‘It’s not. I need to think before I speak.’

He walked over and put a hand on my arm. ‘Annie, don’t police yourself for me. You shouldn’t police yourself for anyone.’ His touch was sturdy and earnest. I felt horrible.

I wanted to make a joke about my mother and how I was raised to police myself for her, but stopped myself. When I pushed myself at school, teachers would note in my reports how hard I could be on myself, and on the way back from parents’ evening once Mum had said, plainly, ‘I wish the results of her being so hard on herself were a little better.’ I wasn’t supposed to hear. She thought I was too far ahead of her and Dad to eavesdrop, but I wasn’t. I heard Dad try to pacify her, saying something about letting me grow in my own time, but I could tell by the sharp hushed tone of her reply that she didn’t like that idea. I was raised to constantly monitor myself, so that I could continue striving to be better than I was.

‘Let’s get ready,’ I said, switching up my voice to a Julie Andrews-esque song. ‘Leave in say, half an hour?’

‘I’ll call down to reception to let Bianca know,’ he replied. ‘And seriously, don’t give what you just said another thought. I won’t.’

The wine tasting was exactly as the movie in my head had played it: huge, cavernous rooms underground with oak barrels and special rooms where the wine had to lie at a specific angle, at a specific temperature. I’d worn a calf-length floral cotton dress that tied at the waist and puffed out at the sleeves, which were short because Bianca had advised us that wearing long sleeves could get in the way of the tastings. My make-up was natural-looking with tinted pink lips, and I’d pulled my hair back at Bianca’s behest, too – she said I’d be thankful of that advice when it came to spitting. I felt cute. It was fun to be dressed up.

Patrick spoke to everyone, asking questions and making friends, and it was true that we must have looked as though we were together as we giggled and made jokes and pointed out cool things to each other, but I didn’t care. Out touring the expansive vineyards, Australian spring sun warming my bones, there was only right now, and right now was lovely, as it happened. If Patrick worried that everyone else on the tour thought we were a couple he didn’t show it, steering me from tasting station to tasting station with a light hand on the small of my back or making faces across the room to make me grin impishly when we were apart. In the ebb and flow of getting to know each other, today we were flowing.