Patrick kept a straight face. ‘It was me who taught him that actually,’ he clowned.

I smiled again. I really did feel better now. We sat for a moment, testing my resolve at keeping a brave face. The two men near us had graduated to pulling out their phones, swapping numbers. I looked at the clock on the wall.

‘I should go,’ I said, standing.

Patrick stood up too, and held out a hand. ‘Maybe we’ll bump into each other again.’

‘Maybe we will,’ I agreed, and he walked ahead to hold the door open for me, letting me go through first. ‘I have a ten-class pass, so …’

‘So I’ve got nine more chances of supervising you getting dressed,’ he supplied, cheekily.

I gave him a spirited look.

‘Six, actually. I’ve got six classes left.’

‘Noted.’

He walked me to the side of the road.

‘See you then,’ he said, as I pressed the button for the pedestrian crossing. We both looked at the little red man, waiting for him to change.

‘Thanks for being so kind to me,’ I stuttered, embarrassed all over again to even have anything to express gratitude about. ‘That was very good of you.’

‘I’m a good kind of guy,’ he said, that lopsided grin making another appearance, his eyes sparkling with the mischief I recalled.

‘I remember,’ I said.

The green man sounded, alerting me to the fact that it was safe to cross over.

‘See you,’ I said, and he lifted a hand to wave goodbye, watching me with a smile that I caught only as I turned back to glimpse him one more time over my shoulder, smiling too.

7

‘I thought I’d seek you out in case there were any more jumper-related emergencies today.’

I hadn’t seen Patrick in the bootcamp class. I’d arrived late and it was already dark in the studio, the overhead lights dimmed and the red and blue lights around the edges blaring to get us riled up. I’d rushed straight to my spot as the instructor, in her tiny crop top and shorts, chanted, ‘Push to your limits! How do you know what’s possible if you don’t understand that the only limitation is mental? Go beyond what you ever thought you were capable of!’ If we’d thought D’Shawn knew how to push us past crying point, Sinead knew how to make us cry and also thank her for it.

I was waiting for a green juice by the reception area instead of going straight home – I’d quickly learned, after five classes in six days, that trying to keep moving at full pelt after cool-down was impossible. I needed twenty minutes to just sit and recover, and a green juice was the best excuse for it.