The wind hits us as we leave the coffee shop, and by mutual consent, we shrug into our coats and scarves. I look over at him as he crams his beanie down over his dark waves. “You never said why you were in there,” I say suddenly.

He pauses and looks at me. “Where?” I gesture impatiently at the coffee shop and he grins. “Having a coffee?” I shake my head, and his smile fades as he stares at me. “Maybe I was doing exactly the same as you, Noah. Maybe I want someone of my own too.”

I stare at him, and a pang hits me in my stomach. It’s always this way. For a while when he’s single, it’s like he’s mine again. His attention, which is like the warmth of the sun when it’s focused on you, is all mine, as are his smiles and easy laughter. Then it’s gone again, focused on another man. I’ve always thought that somewhere there’s an hourglass trickling sand and time away while he’s still mine, and that one day soon the sand will run out and he’ll meet the one. When that happens, his attention will break away from me as surely as if I’m a buoy and he’s cut the rope, leaving me behind, floating in dark water.

I come to with a start to find he’s standing in front of me, closer than before, his eyes dark with some invisible thought. “What is it?” he asks, and I think I detect a tinge of urgency. Then I snap to the brutal reality that this inconvenient burst of awareness of mine is probably freaking him out.

I make myself laugh and step back. “Okay, are you ready for what will probably be the date from hell for you?”

Something that looks very like frustration crosses his face, but then he steps back and it’s gone, and he’s just Sage, my best friend. “Not with you,” he says steadily. “Anything with you is good.”

I swallow hard and pull my beanie down over my hair. “I think it might be safer to leave that comment until after you see what I’m planning,” I say lightly, and he shakes his head.

“I’m not scared. Lead on, Noah.”

Ten minutes later we pause in front of the honey coloured majesty of the Minster. It soars above us and seems to touch the sky. He turns to me. “A church. You’ve brought me to a church for a date.” He shakes his head teasingly. “I’ve got to say, I’m realising why you’re bloody single.”

I shove him good-naturedly. “It’s not the church we’re going into.” I shake my head at his bewilderment. “Follow me.”

He stands outside where I direct him while I nip into the ticket booth in the main entrance and buy our tickets. The Minster is quiet today and dimly lit. For a second I stop to appreciate the ribbons of light streaming through the huge stained-glass windows and falling onto the old stone floor. Then I zip back to Sage and stop abruptly.

He’s graduated from standing alone to talking animatedly to a man in his twenties. The man is gorgeous, with long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a tattoo that creeps up from the neck of his jumper and over his throat. For a second I stand still, shaken by the wave of possessive heat that floods me telling me that Sage is mine. Then I shake my head sadly, because one glance tells me this man is far more Sage’s type than boring, old me.

I stand watching them for a second, noting the way the man is hanging onto Sage’s words, and how he raises his hand and captures Sage’s arm as they talk. Then, to cement the image in my brain, so I don’t start acting like a moron, I make myself look at Sage, only to jerk when I find him looking back at me steadily with an unreadable expression on his face.

He shakes his head at I don’t know what, before saying goodbye to the other man and walking over to me. Oblivious to the man’s gaze fixed on his backside he glares at me.

“Why are you waiting over here?” he says sharply, and I jump.

“You were busy.”

“Not too busy for you. You know that. You should have come over and I could have introduced you.”

“Who is he?”

The question sounds a bit raw, and he blinks. “Noah,” he begins, and I rush into speech before he gets that pitying look.

“He was gorgeous.”

He steps back and something dark crosses his face. “You fancy him?”

“What? No, of course not. He looks perfect for you.”

“Why?” The question is like a gunshot, and I look at him feeling perplexed.

“Well, the two of you look good together. You look the same.”

He folds his arms glaring at me, and I wonder how just five minutes can turn an afternoon to shit. “So, the person who’s perfect for me has to look like me?” he demands.

I raise my hands conciliatorily. “No, that’s not what I meant. Please, Sage, let’s not fight. I just thought the two of you looked like you belonged together. That’s all.”

He stares at me for a very long second, until finally, he shakes his head, laughing under his breath. I look at him and feel relief run through me that he’s smiling again. “Are we okay?” I ask tentatively. “I just bloody hate it when you’re upset with me.”

