And the worst—or, from another perspective, the best—of it was that I wasn’t lying. Bridge would never have asked me to cancel, but she also didn’t have to. She’d been there for me through a metric butt load of crises down the years—through Miles, through all the self-destructive shit I’d pulled after, through nearly getting fired, and through everything with Oliver—so I kind of owed her one. Hell, I owed her twenty. And even if I hadn’t, I’d still have been there for her because that’s what friends were meant to do and I’d spent way too long not doing it. “I’ll be right round,” I told her.

She made a sad appreciative noise and, after I’d tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay in six different ways, each slightly less plausible than the last, hung up.

The next bit was going to be awkward. Well, maybe not that awkward. Because Oliver would understand. Even if we did have a table booked and tickets we’d bought months ago. Oh, shit. It was going to be awkward, wasn’t it?

And thank you, life, for manoeuvring me into a situation where I’d have to let down either my best friend or my boyfriend. It was like whatever I did, no matter how hard I tried, the universe wanted me to know that, on some level, I was a crappy person. On this occasion, my crapness manifested partly in not wanting to tell Oliver to his face—or even to his voice—that I was ditching him to hang out with a sad bride. I was two-thirds of the way through my fourth draft of my first text when I realised that I was living down to the universe’s expectations of me. And, more importantly, not living up to Oliver’s. Fuck. That was the problem with dating a good person. They got their ethics all over you.

So I gritted my teeth and called Oliver.

“Lucien?” Great. He already sounded concerned. Either because of boyfriend telepathy or because I normally only rang if I’d set the kitchen on the fire. “Is everything okay?”

“Not really,” I told him, and then realising that could have meant anything from I think we should break up to My leg’s been bitten off by a shark, followed up quickly with, “I mean I’m fine, but Bridget’s in a hell of a state and… Look, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to bail on this evening.”

For just long enough that I could hear my relationship gurgling down the plughole, Oliver didn’t reply. Then he said, “Oh.”

“Oh?”

Another relationship gurgling pause. “Sorry, I–I know you’re Bridget’s maid of honour, but I don’t often get free evenings and we’ve been planning this for a long time.”