‘Not at all, and I’m drunk or I wouldn’t even be talking to you.’

‘Wow, you know how to boost a man’s ego.’

‘You don’t need yours boosting! I can tell. Look,’ I study him carefully, ‘okay, you’re fanciable, right?’

‘But you don’t fancy me?’

‘You’re just not my type, that’s all.’

‘Oh.’

‘You can’t be everybody’s type.’ I pat his hand; I feel like I need to reassure him. ‘Oh, I need to go home before I say completely the wrong thing. You see, I don’t know what to say!’

‘No, you don’t, but you’re not shooting off.’ He pulls my stool closer to his so that our knees brush together briefly and I forget all about needing to shoot off. ‘I don’t see the problem.’

‘I’ve not had time to date since Robbie went,’ or the faintest clue how to find a boyfriend, ‘and, I mean, being serious, you can’t just march up to a hot guy and ask him out, can you?’

‘You can’t?’ He looks shocked.

‘Nope. You can’t,’ I say firmly. ‘Can you?’

‘Well yeah, that’s what people tend to do. Well not guys in my case, girls. But I’d be well chuffed if some hot girl came up and asked me out!’

‘Well I don’t do that. I just wanted to date, and Tinder seemed a good way to do it.’

He shakes his head, suddenly serious. ‘Ah, so that’s why it’s such a big deal,’ he says softly. He really has got a nice voice, silky, warm, good for pillow talk. I blink and try and get rid of the picture of pillows, along with sheets and a massive bed, that is in my head. ‘You’re a first-date virgin. You thought this would work if you didn’t have to actually chat somebody up. You could sort it all at arm’s length. No risk of being turned down, no checking out for wedding rings,’ he’s counting things off on his fingers, ‘no chemistry, just hard facts.’

‘Exactly. Reduce the margin of error.’ My voice starts off crisp and tails off. It doesn’t sound brilliant now he’s put it like that.

‘And without knowing whether you’d actually fancy them in real life.’

‘But you see their photo.’

‘This is about looks then.’

‘No, it’s not!’

‘Yes, it is!’ He chuckles and taps the back of my hand. ‘You’ve already said he’s gorgeous.’

‘Well I wouldn’t talk to him if I didn’t fancy him at least a bit, would I?’ I try not to sound huffy.

‘Ahh, but fancying is more than looks, isn’t it? You know, the vibe, the chemistry the being with somebody. Trust me, Rosie, you need real.’

‘But you talk to people, you send messages!’

‘And he said what he thought you wanted to hear. It’s easy when you can sit there plotting it out on the sofa at half-time.’

‘Huh.’

‘Okay.’ He obviously decides it is time to change tack. ‘What gave you the idea in the first place?’

‘Bea. My friend. She came into the bookshop where we work with a dog in her handbag, a little fluffy pompom-like dog.’ Honestly, it really was like a pompom on legs, except it also had a cute button nose and tiny black eyes. And it was in her handbag, that’s how small it was. I found that hard enough to get over at the time, now it seems even more incredible. I wish I could remember exactly how many drinks I’ve had tonight.