He frowns and searches my face. “Maybe one day you should ask yourself why that is.”

I open my mouth to ask what the fuck he’s on about, but he holds his hand out for the tickets. “So, show me where we’re going.”

I grin at him. “Up on the roof.”

He steps back and looks at the Minster. “Here?”

I nod enthusiastically. “Have you done it before?” He shakes his head. “It’s amazing. You can see everything.” Then I pause. “Of course, that’s just me.” I hesitate. “You did say to do what we’d like on a date and well…”

He shakes his head, a smile stretching across his face that stops my stuttering. “That’s brilliant. I love it.”

I stare at him. “Are you sure? I know you. It’s not very exciting. We’re not bungee jumping off it, after all. Would you rather do something else?”

“It sounds exciting enough to me, particularly if I throw you off the top for continually questioning whether I’ll like it,” he says, nudging me, and I grin. “Anyway, I’ve always wanted to do it, and Richard never wanted to.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Who cares.” He grabs the tickets from my hand and walks towards the man on the door.

I catch his arm and try to ignore the feeling of hard muscles under my hand. “It’s high and quite a climb.”

“Are you implying that I’m not fit?” he says almost flirtatiously, and I look down at his body intending to make a joking remark. But the words die in my throat as I take in his lean length, the muscles in his thighs and the wide shoulders. He clears his throat and I jerk, realising I’ve just been ogling him like he’s the last steak at Morrison’s. However, when I look up, I’m caught and held by the darkness in his eyes and the way he licks his lips. For a long second, we stand there unmoving and caught in some dark undertow. Then the security guard clears his throat, and I blush as I realise that I’m probably going to hell for perving over my best friend in a church.

I shake my head and move towards the waiting man. “Come on. Let’s climb.”

He follows me, and we start to climb the steep, winding stone steps, worn smooth by generations of people. They curve away and out of sight, lit only by the sunlight that seeps through the narrow windows.

“I thought you said it was a steep climb,” he says, nudging me.

I just smile.

Twenty minutes later we emerge at the top into the blissful cold air. “Good grief,” he says faintly, leaning against the wall and sucking in harsh breaths.

“It is… a bit… steep,” I manage to get out, before collapsing into a sprawl on the floor.

He looks at me and snorts.

“What?” I ask.

“I’m actually mortified that we had to move over so that old couple could get by.”

I choke out a laugh. “Christ, she was moving quicker than I did when I was ten.”

“Babe, you’re no Usain Bolt. A tortoise moves quicker than you in the mornings.”

“It does not,” I start to say, and then shrug. “You’re probably right.”

He slides down next to me and slings his arm companionably around my shoulders. I try not to notice the warmth and the scent of bergamot, and attempt to focus on his words. “So, what did we risk life and limb for then?”

I lean back, feeling the cold wind on my face. “I’ll show you when I’m in less danger of throwing up in my mouth.”

He laughs and we sit in a familiar silence that is always comfortable with him, until we can breathe properly again. Then by mutual consent, we both rise and move to the barrier.

The wind hits us in the face like a slap. “Jesus,” he gasps. “This is amazing.”

I smile affectionately at him. It really is, and totally worth the incipient heart attack. York is spread out below us like a model town. Tiny shops and houses crowd around the Minster like sheep seeking shelter from the storm, while minute cars crawl along the roads, and in the distance, a church bell rings.

After a few minutes, my attention is drawn to him as ever. He’s leaning easily against the rail, his face flushed by the cold and his eyes are busy. “What do you think?”

He laughs and turns to me. “It’s wonderful. I can’t believe I’ve lived in York all my life and never done this.”

“Not too high?”

He shakes his head, smiling wryly. “Seeing as I tackled climbing on your mum’s shed roof when I was seven, I think I can handle the Minster.”

He turns back to his contemplation of the view, while I enjoy the opportunity to look at him unnoticed. I smile to myself because I still vividly remember the day I met him.

I was in the garden hunting for a species of plant my mother was testing me on. She’d given me the Latin name, along with a picture and a time limit, but as I was seven I’d been easily distracted by the sunshine and insects and a frog I’d found by the pond. I was lying on the ground staring at the frog when I heard a psfft.

