‘I’m not about tomorrow. It’s the opening night of an exhibition I’m running at the Barbican,’ Atticus had said, on the doorstep. ‘It opens at eight. Smart dress. You’re very welcome to come along.’ He’d looked at Dan hopefully, but Dan had just said, ‘Oh. Cool. Good luck,’ and swallowed his disappointment.

All the next day Dan is sullen, distracted and irritable. His nan would have described it as ‘feeling vinegary’.

At five o’clock, he goes running with Luke. They both push themselves hard and don’t talk, and it’s not until he blurts out that he would like Luke to have Fitz overnight for him that Dan realizes he’s going to the gallery, to Atticus.

Luke raises an eyebrow and demands to know who the lucky lady is. Dan blushes and says, ‘No one,’ and Luke laughs.

‘Must be someone if you’re going to make a night of it,’ he says.

‘It’s not like that. It’s just a thing in London that I can’t easily get out of and it’s to do with work and I won’t be staying over. I just don’t want Fitz to be left alone for too long. If it’s going to be a problem, I won’t go.’

‘No. Go you must. Will you be bringing her to the wedding?’ Luke said innocently.

It had been all Dan’s mum and sister could talk about since the proposal, Dan’s bi-weekly phone calls to his mum saturated with hotel names and hat colours. She’d asked him, overly casually, if he’d be bringing anyone special along. ‘Maybe, probably,’ he’d blustered. ‘I’ll be too busy making sure Luke doesn’t hit on any of the bridesmaids.’

‘Forget the wedding,’ Dan says. ‘We’ve got to survive Dave’s stag night first.’

So far, they’d been told to expect ‘shooting, fishing, go-karting and a club night’. Dave had a mate who could ‘sort them out with anything’. The same mate also knew ‘a cracking stripper’, apparently.

‘Fuck. How can we get out of it?’ Luke says.

‘We can’t. Helen will kill us.’ She’d already messaged them both, a stern warning that they had to go, and be nice, and not let Dave get too drunk.

They sigh in miserable unison.

‘Anything could happen before then anyway. Helen might realize what an utter dickhead he is,’ Luke says. ‘Well, you go and have fun anyway. I want to hear all about it when you get back, though!’