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‘And these two are very entertaining together.’ Tick. ‘Plus I found out Tristan’s pet name for you was Tooky.’ He holds up four fingers. ‘Are four reasons enough evidence?’

‘You need a fifth one before I can officially accept you might be having fun,’ I say.

He drops his hand, and lets it rest near mine. ‘Number five. Pretending to be your boyfriend isn’t the worst thing in the world,’ he says. He’s looking at me like he’s trying to gauge my reaction to that comment, and it makes me swallow nervously. I glance away.

‘Okay, good, five solid reasons,’ I say, still not looking at him.

Across from us, Tristan gestures wildly and his beer sloshes onto my shoe.

‘Tooky, I’m sorry!’ he yells. Henry kneels down to wipe it with a clean tissue he pulls out of his pocket, despite my protests that he really doesn’t need to do that.

‘I can fix this for you,’ Henry mumbles, looking up at me with big drunk eyes as he runs the tissue over my shoe. I resist the urge to pat his head like he’s a sweet-tempered dog, and I help him get up again because he seems a little unsteady.

‘How much time have you spent in your life managing other people’s drunkenness?’ Jesse asks, when I settle back against the couch beside him.

‘A fair bit.’

He doesn’t know about Lauren, not really, or Dad, so he doesn’t know the true extent of it.

‘Were you happy, at school?’ he asks. His eyes are so serious.

‘I was. Sometimes.’ I pause, and look at him. ‘I think I was pretty lonely at school but I didn’t realise the feeling was loneliness because I was surrounded by people all the time.’ The confession slips out, like water through the cracks in a dam. He’s causing cracks in me.

‘Yeah. I know that feeling,’ he says.

‘You do?’

‘I felt like that at home.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’ There’s a beat, where we just look at each other. Jesse looks away first this time.

Henry suddenly leans towards us.

‘Do you want to hear my comedy set?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ says Tristan emphatically.

‘Oh, we definitely do,’ Jesse grins.

‘Okay. It’s not, like, edgy or anything,’ Henry says, pressing his hands together anxiously.

‘We don’t need edgy,’ I assure him. I almost want to hug him. I suspect he and I operate with similar levels of anxiety humming through our brains.

Jesse reaches out and holds my hand while we listen, sliding his fingers between mine. It really feels like we’re a couple, that we’ve been a couple for a long time, while also feeling like the most new, exciting, delicious secret in the world.

I lean into him a little more. The feel of his hand against mine is irresistible. I look at him at the same time he looks at me. Henry is talking, doing a sort-of-funny bit about the selfcheckout at supermarkets, but I can barely hear him, over the roaring, pounding of my heart in my ears. We’re so close, it’s almost unbearable. I’m worried I’m going to just pour myself on top of him, like a glass of water. I need to get myself under control but I don’t know how.

‘I’m just going to get a drink,’ I say, letting go of his hand and standing up.

Jesse’s eyes follow me.

‘Brooke, you’re going to miss Henry’s punchline!’ Tristan yells.

‘I’ll be back,’ I say, hurrying away from them. I lean on the bar, ask the bartender for water, and then sit on a bar stool sipping it, trying to get my bearings, trying to dampen all the nerve endings that have come alive inside me, trying to convince myself I am not really feeling what I’m feeling right now. I need to cool down, in every sense of the word. I take off my jacket and run a droplet of water up and down my arms.

‘Hey,’ says Jesse, at my shoulder.

‘Hey.’