I can’t think of anyone else I’d like to talk to right now but then my heart sinks. I can’t really just abandon Emily, Kevin and Kirsty inside even if I do want to run away with him more than anything in the whole world. Could I? And what if I don’t go? Will it be something I’ll regret the rest of my life? Will I never see him again?

‘We could walk around to the front and knock the door to get back in?’ I suggest as a compromise. ‘I really should go back in to my friends. They’ll be wondering where I am.’

He looks deflated now. He licks his lips lightly in defeat.

‘No problem, Charlie. Respect to that. I’ll walk you round to the door.’

I so want to change my mind. What the hell am I thinking? Maybe I’m becoming sensible at long last.

‘Thank you,’ I say to him, but I don’t make a move to go. Maybe I’m not so sensible after all.

He is looking at my lips now, then my chest, then my hair. He is looking at me like he did that day in our student living room in our matching boots when the air was filled with awe and song and music. I feel the blood fizz through my veins, warming me up.

I can almost read his mind through the hunger in his eyes, and my stomach has now joined in on the ‘Boom Boom Pow’ dance. In fact, everything is a little bit dizzy on the inside when I’m standing so close to him.

I gulp. I don’t want him to go. I don’t want to miss this ‘one in a million’ chance again.

‘I’d like to get to know you better this time, Charlie,’ he says. ‘If tonight won’t work, could we meet up some time soon? No pressure, but just see what happens? See if it really is serendipity that we met again tonight?’

The dancing inside me comes to an almighty stop. My heart is thumping. I look up at him. He’s very sexy, especially up this close. He’s Tom Farley. I’ve spent so much time for the past few years fantasizing about this very moment and putting him in my songs.

I breathe.

He breathes too.

The snow is really pelting down now and seeping into where we’re standing under the half shelter.