The snow starts just outside the city, big lazy flakes drifting across the windscreen like they’ve got nowhere better to be. The heater hums, the car smells faintly of pine from the little tree you hung on the mirror, and some old crooner is going on about chestnuts on the radio. My hands are warm on the steering wheel of the Range Rover, one of yours tucked between my thighs because you’re always cold.

It feels unreal, driving like this. No cameras. No security cars. No schedule that’s eating me alive. Just you and me and a boot full of bags, on the way to Holmes Chapel for Christmas.

A few days ago I walked off that stage for the last time with the boys, at least for a long while. Eighteen months, they say. Hiatus. I call it finally breathing. I’m twenty-one, and for the first time in years my calendar is bloody empty. I get to be a son. A boyfriend. A person. And God, I’ve missed that.

We’ve been us for over a year and a half now. Since 2013. Since frantic flights and hotel rooms and stolen hours that never felt like enough. You stay when everyone expects you to get tired of me being gone. You stay when the papers decide I’m some heartless womaniser instead of a lad who just doesn’t know how to sit still. I don’t say it enough, but I carry it with me all the time, how grateful I am for you choosing me anyway.

London disappears behind us mile by mile. Up north the world turns quieter, whiter. I keep thinking about Mum’s house, how warm her hugs are, how Robin will probably make some terrible joke the second we walk in. How Gemma will pretend she’s not excited and then steal you from me within five minutes. It all feels close enough to touch.

Then the dash gives a strange shudder. At first I think it’s the road. Then the engine coughs, once, ugly and wrong, and every cheerful note on the radio becomes background noise to the knot tightening in my chest. “Come on, love,” I mutter, more to the car than anything else. It doesn’t listen.

I manage to coast us onto the shoulder just as the engine gives up properly. Snow gathers on the bonnet like it’s been waiting for permission. For a few seconds there’s only the sound of the wind and the ticking of hot metal cooling down. I blow out a breath and glance at you. You’re calm. You’re always calm. It keeps me steadier than I like to admit. “I’ll have a look,” I say, already pushing the door open.

The cold hits me like a slap. Snow soaks straight through my clothes as I pop the hood and stare into the mess of metal like it might suddenly explain itself. I’m a pop star in skinny jeans and a half-open shirt, pretending I know what I’m looking for under the bonnet of a bloody Range Rover. I poke at something that seems hot and immediately regret it. “Yeah,” I sigh to the empty road, “that’s not helpful.”

There’s no fixing this with good intentions and nice hair. I fish my phone from my pocket, fingers clumsy with the cold, and ring the roadside service. The line crackles. The bloke on the other end sounds exhausted already. “We’re snowed under tonight,” he tells me. “Could be a bit.”

“Yeah,” I say, watching the flakes thicken in the air, “I gathered.”

I give him our location, thank him, end the call. By the time I slam the hood shut my hands are numb and my curls are dusted white like I’ve aged forty years in five minutes.

Back inside, the heater wraps around me again. The little screen on the dash flicks over to the parking heater, a small miracle. The car becomes our bubble once more, shut off from the weather and the world. I shake the snow from my jacket, laugh at myself under my breath, and turn fully toward you. “I’ve called someone,” I say gently. “But with all the snow we might be waiting a bit, yeah?”