I duck down Gas Ferry Road, alongside Aardman Animation and Tamsyn’s studio, and come out by the place Bethany’s talking about, which is basically a shed on the waterfront. As I reach the river, a girl with a swishy blonde ponytail in a kayak speeds past. Bethany and Joe are doing short sprints and then pausing. Joe is holding a phone that beeps when the intervals start and stop; I figure he must be her personal trainer. He’s wearing baggy black shorts and nothing else: he’s completely ripped. I hate him already. Bethany is in Lycra and a baseball cap and shades, as if she really is famous and might be papped at any second. I sit on a stone bench with the espressos and wait for them. When they stop for a few seconds in between their shuttle runs, Bethany drapes an arm around Joe’s shoulders and takes a photo of the two of them. He’s glistening with sweat, she’s all cleavage popping out of her sports bra, the sun sparking off the edge of her Oakleys. Joe pulls away and counts more loudly to the next interval, as if he’s annoyed with her for not taking this seriously.

When they’re done, they jog over, breathing heavily.

‘Hi, I’m Joe,’ he says, putting out his hand to shake mine. ‘Thanks for the coffee. Can I give you some cash?’

Bethany waves this away on my behalf. So he’s polite as well as good-looking; he has brown, curly shoulder-length hair, large dark eyes that slope down at the corners, designer stubble and a massive grin. He looks like a puppy and it’s impossible to dislike him, especially as he pulls a T-shirt out of his back pocket and puts it on, so that I don’t have to stare at his abs. I can’t remember ever actually seeing mine, even when I was a kid.

‘We’ve got another half an hour to go,’ says Bethany, taking a sip of coffee. ‘Got to get my money’s worth,’ she adds, elbowing Joe. She finishes sending the photo to Instagram and shows us the picture. The likes are already flooding in. She has one of those blue ticks next to her name, so you know she’s the real Bethany Flowers, and she’s got more than 100K followers.

‘It’s not like you to be sociable at this hour.’ She looks at me pointedly, as if to say, Or after all this time. ‘It’s the anniversary, isn’t it? It’s coming up soon.’

I nod, my throat suddenly dry. I tell her about our plan, to go away together to Italy.