Last gig of the 2009 tour, and I had my usual spot near Danny’s mum. I say usual spot – we tended to be moved around for each gig – always near the front at the sides, but alternated between being nearest Tom and nearest Dougie. Sharing favours equally I guess. The families of the other band members joined us from time to time, but it was only Danny’s mum who was there for every show.

And me.

It’s a strange sort of life as a popstar’s boyfriend, especially when the management refuses to let him admit his sexuality in public. I get free copies of all the magazines they appear in, which usually just fills up the recycling box. The occasional one with really good pictures I keep – there was a rather fun one from ’06 in Rolling Stone magazine which had the four of them (tastefully) nude – I keep it mostly because I like to see how much he’s changed. They looked so bloody young back then.

So, Nottingham Arena, 2009. Almost four years to the day since I first saw him, making roughly two and a half years since we first met. Two years, one month and four days since I kissed him. Two years, one month and two days since he apologised for punching me and then kissed me.

Onstage, they’d just finished playing Farewell, one of those soulful songs Tom had got so good at. I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket. New message. Fletch: get backstage ASAP. (I never did work out how to make my phone do capitals when I wanted it to, which considering I’d had it roughly six years by that time wasn’t exactly impressive. Although the fact it hadn’t broken yet was impressive). I got up just as the first notes of Five Colours started and the crowd erupted. No problem getting past security – I’d been given an all-access pass. It took me a few minutes of wandering before I found Dougie, hair gelled back with a pony-tail in his fiftieth hairstyle of the past five years.

“Hey, I was looking for Fletch…”

“Yeah, don’t worry about that, come with me, I borrowed Fletch’s phone.”

He put a hand on my arm and pretty much dragged me through the backstage area to the stage left door (that means from the point of view of the audience, the door on the right).

“Look, what’s going on?”

“You trust me, right?”

“Right now? Not really.”

We were at the top of the six steps up onto the stage now, a sea of people in front of us.

“Danny!” Dougie yelled, attracting Danny, who beckoned. Dougie pushed me forwards with a final “not a word about Fletch’s phone,” and I was on my own. A stage never seemed so bloody big. I’d been onstage before, but only in rehearsals when there was no crowd. Why the hell did Danny have to be the one at the centre?

“And now a special announcement from the mouth of Danny Jones,” came Dougie’s whispered voice over the loudspeakers. I was getting freaked out, still Danny was beckoning me forwards…  It seemed like an hour before I got there and he flung his arm around me. He reeked of sweat, and I could feel the moisture soaking through the back of my shirt from his arm.

“Everybody, I’d like you to meet Matt. Say hi, Matt,” he said, thrusting the microphone in my face.

“Er… hi.” My voice seemed to echo forever throughout the arena in the almost complete silence.

“Now, some of you know this, some of you think it, most of you don’t have a clue. I’m gay. Matt here is my boyfriend. He’s here today so I can do this.”

He dropped to one knee. I couldn’t speak.

“Matt.” He said. I could barely hear him over the noise of my heartbeat. “Marry me.”

I don’t know how long I was frozen for. I saw his expression cloud with doubt and fear. He… he wanted to marry me, and he wanted the whole world to know it…

Whispers started in the crowd. The big projection screens seemed stuck on us. I found some words.

“Danny… get up you daft loon.” Not very good words, but… He stood, his lower lip trembling slightly as he looked at me. Pleading.

“Danny… I love you. Of course I’ll marry you.” His face lit up and a moment later his lips were pressed against mine, his sweat soaking through the front of my shirt this time. Tom, Dougie and Harry were the first to cheer, but within seconds the entire arena exploded in applause. My lips left his by a fraction.

“Couldn’t do it small could you?”

“No. Wanted the world to know.”

I cast a sidelong glance at the audience.

“I think it knows.”

“Good.”

A moment.

“You realise they’re filming this?”

“Let them.”

And with that, his lips were back against mine, and I was swept away to heaven.