Elbow-deep in a sink full of suds in our student kitchen, I watched him come in through the back door with my brother Matthew, steal my heart on his way past with his old-school, movie-star-type swagger and I knew my life was never going to be the same again.

My mother used to joke about how I was born cynical, and I was definitely way too sceptical to believe in love at first sight, but this person’s very presence hit me like a bolt of lightning.

He turned my head like no other man had done before, and like none would ever do again.

Tom Farley, with his mega-watt smile, tousled brown hair, dark stubble on a chiselled jawline, the cheekiest dimples you ever did see and bold, devilish eyes of turquoise green, made me weak at the knees. Maybe the attraction was in knowing he was musical, like me. Maybe it was his rugged, ruffled, rough-round-the-edges good looks, or maybe love at first sight did exist and I was now living proof and the latest victim of the old cliché.

Whatever it was, I found myself instantly hooked.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’ my brother Matthew snorted, clearly showing off in front of his new friend. Matthew didn’t have much room to talk when it came to fashion. He was sporting a pair of lilac spray-on jeans with a hideous see-through lemon linen shirt that clashed with his cranberry-coloured hair. Between the two of us, we certainly looked like the circus had come to town.

I glared out the window onto a red brick wall that divided our terraced house from an identical row behind us, turned down James Blunt who was aptly singing his number one hit ‘You’re Beautiful’ and desperately thought of something smart to say in return, but my head was too busy spinning with unadulterated lust.

I was speechless.

My glow-in-the-dark Disney-themed pyjamas with Doctor Marten boots at three in the afternoon was all a bit of an eyesore, but I was a student, on my day off, and how the hell was I to know that the man of my ultimate dreams would pass me by in a whiff of leather and tobacco when I was dressed like a clown?

Yes, Tom Farley, with his air of beauty and superstardom, had just rocked my world and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next, so I ignored my fashion crisis, took a deep breath and dried my hands quickly to go and take a closer look at him.

‘Stick the kettle on, will you Charlie?’ said Matthew when I reached the tiny sitting room where it looked like they were about to set up office. He called me Charlie, which meant he was really showing off now. No one ever called me Charlie. No one was ever allowed to call me Charlie.