For the first time ever, I want to gag my big sister as she states the obvious as if she’s on speed.

‘And did you ask him what happened with our Matthew and the band?’ she continues. ‘I’d so love to know the real story there. Like, why on earth would Matthew leave Dublin and go back to the sticks over a silly row? It must have been really bad for it all to get so messed up. Ask him, I dare you! You better ask him, Charlotte!’

I don’t want to ask him. In fact, I feel panicky at the very thought of knowing the truth in case it ruins everything. I know it must have been bad – we all know it must have been bad – but I don’t think I want to know any more than that. What if it was Tom’s fault? What if it was so bad that it meant we could never be together?

I glance across at Tom who is thankfully engrossed in conversation with the barman and can’t see the worry in my face.

‘He’s everything I hoped he would be,’ I whisper to Emily, feeling tears of fear prick my eyes at the thought of this all going wrong. ‘I really hope that Matthew can forgive him for whatever it was and see how good we are together.’

My sister gasps in a high-pitched tone.

‘Sorry, I’m just really happy for you,’ she says, getting emotional now, too. ‘I can’t believe you just bumped into him like that. Like, five long years later, too. Kevin, did you know that she has waited five years to find this man? Even the hunks Down Under couldn’t change her mind and believe me, I tried to distract her from him. But look, she was right. It’s fate!’

I wait as my sister and her husband update each other on what Kevin knows and doesn’t know about my five years of pining for Tom.

‘So, anyhow, I just thought I’d check in so that you knew I was alive,’ I say quickly, trying to divert the subject, ‘and to apologize again for abandoning ship last night. I hope Kirsty isn’t too mad.’

I say that with the ultimate tongue in cheek as we both know that Kirsty, as long as she has a man stuck to her face, couldn’t care less if any of us disappeared to Outer Mongolia.

‘She’s worried sick about you.’

‘I’m sure she is,’ I laugh.

Tom comes back to our seat and I feel slightly nervous. Not nervous to be with him in the slightest, but nervous that my sister will let me down by declaring my forever love to him not knowing he is beside me again and he might overhear her.