‘Well, she spoke to me about wanting to marry him, but I didn’t get the impression that it was imminent, so I didn’t think a huge amount about it. But I guess I should have.’

‘It seems very quick.’

Not even trying to hide the illicit phone any more, I’m texting madly to find out more details. My messages are littered with spelling mistakes, but in times of peak excitement, a couple of spelling errors are acceptable. ‘Holy shit.’

‘What?’

‘That can’t be right.’

It’s Mia’s turn to roll her eyes. ‘Not this again. Tell me.’

‘They want to get married on New Year’s Eve. This New Year’s Eve.’ Thinking back, she did lap up every detail of Mia’s wedding, and was bizarrely concerned with some of the more boring logistics – lead times for suppliers, increased prices for New Year’s Eve, issues with travel. Maybe she was doing preliminary research.

‘Are you serious? That’s five months away! Does she know that everywhere gets booked up for New Year’s Eve years in advance?’

‘I guess she doesn’t care. Or maybe she has a plan. Maybe she already has it all sorted.’

‘Don’t offer to help.’

I grimace and look sideways at Mia.

‘Too late.’ I’m hoping my offer to help will go some way to make up for being an absent friend in recent months.

She simply sighs and puts her head back on the lounger. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

I spend another couple of minutes excitedly texting, and then decide to hide my phone when the chat dies down. I paid a lot of money to be here. I want to be here.

And I’m due to be called through for my first treatment – the outsourcing of my admin.

I look at Mia. Her eyes are still closed, but she must be able to sense that I’m free from my captor.

‘We still need to come up with a plan for you to confess your undying love to Peter.’

‘OK, let’s calm down. I do not love Peter. I said that a small part of me might fancy Peter. But I’m not going to do anything, now or indeed ever. Peter and I are just friends.’ The reality is that I’m much better friends with Peter than I ever was with Sam; should anything ever happen between us I imagine the hurt would be that much worse. He’s often the one who helps put me back together when I need it, but if he’s also the one to break me, what happens? Who would I go to? ‘I’m not going to flush our friendship down the drain because a small part of me might fancy him.’

‘Well, I don’t see how you can stay where you are either, so you might as well try.’

She has a point there. It’s possible that even the thought of potentially fancying Peter has changed my ability to remain his friend.

Bollocks.

All of a sudden, I wish I’d opted for a massage instead of a wax.