I had no idea you were so popular. x

You’d be surprised.

I scroll through eBay as I’m eating. Jess’s birthday’s coming up and I’ve had a brainwave – if I can find her a signed copy of One Day, I think she’d love it. Only reasonably priced signed copies are not that easy to come by. I disappear down an eBay rabbit hole of personalised Game of Thrones T-shirts and diamante dog collars, eating absent-mindedly. There’s no sign of one on there or anywhere else online, so I finish lunch, and take a walk up to the second-hand bookshop. Despite my lack of success online, I have a good feeling they’ll have a copy – they’ve got pretty much everything under the sun stacked up on the shelves there.

‘One Day, you say?’ The bookseller puts down the magazine he’s reading.

‘Yes. It’s for my friend. It’s her favourite.’

I’ve rummaged through the shelves, with no luck.

‘As it happens, you’ve come to the right place.’ He stands up, dusting off his sleeves in a curiously thoughtful manner. He’s wearing tiny, silver-rimmed glasses and looks like he’s stepped out of another century.

He beckons to me to follow him, through a little doorway and into a smaller room, where the air is heavy with that dusty, sweet, old-book smell. He waves to one of the shelves with a flourish.

‘A whole shelf of David Nicholls books, right here. All signed.’

‘Wouldn’t they be better off out on the shelves in the actual shop?’

‘Sell them through a book website,’ he explains, shaking his head.

He wraps it up and I head out of the shop. I sit down when I get back to the house and find myself getting caught up in the story. I can see why she loves it, but God, it’s like a jab in the ribs. All missed opportunities and second chances – appropriate under the circumstances.

By the time I get up, it’s dark. I look out of the window to see a girl walking down Albany Road and for a second I think it’s Jess and my heart leaps, but then she turns to check the traffic before she crosses the road and I realise that no, it’s nothing like her. And I don’t know why, but my brain spins me back to last December when we first met. God, I screwed up there. She’d laughed and wound tinsel round her hair, and we’d chatted about everything and nothing over fajitas and tequila. I could have been in a completely different situation if I hadn’t been such an arse. If I hadn’t fallen into bed with Emma – I groan and run my hands through my hair. If this year’s taught me one thing, it’s that I’m not ever going to be a casual fling sort of person. It’s just too bloody complicated.

I keep thinking about what Rob said. He almost made me believe that if something was meant to be, it was worth all the struggle and the mess and the heartache. And with someone like Jess, I don’t think I’d have to choose between the job and the relationship. She’d get it.

Sod it. When Jess gets back, I’m going to ask her if she’ll come on that walk we’ve been planning, and then we can end up back at our favourite café, and Lona can make us a hot chocolate with rum. And I can give her the book, and – the idea makes me feel a bit sick – maybe I can find a way to tell her how I feel.