Gemma waits for me to say something. It’d be so easy to switch on the charm, keep her here. It’s my superpower. But I mustn’t scare her off. She needs space on her own, so she can understand how right this is.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘But you’ll come right back here after walking him?’

She’s standing up now, but her body still faces mine, like she can’t decide what to do next.

‘No. I need to go home,’ she says quietly. ‘To think. There’s stuff happening in my life that makes this even more complicated than it seems.’

She’s still so close that I can’t help myself. I lean in, and this time we’re closer than before, her body a perfect fit for mine, and fucking hell, she is everything.

I make myself pull away this time because in another ten seconds I won’t be able to. And although my body wants her so much, my brain is telling me to go slow. To savour every bloody moment. ‘Does that simplify things?’

‘The opposite,’ she says. ‘That’s why I have to go. I can’t think straight when I’m near you.’ Gemma turns away and nudges Bear awake. He stands up and shakes, the metal tag ringing against his collar.

‘Can I call you?’ I ask.

‘No, I’ll call you. I need some time,’ she says, and I want to ask, How soon will you call me? even though I have never been the one staring at my phone, waiting for a message, my life on hold.

As she steps into the lift, I want to follow her. But I mustn’t leave Casey on her own and I know I must let Gemma do the running. This is so new. So terrifying.

I stare at the lift doors long after they’ve closed. Anything to stop myself running down the fire-escape stairs to meet her at the bottom and kiss her again. I head back into the living space to tidy up.

Music is the only thing that might distract me. I stick on my headphones, scroll through Spotify, searching for random songs with a heavy beat to jolt me out of moping over Gemma.

‘Another Brick in the Wall’: that’ll do. I crank up the volume, even though it’s bad for my tinnitus.

As I finish loading the dishwasher, the song changes to ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’. Dad loved speeding on the motorway to this one, usually when we were driving away from trouble.

I shuffle forward before it ends, but Spotify must have it in for me, because I keep getting more songs that my father said reminded him of my mum: ‘Up Where We Belong’, ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’. His love of easy listening made me suspicious of sentimental lyrics.

Except right now they make sense for the first time in my life.

I take off the headphones and step onto the terrace. What’s happening to me? I’ve kissed a lot of girls and never felt anything like this.