‘I was actually.’

‘You were?’

‘I was dressed up as Rudolph. I think I speared you with an antler.’

‘Why didn’t you say hello?’

So many reasons.

I shrug. ‘I couldn’t talk, I could barely even move.’

‘I suppose it did look quite cumbersome.’ He smiles faintly, but it fades really quickly.

‘Bea, we didn’t have sex that night at mine.’

What? Thank God. I think?

‘I didn’t want to sleep with you, I’m not really into taking advantage of inebriated women. You passed out as soon as you lay down in bed, and then you snored all night. It was helpful to know that you were still breathing, but we’ll need to talk about the snoring.’

I snored? I blame the tequila. Oh God, he didn’t want to sleep with me?

I can’t help but interrupt him. ‘So, that night … I know you pushed me away, but would you ever want to have sex with me?’ He is so silent and so still. I really wish I’d made a joke instead.

His face takes on a serious edge. He shifts a bit in his stance, and starts talking really slowly, pronouncing each word very carefully.

‘Bea, that night, yes, I pushed you away because I didn’t want to have sex with you.’

Oh.

‘So you don’t want to have sex with me?’

‘Bea, please, shut up.’ I close my mouth and wait. ‘I do want to have sex with you, but I didn’t want to have sex with you that night. I have wanted to have sex with you for years. I wasn’t going to waste our first time on a drunken fumble. I have plans. I am a man and I have plans, Bea.’

This makes me blush.

‘I was so happy to wake up next to you that Sunday morning. I was so happy until I came back with breakfast only to see that you’d run away. Bea, you have to stop running away.’

He steps towards me. Part of me really wants to run.

‘Bea, you have to know that all I have ever wanted is to be in your life. It’s up to you to decide how much. But for the record, I want it all.

‘I want to wake up next to you after you’ve been snoring all night. I want to eat bread that’s gone stale because you haven’t resealed it properly. I want to buy flat-pack furniture and let you build it. I want to get lost trying to follow your thought processes. I want to have fights with you. I want to have make-up sex with you. I want to make a family with you – dogs or children, or both. Whatever you want. I just want you.’

I might be smiling but I’m so numb I really can’t tell.

‘It’s up to you. It always has been. I’ll always be here for you because I love you.’

That is a horrible decision on his part.

And I have never been so happy.