Looking around I didn’t see anyone, but then the noise came again and I realised that it was coming from above me. I looked up and gasped when I saw a small, dark haired boy clinging to the roof of the shed and looking at me.

“Who are you?” I asked, and he gave me a gap-toothed grin.

“I’m Sage. We just moved in next door, and my mum said there was a boy the same age as me living next door.”

“That’s a funny name,” I said honestly and rather rudely, but he just smiled.

“You haven’t met my mum. When you do, you’ll understand our names.”

“Our names? Have you got brothers and sisters?”

“Two brothers called River and Kemp.”

“Oh, I wish I had brothers.”

“You can have mine,” he said wryly.

“Why? Don’t you get on?”

He shrugged casually, and then gripped tightly when he slid a little on the roof.

“Oh, be careful,” I hissed, and moved to stand by the shed and stare up at him. “Are you okay?”

“Not sure,” he said casually. “I think I might be stuck.”

“Stay there,” I urged, and ran to get the stepladder. “Why didn’t you come and knock at the door?” I asked, as he climbed down.

“Your mum looked a bit scary,” he gasped out. “And the hedge between the houses is too high for me to climb, so that just left the shed.”

He got to the bottom of the steps and grinned at me. He was slightly shorter than me, with wild dark hair, freckles and a wide grin that stretched his face and made his smile almost manic. I felt an instant warmth towards him which puzzled me as I was a fairly solitary child. My mother was extremely strict and scarily focused on me since my father had left, and consequently I didn’t have many friends who were on her approved list.

“Is that a frog?” he gasped in excitement, and immediately threw himself down in front of the startled creature. I stared after him for a minute, before deciding to ignore my mother’s commands and plopped myself down next to him.

I never realised I had found my soulmate that day, and a thorn in my mother’s side that delights me still. I followed him blindly and adoringly through every adventure and mishap his agile mind could conjure up, and in return he showed me the side of me I wasn’t aware was there – the daring and funny side.

I never once regretted the day I’d got him a ladder to climb down, although sometimes I wished I could, when the feelings I had for him threatened to drown me, and he went merrily on with conquest after conquest. My mother tried to ban him from the house many times, but I stood firm because where he was, then so was I.

He turns to me and breaks into my thoughts. “What are you thinking about?” he asks, moving closer to me.

“My mother,” I say wryly.

His nose wrinkles immediately. “What a lovely thought. I’d better hold your arms in case you want to jump off.”

I laugh. “It’s not that bad.” He raises an eyebrow, and I laugh involuntarily. “Let me rephrase. It’s not that bad, because I haven’t seen her for longer than half an hour at a time in months.”

“How is Hitler’s Handmaiden, anyway?”

I shake my head. I made peace a long while ago with my mother’s ways, and he has a right to take the piss, as my mother was utterly poisonous to him when we were growing up. “We’ve found an uneasy middle ground,” I say, and he looks at me in query. “I do my own thing and provided she refrains from criticizing, I’ll still visit her. She doesn’t have quite as much to say as she used to.”

“She must find that difficult,” he muses. “If she was organising Brexit, the Europeans would have set fire to the Channel Tunnel long ago.”

I snort and shove him gently. “How’s your mum then? I haven’t seen Tallulah in ages.” I smile at the thought of his colourful, happy-go-lucky mother.

“She looks exactly the same as ever,” he says calmly. “She’s so stoned most of the time I think she’s managed to halt the passage of time. L’Oreal will be calling her soon.”

I laugh. “Because she’s worth it.” I shake my head. “How did we ever turn out so fucking normal?”

“Because we had each other,” he says quietly, and something in his voice catches my attention. “When our mums fucked up we always had each other to turn to.”

“Always,” I echo, and smile before turning to face the view again. I take a deep breath.

“Why here?” he suddenly says, and when I turn back it’s to find him staring at me. “Why do you love it?”

“Because it’s clear and quiet,” I say slowly. “Because I can breathe here. And because some things never change, even though everything else does.”

I almost expect him to joke, but he’s always been strangely attuned to my moods. Others might have filled the silence with chatter and moved ahead of me. He just stands next to me with his shoulder bumping me comfortably. The bells of the Minster begin to ring, and amid the cacophony of sound we stand together and look out companionably.