‘Don’t worry,’ he said, reading her. ‘It’s not about that.’ It hung between them, a revolting truth they were both ashamed of. He watched Nina slowly processing, shock moving over her face. The bravado he’d shown when she first entered the room dissipated. He softened and spoke again. ‘Haven’t you spoken to her? I thought you girls were always jabbing away on WhatsApp?’

Nina mouthed a ‘no’, her hands sweating against the soft leather. She had been ghosted by her friends.

‘Oh. So you don’t know about—? Well. She—’ He became agitated then, his tumbler shaking in his hand. ‘We— We’re not together any more.’ Ted appeared to freeze, his eyes darting left to right.

‘You got caught out?’ Nina asked and he shrugged, a flicker of relief glancing over his face at being spared having to spell it out.

‘How long have you been shagging Sarah?’ Nina asked.

‘About a year.’

‘You’re a fucking cliché,’ Nina said, and he couldn’t help but agree.

‘Tell me about it, Neen,’ he said, crashing into his desk chair, his head in his hands. ‘Why do I always fuck up?’ He gestured wildly with his right arm, knocking his tumbler over. It spilled its sweet, smoky contents across the papers on his desk, the glass rolling to the floor. He growled angrily, swiping at the papers with some tissue and holding them aloft.

All his swagger had dissolved, leaving a residue of melancholy, as though Ted had found himself in this impossible position of fucking his secretary and he hadn’t meant for it to happen and what was poor Ted going to do now? It reminded her of sitting with him outside Le Sacré Coeur; it reminded her of the night before his wedding.

‘You always fuck up because you only think about yourself,’ Nina snapped. She felt an agitated energy building inside her. ‘Because you don’t care, about anyone else.’ Her voice was tight but with a slight wobble, like a guitar string being twanged. ‘Because ever since you were a child, people have made allowances for you. Including me. But you’re just not a very nice person.’

Ted rolled his eyes, as though he’d been hoping for an ally, not a dressing-down. ‘I thought you’d understand,’ he said.

‘Why would I understand? I don’t have a wife or children.’

He pulled a go figure face and she strode over and slammed her hand down on his desk.

‘Fuck. You,’ she shouted.

He looked instantly chastised and wiped at his eyes as though tears were budding. ‘I thought you’d understand because you’ve never followed the herd! That’s one of the things I always liked about you. When we were younger you weren’t obsessing over boys, you were consumed by your music, writing songs and—’

‘Ha,’ Nina scoffed, her index finger rigid and stabbing at his desk. ‘I was the most obsessed, but it was boy singular. It was just the one boy.’ Life in general and love in particular, she thought, cringing at the memory. ‘I was obsessing over you,’ she said simply. ‘I wasted so much of my life obsessing over you.’