laptop sparked into life with a familiar chime and Patrick pointed over at the map. ‘All the countries in purple are the places I visited while I was researching my book.’

I glanced down and saw a lot of purple. In the last two years, I had been to exactly two countries, the one I was born in and the one I ran away to. Patrick had been to places I couldn’t even pronounce.

‘And on the tray, you have some of my favourite foods from said countries,’ he said, handing me a cold red can of fizzy pop. ‘That is Future Cola from China.’

‘Future Cola is good,’ I confirmed after taking a sip. ‘What’s this?’

‘Awadama, from Japan,’ Patrick replied, unwrapping one of the sweets and holding it out for me. ‘It translates to “foamy balls”. Very popular.’

‘Thank you,’ I muttered as it fizzed up in my mouth. ‘Very foamy.’

‘Probably shouldn’t have given it to you at the same time as the Future Cola,’ he replied with a grimace. ‘We’ve also got Vietnamese sesame rice balls, Tapita from Costa Rica, Doña Pepa from Peru and Chinese Ore No Milk Candy.’

‘Ore No?’ I replied, opening one of the little white packages to find a hard, white ball that looked like any other boiled sweet. ‘What does that translate as?’

‘It’s milk-flavoured,’ Patrick said as I put it in my mouth and almost immediately spat it back out. ‘It roughly translates as milk candy for tough guys. Or tough guy’s milk.’

‘I really didn’t want that in my mouth,’ I said, taking another swig of Future Cola to wash away the taste. ‘And don’t you dare say that’s what she said.’

He held his hands up to protest his innocence but with a huge smile on his face.

‘And what’s on the laptop?’ I asked.

‘Photos,’ he replied, climbing back onto the bed and pressing his body against mine. ‘Lots and lots and lots of photos.’

‘You’re going to show me your holiday photos?’ I asked, utterly delighted.

‘I’m going to show you my holiday photos,’ he confirmed as he rested his chin on my shoulder. ‘Shall we start with China?’

I nodded, far too excited for someone about to endure someone else’s travel pics. But this felt very different to Lucy and Dave’s three-hour-long honeymoon video from their trip to Sandals St Lucia. This felt like discovering they’d made three new seasons of your favourite TV show and bingeing on them all at once.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked, as Patrick began flicking through the photos.

He skipped back to a shot of himself, posing with his arm slung casually around the shoulders of a beautiful blonde woman. He was smiling into the camera but she was gazing at him with an expression I knew all too well.