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‘Kendra came over to talk with Tristan and I think she’s unhappy about all the time he’s been spending catching up with you,’ Jesse says. He slides onto the bar stool next to me, and I sneak a look over my shoulder at Tristan and Kendra. Things do seem a little heated between them.

‘But he dumped me for her. There’s nothing for her to feel insecure about,’ I say.

I turn sideways on the stool so I can keep subtly watching them. They have the distinct look of a couple who are tearfully arguing in public but desperately trying to hide the fact they are tearfully arguing in public. Kendra points at me, and Tristan shakes his head.

‘I feel bad,’ I say.

Jesse turns on his stool too, so he’s facing me. Our knees bump together. ‘We could help them,’ he says.

‘Help them how?’

‘Well, we could show them how into each other we are, so Kendra can see that your focus is on me, not Tristan,’ Jesse says. His tone is light, carefree, but his knee is pressing against mine and my mouth is suddenly very dry. I take another sip of my water.

‘Oh,’ I say, struggling to think of words because my cheeks feel very warm and I want to appear as calm and unruffled as Jesse seems right now. Nothing to see here, just two people talking about ways to demonstrate how deeply into each other they are, if they were, in fact, deeply into each other, which they are not. Probably. Possibly. My hands are trembling. I put my glass down on the bar, and square my shoulders.

‘So, how do we show them that?’ I say. ‘They’ve already seen us looking fairly couple-y.’

‘Well, to start, you could look at me adoringly,’ he says, smiling.

I frown. ‘Or you could look at me adoringly,’ I say.

‘I am,’ he says, and the way he says it makes my heart speed up.

‘All right. Adoring looks. And then?’ I say.

‘Then you could move a bit closer to me,’ he says. ‘If you want to,’ he adds.

‘Okay,’ I say. I can’t say ‘I want to’, because I can’t say the word want. It’s too revealing. I slip off my stool and stand between his legs. I’m hovering, not sure what to do, how close to get, until he puts his arms around my waist and draws me to him. The stool is tall, and so is he, so even though I’m standing and he is seated, our eyes are level.

‘What else?’ I say.

‘You could put your hands like this,’ he says. He gently takes my hands in his hands, lifts them up, and puts them around his neck. It feels a bit like we’re actors in a play, following directions—at least, that’s what I tell myself, until our eyes meet, and then everything inside me is aflame.

‘Is it working?’ I say, willing myself back into a cold and clinical state. I need to become a statue—unmoving, emotionless, safe. ‘Are they looking at us?’

Jesse glances to his left, and then back at me.

‘They’re looking,’ he says.

‘Okay. What next?’ I am trying to sound casual. Bored, even. To show him this is nothing to me. Standing here, with my hands around his neck, inches from his face, his arms around my waist, my breathing rapid, this is nothing. It has to be nothing.

‘We could…’ He pauses. ‘I could…’ He trails off again. His composure has slipped, and he’s lost his nerve. He seems almost shy.

‘You could?’ I prompt him. My heart is racing.

He clears his throat. ‘I could kiss you,’ he says quietly, looking at me intently, waiting for my reaction.

I wonder if he is thinking of what I am thinking of—when he kissed me at Gretel’s party, and what happened after. He must be. It’s unavoidable. My mind touches on the memory and skitters away, the jab of pain it brings still there, bright and sharp as ever. But I don’t want to think of it, not right now. I don’t have the capacity to think of it. I can’t hold that alongside everything else going on in my mind and body. I just want to be in this moment, for once.

‘You could kiss me,’ I say back to him, nodding. My tone is light, but my voice hitches a little.

‘Just to help Tristan and Kendra,’ he says. ‘So there’s no confusion. Or doubts. Kendra probably needs that certainty.’

He runs his fingertips up and down my back, very gently, almost absentmindedly, and I have to close my eyes for a second, to catch my breath. I’m only wearing a thin top, and my skin is alive to every part of his touch.

‘She does, she does need that certainty I think,’ I say, desperately trying to make my voice sound normal, natural, unaffected by his hands on me, unaffected by what he is proposing. ‘And Tristan needs the closure of seeing me kiss someone else,’ I add.

‘He definitely does,’ Jesse says, nodding.