On impulse, she held the bottle out to him. He shrugged, sat down on the grass beside her, and took it. “I’m Harry.”

“I’m Shiva.”

“That’s a cool name.”

“Thanks.” Some girls were called Juno, or Athena, or Freyja. She got Shiva. She liked it.

He handed the cider back to her, and she took another swig. He squinted at her. “There’s a beetle in your hair.”

“It’s the latest in hair fashion. Didn’t you know that?”

His eyes lit up with laughter. “Okay, I’ll just leave it where it is, then.”

“I suppose you can take it out if you must.”

He was still laughing as he coaxed the bug onto his hand. His fingers brushed against her cheek, and she had to remind herself to breathe. Be still, my wayward heart. She watched him deposit the beetle carefully onto the grass.

The intense concentration with which he did it made her think that he was either very passionate about insect welfare, or he had also felt whatever it was she had felt when he had touched her.

The third time, she spotted him at a desk in the library, biting on the end of his pen as he stared at the page in front of him, and she went over to say hi.

They had barely swapped two sentences before a familiar figure appeared. “There you are!” It was her father, his hair a mess and his glasses more taped together than Harry Potter’s. It was anyone’s guess how his patients trusted him. “Shall we pop to the library café for a few minutes before we go home? You’re welcome to come too,” he said cheerfully to Harry. “I like judging my kids’ boyfriends’ characters based on the coffee they drink.”

“Well, I—”

“Dad, he’s not my—”

“They’d better not sell out of fruit scones before we get there,” Dad went on, as if neither of them had started speaking. “Come on, kids, shift a bit!”

And he was off, leaving them behind. “Sorry,” Shiva said to Harry. “He’s always like that. You don’t have to come.”

“And disappoint him? I would never.”

And so they went to find her father in the library café, a small hole in the wall that had the best fruit scones in the city. Dad was already at the counter. “What’ll it be?”

“Coconut frappé with extra whipped cream, please,” Shiva said to the girl behind the counter. “And a scone if Dad hasn’t ordered them all already.”

“Um.” Harry paused, obviously aware of how loaded this choice was. “Just a black coffee, please.”

Dad tutted. “Unimaginative,” he informed Harry, and then said to Shiva in a tone of wistful affection, “Jamie never drinks plain black coffee.”