But then that Daphne girl showed up backstage and sort of knocked everything off track.

It sounds stupid when people say they just ‘clicked’ with somebody, but I can’t think of another word for it. How else do you explain an hour of silly, funny, effortless conversation with a total stranger? Or that weird, tingly electricity in my chest every time I made her laugh?

So, maybe it won’t happen for me and Alice tonight after all. Or maybe it will.

It definitely feels like something will happen tonight.

There’s a flurry of whispers from somewhere nearby – two people bumping into each other in the darkness, forming a momentary alliance in their search for me. And then there’s that whooping seal bark of a laugh that immediately identifies one of them as Harv.

I shuffle further back into the hedge, but somehow I’m sure he won’t clock me. Call it intuition, or a sixth sense, or just being a bit drunk and horny, but I know that either Daphne or Alice will find me before anyone else does.

When we spilled out of the bar after Marek shouted, ‘Let’s play Sardines!’ I looked around to see both of them smirking at me. ‘I think Ben should hide,’ Alice said, and Daphne nodded her agreement: ‘Yep. Ben seems like a natural hider.’ I filed that statement away for further examination when I was less pissed, and then tore straight off into the maze.

Right now, just the idea of sitting here, hidden, with either one of them seems outrageously – ridiculously – exciting.

In fact, as I try to keep perfectly still, my heart going like the absolute clappers, I can’t decide who I’d rather found me first.

Chapter One

London, 24 December 2020

‘So … are you coming, or not?’

‘I mean, obviously I can come. If you want me to?’

Daphne breathes out heavily, but still resolutely refuses to make eye contact. ‘Do you want to come?’ she asks her reflection in the mirror.

I loiter by the bare Christmas tree, picking at stray needles. ‘Well, if you reckon I should, then maybe. I guess.’

She snaps the brush back into her mascara bottle with impressive force. ‘Ben, seriously. I’m starting to feel like Jeremy Paxman here. Can you just give me a yes or no?’

‘Well, I don’t know. Will they be expecting me? I came last year.’

‘Yes, and what a great success that was,’ she says to the ceiling, and there’s a pause where we both remember what a great success that was.

‘Listen …’ she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘It’s Christmas Eve drinks at my boss’s. I don’t even particularly want to go, so there’s no reason why I should drag you along too.’

‘Well, like I say, I’m happy to come if you want me to.’ She ignores this completely, so I add: ‘But you clearly fucking don’t.’