He took the glasses off and handed them to me, an intimacy. ‘Is that a yes to dinner?’

‘I think so.’ I fiddled with his glasses. ‘I don’t have anything to clean them with.’

He looked at his jacket pocket. I fumbled my hand inside, meeting those bright eyes of his as I did, and found a square of grey microfibre covered in tiny stethoscopes. I wiped the lenses. When I handed them back, he let his skin touch mine and gave me an electric shock.

‘You’d better watch for Mr Rowntree’s girlfriend. If she turns up during visiting hours while his wife is here, he may arrest again.’ Zac was smart enough to make sure nobody heard him say this – it was the kind of talk that could get even a doctor in trouble. A piece of my hair had slipped out of my ponytail. He slid it between his fingers as he walked off to do his ward rounds.

Milly came over. ‘You’re looking hot.’

‘It’s extra warm in here.’ I tried to tuck my hair into the elastic.

‘Not that kind of hot.’ She eyed Zac, who was disappearing into the doctors’ office. ‘Nothing says, I’m a very important cardiologist doing super-cool interventional things like a scrub top and smart-casual trousers.’

I laughed so hard I almost snorted, which encouraged Milly to keep going.

‘That I’m looking beautiful but heroics were needed so I threw this top on outfit is definitely for you. I wish I could dress for impact.’ Milly frowned at the purple dress the staff nurses had to wear. ‘It’s like The Handmaid’s fucking Tale around here, with all this fucked-up colour coding.’

Milly and I kept an incognito blog. We called it Angel’s and Devil’s Book Reviews. Devil found the novels that everyone loved and gave them one star. Angel found the ones everyone hated and gave them five. We had two thousand followers and the most beautiful review blog in the world, because Milly was an artist, so everything about it was visually arresting. She was the most creative person I’d ever met. There was a photo on our ‘About Us’ page, with both of us wearing superhero eye masks. Mine was white, Milly’s red. She had scarlet horns pinned to her blonde hair. I had a white halo. Milly’s hatchet job reviews got twenty times more Likes than my attempts at justice for the unfairly spurned.

‘Please tell me you’re not doing Atwood,’ I said.

‘I am for sure going to do Atwood.’

‘You will make her cry.’ I clutched my heart in mock sorrow.

‘She doesn’t strike me as the crying type.’

I looked down at myself. ‘She for sure would if she had to wear this.’