I open the kitchen door and walk in. There is an incredibly attractive girl standing at the sink, sniffing an open carton of milk with a look of pure disgust on her face. She’s wearing only a baggy grey T-shirt, which ends just above the knees on her long, tanned bare legs, and her sandy-blonde hair is pulled up into a messy topknot.

The shock of seeing her is enough to make me flinch. ‘Oh my God! Liv!’

She looks up, her nose now wrinkling at me instead of the dodgy milk.

‘Er, yeah? Hi?’ she says, in her ridiculously plummy accent. The bewilderment that floods her face tells me I’ve made a big mistake here. We definitely met for the first time while I was living in this flat. So is this it? Is right now the first time that I’m meeting her?

‘I’m Ben, Harv’s flatmate,’ I explain quickly, but her beautiful face remains puckered and wary.

‘Right, OK. I’m Olivia. Liv. But you already know that, apparently?’

‘Yeah, sorry, that was a bit random, coming in like that and just … shouting your name out.’

‘It was a little bit, yeah.’ Like a caricature of a posh person, Liv actually pronounces ‘yeah’ as ‘yah’.

‘It’s just that I’ve, erm, heard so much about you from Harv, that’s all.’

An indignant voice comes from behind me. ‘What? No you haven’t!’

I turn around to see Harv appearing through the kitchen door in his T-shirt and boxers, glaring at me.

‘I’ve barely mentioned you,’ he says to Liv, who – quite rightly – doesn’t look convinced by this statement. She knows full well that she’s the kind of girl men do mention to their mates. ‘I mean, no, that sounds bad,’ Harv gabbles on, his neck starting to turn bright red. ‘I mean, I probably did say something about you, in passing. But only that we work together or whatever. It’s not like I’m just going on about you all the time, is it, Ben?’

Thankfully, Liv interrupts this torturous monologue by pouring half a pint of thick, gloopy white liquid down the sink.

‘Nice to meet you,’ she says to me, unsmiling, as she slaps the empty carton back down on the counter. ‘You guys need milk.’ She squeezes past us and walks out, back up the stairs.

‘Mate, what the fuck?’ Harv hisses at me. ‘What are you doing telling her I can’t stop talking about her? Are you insane?’

‘Sorry, I just—’