‘Of course, I do, Rosie!’

‘The Rosie, the one who was,’ I close my eyes briefly and concentrate on not clenching my teeth, ‘stood up.’

‘Yeah, the ghostie-ghosted one who walked for miles in her shoes, drank gallons of prosecco, spent hours defuzzing—’

‘Hours thinking about it, not doing it!’ My God, does he think I’m like a monkey?

‘Mates for life and loves jerky.’ He carries on, ignoring my interruption. ‘The gorgeous Rosie Brown!’

I am quite impressed at his recall, but I suppose this is a seduction technique. I’m not sure I can master this aspect; my memory is a bit random at the best of times.

‘Were you being serious?’ I spit it out before I change my mind and hit ‘end call’.

‘I’m always serious where beautiful women are concerned.’

I sigh. ‘No, you aren’t! Can you quit messing about just for one second? You know flattery won’t get you anywhere!’ If he doesn’t stop flirting, I will chicken out, I know I will.

‘Oh Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, you are such a breath of fresh air! A bit like an icy wind at times but refreshing.’ He chuckles again. I can imagine him sitting on the couch, with his feet up on the table. All chilled and casually sexy. Oh, gawd, Rosie, stop! ‘Yep definitely refreshing.’

‘Have you any idea how hard it was to call you?’

‘Nope.’ His voice drops a tone or two, loses a bit of its humorous edge. ‘I’m not hard to talk to, am I?’ He sounds concerned, and I instantly want to reassure him.

‘No.’ He’s not. ‘It’s not hard to talk to you.’ I blink as the realisation hits. He is not at all difficult to talk to, though the subject matter is. ‘It’s just,’ take a deep breath Rosie, ‘were you serious about teaching me how to …’ Oh God, how do I put this?

‘Date?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Definitely.’

‘You’re not too busy?’

‘I wouldn’t have offered if I was. It will be a change.’

‘From what?’ I can hear the note of suspicion in my voice.

‘Proper dating.’

‘Oh.’

‘That might not have sounded good. Rewind. Honest, I do want to help.’

‘Oh.’ This is nice, he sounds sincere, and it would be easy to wriggle out now if he had just been messing. But he’s not trying to. ‘You don’t have lots of houses to design?’

‘Ahh, somebody has been surfing the net. You’re a stalker, too, I knew it!’

‘No, I’m not! I just needed to know you weren’t, well, weird, or a murderer, or bigamist, or …’

‘What did you find out?’ He sounds genuinely interested. Which I suppose I would be, if somebody told me they’d been googling me.

‘Not a lot.’ I try not to groan. ‘You are so annoying! How am I supposed to vet you, to know what you’re like if I can’t find anything out!’

‘Have you learned nothing from gorgeous Gabe? The World Wide Web knows nothing, Rosie. Throw away your passwords, take the reality challenge! Meet me, ask me in person; you know the old-fashioned way.’ I can practically see him, grinning, his eyebrow raised.