Every bed is narrow.

When I’d first read those words in a little white book, I’d thought they meant that any bed you share with another person feels too small. Even in the early days of our relationship when I couldn’t get enough of his body or his conversation, I’d wished Gabe would sleep somewhere else at night and not next to me. I’d have suggested it, but you’re not supposed to. People who are in love are meant to want to sleep side by side, so I tried to want to. It took me more than a year to work out that Gabe’s intermittent snoring was the perfect excuse to make a case for separate rooms.

‘B and Bs more than hotels, probably,’ said Charlie. ‘I have to try and keep costs down. If we’re travelling all over the country, we’re going to need to sleep somewhere – unless you want to start from the Culver Valley every morning.’

‘No. Sorry. Hadn’t thought it through.’

‘Are you okay?’ She peered at me.

Totally, and not at all would have been an honest answer. For as long as I could remember, I’d been absolutely fine and a complete mess.

‘If it’s okay, I don’t want to stay in any of the hotels I stayed in before, when I gigged in those towns. I don’t like going back to old haunts if I can avoid it.’

‘Fine. I’ve got the list from your agent of where you stayed while on tour. I’ll avoid places you’ve been before. Chances are they’re beyond our budget anyway.’

‘And we’ll have our own rooms? I mean, separate? No twin rooms to save money?’

‘Of course not.’

Thank God for that.

‘Once we’ve identified the event venue we’re looking for, we’re also going to need to go to whichever hotel you stayed in – the narrow bed hotel – to check it’s the right one.’

That was the main one I didn’t want to revisit. Damn.

‘Simon wants to know for sure. He said you should positively identify both: venue and hotel.’

This was an opportunity, I told myself, to learn a hard lesson: namely, that you couldn’t have everything you wanted all the time. All you could do was force strangers to buy you your favourite kind of crisps and pretend that was all your dreams come true at once.

‘You’re not keen to revisit the hotel?’ Charlie asked me. ‘How come?’

‘It was hardly the Savoy.’

‘We can just walk in, you say, “Yes, this is where I stayed,” then we walk out.’

We could walk in? Was she going to insist on coming into the room with me? God, that would be embarrassing. Unless …