‘Hypothetically speaking. At least, you could have chatted a bit more and seen where it could have gone… drinks, dinner? Bed?’ She grinned and Victoria wasn’t sure whether she was being serious or not.

Sara was relatively new to the bar and they’d started to develop a friendship that was fresh and fun, but with new friendships there was always that lag time of developing a bond, learning to trust, knowing what to say and what to keep secret.

With her tight group of old friends from Devon, Victoria always knew exactly what they meant, what they were thinking, what they were about to say even before they said it. They’d shared years of closeness, had been there for each other during amazing times, bad times and worse, and although they were all spread across the world now – and she missed them so much it made her heart hurt – they still talked as often as they could on group chats. They’d talk her off the ledge or encourage her to take the next step in anything she was considering, even dating, if ever she felt ready to do it again. Sara was great but Victoria knew it was going to take a little more time before she felt as close to her as she did to Zoe, Lily and Malie.

‘Sara, he asked me to marry him, not go on a date. No drinks, dinner or bed. Just cut straight to the ’til death us do part stuff. No thanks.’

‘He looked more like the for richer not for poorer type, though and he might have been fun, which is just what you need right now.’ Sara appeared to be more excited than Victoria was over this. Which was strange, given that proposals did indeed come thick and fast at the end of a drunken night and normally Sara rolled her eyes and bit her tongue. ‘You never know, he might even be The One.’

‘I do know. He isn’t.’ There wasn’t such a thing.

‘Your loss.’ Sara shrugged. ‘All I’m saying is—’

‘It’s time to mop the floors and then we can go home?’ Victoria closed off this conversation about her hapless love life and looked at her watch. Her feet hurt from standing all day and her brain hurt from teaching lovely but demanding teenagers and then managing the bar into the small hours.

‘On it, boss lady.’ While Sara filled the bucket with hot soapy water Victoria looked at the empty seat where the hot guy had been sitting and something in her belly kind of imploded at the thought of him. Which was irritating, because even though her head could rationalize how someone good-looking could have a physical effect that was purely instinctive, her body was going along with it as if he was the answer to her recent sex drought. He wasn’t.