‘Jeez, Louise. This has all got a bit …’ and he flashes his teeth, tensing the muscles in his neck, ever so Deirdre Barlow. ‘And anyway, I thought we were (or were not) talking about me wedding.’

We giggle a little. Kit slides the Jacob’s cracker box back towards us and flicks the lid off again. We’re both keen to keep eating chocolate rather than bicker. I go for a large slab of what looks like a decapitated Lindt bunny, but Kit gets there first and my hand lands upon his.

‘Snap!’ I say.

Kit squeezes my hand and yanks me into him, giving me a giant hug. My throat tightens and I don’t want to cry, not now, so I break away.

‘I’m such a dickhead,’ I say, stealing the broken bunny, ‘I’ve always thought of meself as carefree when it came to fellas, relationships.’

‘Remember the rotter who only ate Pot Noodles and smelt of soil?’

‘It wasn’t soil. It was weed.’

‘Like that makes it okay.’

‘You know, I thought I’d got me shit together in me thirties, but God, I hated dating. So forced. All that anticipation, then disappointment, and oh, the inevitable drunken sex. I’m not doing it again. No way. I can’t bear the thought of—’

I shut my eyes, shudder, the thought of Justin. What we did. Yeah, Kit’s just taken the piss out of me for flying into flings, but in my heart, in my gut, I always knew when they were over. Some were over after the first snog: a tongue too hard, too slimy, too long. But I’d go back for more, drag it out, give that tongue the benefit of the doubt. I went out with this fella a couple of years ago who was brilliant. Kind of a real-life Tom Hardy, just taller and skinnier. He cooked a prawn curry to perfection, he loved books about the universe, he was a drummer, he went rock-climbing and he was fucking good in bed. But I couldn’t laugh at his jokes. Not one. And I find most things pretty funny. Around the three-week mark, it was obvious we had no future. We called it a day about four months in. I can’t call it a day with Jack. I just can’t.

Kit’s squinting, his arms folded, and he’s sitting right back in his chair. ‘I’m envisioning you still shacked up with Pot-Noodle-pothead … Ugh. Nah. Much prefer grieving girlfriend. It’s an all-round better look for you.’

‘Thanks, hun.’ I put my feet up on another chair crossed at the ankles; I’m sugared out. ‘Can I ask … Did you like Jack?’

‘I only met him once, didn’t I? That night you brought him here. It was boss.’

‘When Gareth got his old karaoke machine out! Such a dark horse.’