‘You can cling on to his manly body.’ She chuckles. ‘Though you have to admit, if you survive that then it will make dating people a piece of piss.’

‘Very nicely put,’ I say, madly googling ‘rope climbing’. ‘Frig, you could be right.’ My heart is pounding as I look at the website with the tag line ‘go wild’. I put my phone down. I feel sick. ‘Let go of control AKA scare myself shitless.’ I am now feeling weak at the knees for totally different and unromantic reasons. ‘I think I’d rather he just tied me up,’ I say glumly.

Bea laughs. ‘You’re funny.’

‘You know I don’t like it!’ This doesn’t date from some experience in my childhood. It’s like spiders. But less irrational. Falling from heights can hurt you. I’ve seen enough murder movies to know that.

‘I know.’ She smiles softly at me. ‘But you do trust him, don’t you?’ She says encouragingly.

‘Well, yeah, but …’ I do. I have never trusted anybody in my life like I do Noah. Something about him makes me feel safe in some deep-down part of me.

‘Then try it. What can go wrong?’

‘I die?’

‘These places don’t let people die, except—’ She grins. ‘Except in extreme circumstances, or,’ she pauses, ‘sabotage.’

‘Thanks, I feel much better now. I think,’ I stir my coffee slowly, ‘I need to get another date quick. I can tell him I don’t need to do the ropes!’

‘But you haven’t got a date!’

‘I’ll pretend!’

‘You could just say no.’ Bea is giving me her piercing look.

‘He might dump me.’

‘Ha!’ It’s a triumphant shout which I choose to ignore. I carry on calmly, reasonably. ‘This isn’t about you needing dating help, you’re scared of losing him, aren’t you?’

‘No.’ I am. If it wasn’t for the party, then I’d be willing these lessons to take longer. I’d be a klutz of a student, demanding extra sessions. I suppose if I do fail at getting a date, and he does come with me as my ‘fake date’ then it will mean that we carry on doing this for a bit longer. But then that will complicate life soooo much, and I’ll be lying to my mum.

‘Admit it! Oh Rosie.’

‘Don’t oh Rosie me,’ I say crossly.

‘Well just say no to him.’ She sits back. It sounds like a challenge.

‘Okay, I like seeing him. Satisfied?’ She waits for me to carry on. Bloody hell, this is frustrating. ‘I’m using him to pretend, aren’t I? While he’s in my life I’m stalling; I’m not having to go out and do it for real.’

‘Or you’re hoping?’

‘Will you just drop it? We’re not compatible, you know that. There is no way I’d date him for real, we’re friends.’ Except since he told me about Jed and his view of falling in love, and since I chatted to Mum and realised I need to be braver, and since it started to dawn on me that Dad never coming home wasn’t my fault, and that even Mum believes that faithful and fun aren’t mutually exclusive … since all of that I’ve had a little niggle in my head saying that maybe dating Noah wouldn’t be such a totally bad idea after all.