There was a pause. I could hear him holding his breath. It was so sweet. But who was I kidding? I’d been just as anxious waiting for him to call and ask me out as he was doing the asking.

‘I’d love to,’ I said, to put him out of his obvious misery.

‘Oh!’ he said, his voice full of surprise as if he’d been expecting me to turn him down, even though it must have been as obvious as an orange in a box of bananas that I was interested. ‘That’s great. So, when’s good for you?’

‘That depends on what we do,’ I replied. ‘If we stay local to me then pretty much whenever you like. If we go out of town, I’ll need to get a babysitter, so that might take a bit longer.’

I had absolutely no idea who to ask to babysit as I so rarely went very far. My mind was already scanning for daughters of friends who were older than Poppy and who she might be prepared to tolerate when he said, ‘I’ll come to you. Saturday?’

I punched the air and did a little dance on the spot.

‘What’s that noise?’ he asked.

Shit. ‘Oh, it’s just the kids messing about. Yes. Saturday could work.’

‘Right, then. I’ll pick you up around seven.’

‘Sounds good,’ I said, hoping he couldn’t hear my grin down the phone. ‘I’ll see you then.’

‘Great!’ He sounded so excited. ‘And Leah?’

‘Yes?’

‘Shall I wear my wave-jumping clothes?’

‘Oh, ha ha!’

He hung up and I grinned for twenty minutes straight. How quickly things had turned around for me. In the space of six short weeks, my life was looking totally different. I had a new best friend who felt as if she’d been part of my life forever, and now I had a geeky but totally adorable boyfriend. Well, maybe that was jumping the gun just a little bit, but that was how this would turn out. I could feel it. Things were all ticking along beautifully.

And then I read the letter.