In an effort to be a good boyfriend, I asked Oliver once more if he wanted to go, and he told me he was fine, and not dog-in-a-burning-room fine. And I still wasn’t quite ready to draw a line under the evening—still hadn’t quite got whatever nebulous thing I was hoping to get and couldn’t describe but was increasingly sure I’d know when I saw it. So we stayed, and for a while we bounced around half-forgotten acquaintances, repeating the ritual of how-are-you-what-have-you-been-doing all over again. Over the next couple of hours I caught up with at least half a dozen people I hadn’t seen in the best part of a decade and found that they were almost all either city bankers or performing artists, with precious little middle ground. Most of them were also married. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of that.

We were on our second or third circuit when I almost collided with Roger. Or Heather, I suppose, given she wasn’t performing. And since she’d taken off the moustache, I was fairly confident we were back in a she/her pronoun space.

“Fuck, Luc,” she said. “I-I did not expect to see you here.”

I’d been hearing that a lot, in tones ranging from pleasantly surprised to unpleasantly surprised. Heather, though, sounded genuinely shaken. We’d been close back in the day. But she’d been one of Miles’s best friends, and she’d really vocally sided with him at the time. Which, for some reason, hadn’t gone down well with me.

I gave a limp shrug. “Yeah but…bygones, I guess?”

Her eyes narrowed. I’d forgotten quite how good her bullshit detector was. “I don’t buy that for a second. What Miles did to you was fucked up, and you have every right not to forgive him.”

“You forgave him pretty quick,” I pointed out. Beside me, Oliver was sliding very quietly into I-am-not-a-part-of-this-conversation space.

She stuffed her hands very firmly into the pockets of her leather jacket, somehow projecting an attitude of apologetic defiance. “I stuck by him because I was more his friend than yours and we’re all entitled to our mistakes. Even massive mistakes that hurt people. But I’d have completely got it if you never wanted to see him again. Or me, for that matter.”

One day, I was going to have someone fuck me over and then not play the you’ve-got-every-right-to-be-angry card to guilt me out of being angry. “I’m sure that would have made things much easier for you.”

“Is that why you’re here, then?” The look on her face was still 80/20 between suspicion and regret. “Are you just Banquo’s ghosting at us?”