‘Team Snazzlechuff!’ Ted bellowed, two minutes later as we huddled in the middle of the stage. ‘My boyzzz! Is everyone good to go?’

Dustin, Greg, Travis and Veronica gave various grunts of affirmation then looked to Snazz for approval.

‘Yeah,’ he said with a mild shrug.

‘This is going to be the pinnacle of my career,’ Ted breathed, his face so white I was afraid he might faint. ‘Ros, I want you to go out there and introduce everyone and then let’s make some magic happen, my brosephs.’

‘Don’t you want to do the introduction?’ I asked, waving up and down at the state of myself.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s a better look for the company if a woman does it. We don’t want people to think it’s a sausage party over at our place.’

‘Of course not,’ I agreed, even though it absolutely was.

Standing up, I attempted to comb my fingers through my mess of curls before giving up and winding my hair up into a topknot. Ted handed me a microphone, branded of course, and curled his mouth into a disapproving frown.

‘Have you not got a bit of lipstick?’ he asked.

I answered with an ungodly glare.

‘You look great,’ he said, giving me the double-finger guns.

‘OK, let’s do this,’ I declared, winking at my new friend, Max. ‘See you on the stage then.’

Before I could think any more about it, I stepped through the curtains and onto the stage, soundtracked by an absolute thunderclap of applause. The last time I’d heard clapping on stage, it was because I’d abandoned my rendition of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ halfway through the song during the Year Eight talent show. There was a reason I preferred to stay behind the scenes.

In the third row, I spotted Adrian, Sumi and Lucy, cheering so loud their voices soared above everyone else’s in the crowd. But they weren’t alone. John was sitting in Patrick’s chair, whooping and cheering as loud as anyone. Pushing away a stab in my guts as I remembered the look on Patrick’s face when I’d walked away, I smiled directly at my friends, stepped forward and turned on my mic.

‘Hello, World E-Sports Championship!’ I shouted. Everyone except for my friends immediately stopped clapping. I tapped the microphone, it was still on.

‘Noob!’ yelled someone at the back of the room, sending a ripple of hand-over-mouth dampened chuckles around the crowd.

‘Fine, whatever,’ I muttered. ‘My name is Ros and I’m the producer of Snazzlechuff Says.’

I paused for applause but there was none.

‘I’d like to thank you for coming,’ I went on, desperate to get off stage and into a drink. ‘And without further ado, let’s bring on our guests for this evening. First up, from Kansas City, Missouri, we have Overwatch legend, Beezer Go-Go!’