If you're concluding from this that I was in love with this girl, then you'd be wrong. There was definitely an attraction there – from my point of view anyway – and we'd always got on extremely well. But there were two things that had always held me back. One: I was still in love with someone else, although after two years I knew my ex-wife Yvonne was never going to take me back. And two: I would never have met Jenny if it hadn't been for the fact that she'd been my best mate Dom's girlfriend. Because of this we'd only ever spent time together in situations where Dom was present, and since they were no longer an item, we'd lost touch. Until now.

It could have been a brief throwaway conversation, the kind people who don't really know each other have all the time, but I'd been feeling pretty lonely lately, and maybe it was the booze too, because the attraction that had probably always been there began to kick in again, and pretty hard too. So, as we shouted in each other's ears over the noise and I caught the soft scent of her perfume, I took the plunge and asked her if she fancied going somewhere else.

To be honest, I wouldn't normally have been so forward, but again, I think it was the booze. I wasn't expecting a yes either. The chances were she was here with friends who were more reliable than Ramon, and she wasn't going to leave them to go off with her ex-boyfriend's mate.

But she said she would.

And in that one moment, my fate was sealed.

We went round the corner to a quieter, more traditional pub where there were plenty of spare tables. I bought the drinks – sparkling water for me, a dry white wine spritzer for her – and we caught up on things.