I gulped and tried to compose myself in front of this absolute hunk of burning love who was now looking at me just as eagerly as I was at him. Late twenties, I guessed, no wedding ring which was a good start and, despite his bourbon rock-star looks, he had an air of shyness mixed with an inner confidence that made him all the more attractive. I could feel his eyes burn through me, so I looked around the room instead of directly at him to try to keep my cool.

‘Well, I would stick the kettle on, but I was just about to go—’

‘Where?’

Nowhere was the answer. I was about to go nowhere but there was no way I was going to be treated as the tea lady in this whole operation without a proper introduction.

A heap of vinyl with names I’d never heard of was stacked in the middle of the brown carpet, the room stank of stale, spilt beer and weed, while a cactus plant we’d named Jarvis Cocker (because it had prickles) looked as gloomy as the winter weather outside, but Tom Farley brightened up everything in my dull-as-dishwater world. Who was he? Why was he here? My brother was in the process of forming some sort of new age rock band, so I gathered they were here to talk business.

‘I’m OK for tea, thank you … Aren’t you going to introduce us, Matt?’ asked the dreamboat on the sofa and my mouth dropped open when I heard his voice for the first time.

He had the most delicious, gravelly, deep American-Irish accent, which sounded so deeply mysterious in comparison to my own plain old Irish twang. This man, this absolutely gorgeous being, was becoming more appealing by the second.

‘Oh, sorry, this is Tom Farley, our drummer in Déjà Vu,’ said Matthew, finally remembering his manners. ‘He’s probably the best drummer in Dublin.’

Probably the best-looking drummer in Dublin, I’d have added to that sentence, not that I knew many drummers in Dublin or anywhere else for that matter.

Tom held up his hands in a display of modesty.

‘Tom, this is my sister, Charlotte. The bossy baby of the house I was telling you about,’ said Matthew.

I nodded a hello, not knowing whether to thump my brother for calling me bossy, even though it was him telling me to ‘stick the kettle on’, or to hug him for bringing this piece of heaven into my life. Then I stuttered out a proper hello and giggled in a girly way that made me want to thump myself.

‘Nice boots,’ said Tom the drummer, looking me up and down. ‘Snap.’