The question shocked me. But so did my answer. ‘I hope not.’ When I looked up at him, then, I realised he was about to cry, and I couldn’t remember a time before when I’d seen him moved to actual tears. This was the man who, when his own grandmother died, had said what a good innings she’d had anyway! Meanwhile, I’d sobbed along with his cow-bag mother. ‘The thing is,’ I started to explain, without fully knowing yet what explanation it was I was about to fling at him, ‘even if we don’t do this, like, even if I say, actually Rowan, the thought of you fucking around with other women makes me wildly uncomfortable …’ And that was it, it was out there. I’d thrown the words into the air between us and, as though breaking a charm that came from hearing it from other people, hearing it from myself hurt a fraction more.

He opened his mouth to speak and I held a finger up to pause him. ‘Even if I tell you it makes me uncomfortable, I’m always going to know that a little bit of you wanted this. Maybe not even a massive bit of you. But … I don’t know, a chunk of the I-Love-Edi in you must have broken away, at least, to wonder what other women are like.’ He looked deeply ashamed and I wanted to comfort him. I hated that. ‘Now, if I say, sure, let’s do it, I have to deal with you sleeping with other women. And if I say, hell no, are you crazy, I just have to deal with knowing you wanted to sleep with other women. And!’ I felt as though something had been uncorked. ‘The other variable, I say no, and you do it, anyway.’

‘Edi, I wouldn’t do th—’

‘What, again?’ The colour slipped from his face. I opened my mouth, as though I could suck the words back in, but I swiftly realised I didn’t even want to. Instead, I added, ‘You have to go into this with eyes open, Rowan, you know that?’

His shame shifted to worry. ‘What do you mean?’

‘If you’re fucking around, then I’m fucking around too.’ I managed to muster a tone that implied much more confidence than I felt. ‘And if one of us meets someone else, the other is just going to have to accept that it’s happened, and that it’s a risk we took.’

‘Edi, we won’t meet someone else.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

He nodded. ‘One hundred per cent sure.’

Then why are we doing this? ‘Well, I hope you’re right. But the venue deposit is refundable?’

‘I mean …’ There was a long beat of silence. ‘I guess, sure, partly refundable.’