‘Good talk,’ he said, and I thought that was the last of it. Then he turned and winked as he told me: ‘I can’t lie. I had to alleviate a bit of the tension last night too, by the way.’

I squealed and threw a pillow at him, but he moved too quickly and closed the door, forcing it to hit the wall with a thud before landing on the carpet.

28

We spent the next few days ticking off all the tourist spots Sydney had to offer – we saw a musical version of American Psycho at the opera house, as well as a proper opera about Elizabeth the First having to choose between her heart and her country. The food scene in Sydney was remarkable. There were tons of places with amazing Asian dishes, and we got stuck in to Sydney rock oysters one lunchtime in the harbour, washed down with a bottle of wine, and I’d tried Vegemite for the first time (it was a thumbs down from me, but Patrick purchased six jars to take home with him because he loved it so much). I had a newfound obsession with Tim Tams, and the concierge at the hotel told us to order our burgers with beetroot on, because apparently that was the thing to do.

We clocked up a morning cooking class, a walking tour, the Museum of Sydney, a harbour boat tour, afternoon tea at the Queen Victoria Building, and took the ferry out to Manly to explore the promenade. No two people in the history of people had ever Sydney-ed as hard as Patrick and I Sydney-ed. In fact, for five days we Sydney-ed so hard that from eight in the morning until ten at night we barely had time to directly talk to one another except to point something out on the skyline or to ask the other to pull out their phone to look at the maps function. And in between it all, the kissing kept happening.