He laughs and moves until we can kiss properly again. Time fades away to his mouth, the occasional extra sensation of the cold silver of his lip piercing, his stubble, his hands, how good he makes me feel, and I quickly realise we could sit here all night, completely lost in kissing, and we’ll both regret it when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning.

It must come across in my body language because he pulls back with a reluctant noise. ‘Why do I know what you’re thinking?’

‘Because you helped me stack all those trees on the driveway earlier and you know as well as I do that they’ve got to be loaded into the back of your truck at silly o’clock in the morning, and you’ve got a competition to win, and I care about you too much to not let you get any sleep tonight.’

He sinks back against the bench and lets out a groan. ‘You think I can sleep after that?’

I giggle nervously because sleep is the last thing on my mind too. But given how much I want to straddle him again and pick up where we left off, I force myself to be the sensible adult that I supposedly am, and tear myself away. ‘Come on. I can see how tired you are and it’s well past two o’clock now. My alarm’s set for five and I know you well enough to know that yours will be even earlier.’

He grunts as I disentangle our hands and place his gently back on his lap before I push myself upright and step out of the sleigh.

‘I’m not sure if I love you more for making me feel like this or for taking care of me.’ His head is still resting on the back of the bench, his eyes are closed and his voice is slurred and sleepy.

The empty mugs clang together as I gather them up, the noise making me jump as much as the words do. Obviously it’s just a figure of speech. He doesn’t love me at all, not for either reason. We’ve only known each other for a few weeks. I chew my lip as I stand there watching him, waiting for him to jump up and frantically backpedal, but he doesn’t move.

He’s too tired to have his defences up and it makes me smile to myself because Noel not constantly guarding himself and second-guessing his every word is as rare as a red banana.

I put the empty mugs back on the tool cupboard by the door and pick up the empty biscuit packet, loving that between us we’ve polished off the whole lot and thought nothing of it. There’s nothing better than a man who can appreciate a good biscuit.