It was only a few steps from the pub to the cottage, but when I woke the next morning on the sofa, under a blanket and with a plastic bucket – thankfully empty – next to me, I couldn’t remember taking a single one of them. Unfortunately, the embarrassing end to my time inside the pub premises couldn’t be so easily blocked out and I rolled over and pulled the blanket over my head as I shamefully recalled just how close I had stupidly come to trying to kiss the man who was dating my wonderful new BFF.

When I woke again, I had a shower, attempted to eat a round of toast and swallowed down the painkillers I should have taken before I fell asleep. I pottered about for a bit trying to keep busy and inventing jobs that didn’t need doing, but it was no good. By the time I found myself thinking about de-scaling the kettle, I knew the game was up and I couldn’t put the inevitable off any longer.

‘Hope,’ I said as I stumbled over the pub threshold, but still keeping my sunglasses firmly in place. ‘Are you feeling any better?’

‘Much,’ she beamed, ‘thanks. And clearly better than you. Good night, was it?’

‘Tess,’ said Sam, appearing before I could answer and carrying two plates groaning under the weight of a hefty Sunday lunch. ‘I wasn’t excepting to see you today.’

‘Let me serve these,’ said Hope, quickly taking the plates from him. ‘Which table are they going to?’

Once she had gone, I hopped up behind the bar and followed Sam to the kitchen.

‘Look,’ I said, not going fully into the room, ‘about last night . . .’

‘What about it?’ he said, picking up a carving knife and making short work of a massive joint of beef.

‘You know what,’ I said, feeling both too hungover and embarrassed to spell out the incident which had almost, but thankfully not quite, happened.

‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I do and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

From what I could remember, he hadn’t said anything much and I was the one who was supposed to be apologizing. I was the one who had very nearly caused us to kiss.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m the one who’s sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Neither do I,’ he said, briefly looking up. ‘Know what came over me, I mean.’

Although I wasn’t sure why he was feeling so guilty about something I had instigated, it did make apologizing a little less mortifying.

‘So,’ I tentatively asked, ‘can we just forget about it then?’

‘No one’s going to hear about it from me,’ he said resolutely, ‘and besides, nothing happened, did it?’

‘That’s right,’ I agreed, standing a little taller, ‘absolutely nothing happened.’

I shrugged off the thought that it so easily could have.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘great.’