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‘Harper!’ Tristan says, and Harper turns her head. She makes eye contact with Tristan and waves, and then turns back to us. ‘Look everyone, it’s Tristan,’ she says weakly.

‘Harper!’ I say, outraged.

‘I’m sorry, it’s a natural instinct to turn your head when someone says your name!’

We all look at Tristan and wave. He’s with Kendra and another guy.

‘Wait. That’s Henry,’ Penny says.

I can’t believe it, or maybe I can. Tristan and Henry had hit it off the other night.

‘You’re hanging out with Tristan again?’ Lauren says to me. ‘Things are worse than I thought.’

‘We are not hanging out again. He lives in the area, we bumped into him last week.’

‘Well he sure seems excited to see you.’

Tristan is already on his way over to us.

‘Join our team, we need some more people!’ he says.

All the other teams are at least ten or twenty years older. This is how Tristan and I were compatible. We are the kind of insufferable teenagers who derive great pleasure from trying to prove we are intellectually superior to a bunch of adult strangers.

‘Oh, we were just leaving,’ I say.

‘You just walked in. Hi, Lauren!’ he pivots to shake Lauren’s hand. God, why does he have to be so polite, so people-pleasing, so inviting? I admire it and I can’t stand it.

‘Hi Tristan,’ she says. ‘I haven’t seen you since you broke up with my sister.’ She’s using her don’t-mess-with-me tone.

I give her a warning look but I’m also secretly glad she said it. Everything else aside, Lauren always has my back.

‘Breaking up with Brooke was one of the hardest things I ever had to do,’ Tristan says earnestly.

For god’s sake. He always sounds like he’s a celebrity on a talk show carefully revealing some pre-agreed private detail of his personal life.

‘We really don’t need to get into all that,’ I say, waving my hand cheerily, because I can see Lauren opening her mouth to say something in response.

‘And anyway, we’ve both moved on with other people, so it’s fine,’ he says to Lauren.

‘Both?’ Lauren says, tilting her head to the side.

‘Me with Kendra, and Brooke with Jesse,’ Tristan says.

There’s a pause. I look at Lauren. Not just look at her, but look at her. Sister look. The thing about having almost nineteen years of knowing each other is that we communicate very quickly and easily, in ways I can’t with other people. I give her fleeting intense eye contact, and I know she knows what it means—I can see things shifting in her brain, I can see her understanding she needs to accept this statement about me being with Jesse. Not just accept it, but embrace it. She’s a very good liar, so this won’t be a problem.

‘I’m glad you guys are mature enough to be friends,’ she says.

‘Well, we’re not in high school anymore,’ Tristan says. ‘So you’ll join our team? Just for a round?’

‘Sure,’ Lauren says. ‘That would be fun.’ She turns and gives me an evil grin, then, when Tristan has moved away, she grabs my arm and Jesse’s arm. ‘The happy couple, huh! What’s the deal?’

‘It was just a spur of the moment kind of joke we did the other night that has got a little out of control now we’re apparently seeing Tristan everywhere,’ I say.

‘Oh this will be fun,’ Lauren says. ‘I love movies with fakedating plotlines.’ She does a little jump of excitement as she heads to the bar.

‘This is not a movie,’ I call after her.

Jesse and I are left standing awkwardly next to each other.