‘Ah man, now you’ve just locked us both out! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting out here for someone to open that damn door?’

‘Sweet Jesus, you scared me!’ I gasp in reply to my companion who I now realize is sitting in the shadows.

‘Sorry, but we’re going to have to wait now until the next smoker comes out if we want to go inside.’

I get my breath back and turn towards the husky American accent that comes from my right. My unlit cigarette waves around and points to the heavens, my feet are still dancing a little bit too ambitiously. I’m in slippery electric blue cowboy boots, which I now know are certainly not the best footwear when there’s snow on the ground, but I should be more concerned that I’m stuck in a back yard with a stranger who seems more than a little pissed off at me right now.

‘You really shouldn’t jump out on people like that!’ I reply, straining to get a better look at him, and trying to match his tetchy mood. ‘I could have fallen over and broken my ankle and that would not have been—’

‘Charlie?’

My heart stops. He just called me Charlie. No one ever calls me Charlie except my brother when he’s showing off or …

‘Tom? Tom Farley?’

I must be imagining things. This cannot be real. I take a step back and put my hand to my chest, saying a prayer that this isn’t some prank or messed-up dream like so many I’d had down the years since I last heard his voice.

I walk closer, towards the silhouette, and I lose my breath when I see his face.

That voice – how could I not have recognized it after playing it over in my mind for so long? Those eyes that I’ve imagined staring back at me just once more, those lips, that hair, those arms I’d longed to hold me.

It is him. It can’t be. I don’t understand.

‘Tom Farley?’ I say again.

He nods. ‘How the hell did this happen?’ he asks me, just as flabbergasted as I am.

I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t be that drunk, can I?

I’m locked out of a bar in the back end of nowhere, on a freezing cold night in December, and the one person I find in the same position is the one person I’ve been basing my whole imaginary future for five whole years upon, even though deep down I thought I’d never see him again.