I want more.

The answer comes with more questions. More what? Why her? Why me?

I move back, out of range, breaking the spell.

‘Are you OK?’ Gemma asks, still leaning forward. I get this picture in my head – as clear as an actual memory – of her, in my bed, under a crisp white sheet, beckoning me back.

Am I OK?

Yeah. More than OK. I want to stay in this moment and not have anything change.

Because what’s better than the time when you know you’re going to sleep with someone, and your body is about to take over, and your brain bursts with hope.

The kicker is that nothing ever lives up to those hopes. After the sex, I am always hollow and desperate to get away from whoever it was I wanted so badly only minutes or hours before.

I don’t want that to happen with Gemma yet. I want this – the hope – to last a bit longer.

The sun’s gone, like a director’s clicked his fingers on our movie. CUT. Kill the lights. You missed your cue.

Gemma moves back now too, a hurt expression on her open face. I want to say: It’s not because I don’t want you, it’s because I really, really do. But that would make no sense.

‘It goes chilly so quickly, doesn’t it, when the sun sets?’ she says. Matter-of-fact, like the weather presenter on local TV. Make sure you take a cardigan or jacket, because despite the heatwave, you’ll feel the chill at dusk.

I don’t have a jacket, so I move the bottles off the smaller blanket and wrap it around her. As the rough wool touches the soft curve of her shoulders and the tanned flesh of her arms, I wish I was touching her instead.

‘They shut the gates soon,’ she says. ‘We don’t want to get locked in.’

The moment for honesty has passed; she’s folding the burrito wrappers into tiny squares and replacing bottle caps. I help her up from the ground, even though I want to draw her down with me and undress her under that blanket and—

‘That was nice,’ she says. Like you’d say to the colleague who brought in value-range supermarket cupcakes for their birthday.

Gemma’s fussing with her dog: busy, busy, busy with the lead. ‘Bear won’t want to go home now, so I have to put it back on to get him to come with us, it’s the only way.’ I can tell she’s embarrassed – humiliated – by what didn’t happen between us.

As we walk out of the park I search for the right thing to say. All my usual lines sound wrong. Not you, it’s me makes me sound like I’d struggle to get it up. I want to take this slowly is something I’ve never said before and it’s not the whole truth.

So we cross the road towards Clifton.

And my arm bumps against hers and, without thinking, I’m reaching for her hand and hers is hot as mine closes gently around it, and she smiles at me and we stay like that, even though it’s awkward over the bridge when we’re going single file, but we don’t let go.