‘You like a defined ab, do you? How do you rate a good circulatory system and correctly working organs?’

‘Very attractive.’

‘Thanks. I feel less terrible about my abs now.’

‘What abs?’

‘Such cruelty. This is why you’ll die bitter and alone.’

Silence.

‘That,’ says Adam, ‘sounded a lot more fun and teasing in my head.’

‘It’s fine. It’s true.’

‘It’s not true.’

‘Speaking of dying alone, what did you decide to do about Kate?’ She keeps it light. Nonchalant. Like she barely cares.

‘I’m sorry about the other night. I was quite drunk when I was saying all that.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can tell me anything.’ She doesn’t add that she reserves the right to agonize about some of those things for hours. For days. She wants him to be honest with her. She can’t make him afraid to tell her the truth.

‘We went to the pub the night before last. I didn’t even have to bring it up. She’d obviously been thinking the same. She put it on the table.’

Becky shuts her eyes and allows this information to sink through her, like a stone dropped into dark water and landing in mud, a slower sinking for the final inch towards burial.

‘She said she had feelings for me,’ he says.

‘Oh yes, what kind of feelings? Tired feelings, hungry feelings, sad feelings?’ She doesn’t open her eyes because she fears that if he sees them, they will betray her.

There is a long and heavy silence, during which Becky makes a wish of her own. Can she please find a way to connect with him, one last time before Kate is confirmed as a thing in his life, one last time before they can never go back to the way they were before? Can she make him promise not to leave them, even if he’s going to leave her?

‘So what did you say to that?’ says Becky, quietly, opening her eyes again.

‘Well, do you want to know what she said first?’

‘Not really,’ Becky laughs.

‘I’ll tell you anyway. It needs that context. She said she had feelings for me. She said she’s been in love with me for about a year.’

‘That was around the time you got those new skinny indigo jeans, wasn’t it?’

‘We always knew those jeans had power. You said it at the time.’

‘So when’s the wedding?’

‘It was actually a very hard conversation.’

‘It’s a big decision. Vegas or Clapham?’