It’s unbelievable that he’s even asking this, that he can’t see why this is all so wrong. ‘Because you’re with my friend. My friend who happens to like you. Who happens to think you’re a nice guy.’

‘But if I wasn’t with your friend?’

Then yes, of course he could call her, he could call her every day and they could spend the whole summer together.

‘I know you like me, Yvie.’

‘That’s irrelevant.’

‘I’ll break up with Emma, we’ll keep it quiet for a few weeks and then you can tell her.’

It sounds so easy when he says it like this, but then Emma isn’t his friend. So it doesn’t matter how much she likes him, she’s not going to a let a guy come between three years of friendship.

‘You’re ridiculous,’ she says as she backs out of the greenhouse.

It’s cooler outside, a light drizzle has started and Emma is squeezed under the lopsided marquee with Julie and a gaggle of women holding plastic cups of wine.

Yvonne’s usually good at hiding her emotions but feels flustered by Lewis, by how he ambushed her. There’s nowhere to go, he’s still at the end of the garden and between her and the house are too many people, too many faces.

He got what he wanted, from both of them. Why drag it out? Surely there are hundreds of other girls he could hook up with over the summer.

Yvonne grabs Emma by the wrist. ‘You’re right. I’ve had too much wine. I feel really sick.’

Emma looks confused. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing. I just overdid it.’

Lewis is walking back up the garden, he glances at them both and stops. Is he thinking about coming over? To say what?

‘Can we leave?’ Yvonne asks.

Emma looks back at the group of women she was previously speaking to, ‘Now?’

‘Yeah, my head is spinning.’ It’s not much of a stretch to say this, because her head does hurt from the wine, the situation, the humidity in the greenhouse and then from the way he held her hand and looked at her.

‘But dude, I’m getting in there with his mum. And Lewis is a total mummy’s boy.’

‘Em, how many times have I near enough carried you home this year? Let’s go.’

Emma doesn’t move, but looks back at Julie and then down the garden to where Lewis is. ‘I really like him,’ she says, her face flushing. ‘And it means something that he’s asked me here today, to his actual home, to meet his mum and brothers. It shows that he feels the same way about me too.’ Yvonne shakes her head, ‘You don’t know that.’

‘I’m even thinking about cancelling my trip home and staying here over the summer.’

‘Don’t do that. You shouldn’t do that.’