At least once a year, one of Adrian’s parents would ask me, in person or – my favourite – by commenting on an unrelated post on my Facebook wall, why it was he and I had never got together. The truth of it was, we had kissed once. Both very drunk on alcopops, faces smushed together on the dance floor of the only local nightclub that didn’t check IDs closely enough to see that neither of us was eighteen. It was such a rousing success that I burst out laughing, Adrian’s penis disappeared back up inside him and neither of us had ever mentioned it again. I’d always assumed we must be related in some weird, 23andMe kind of a way, because, love him though I did, it really wouldn’t have mattered if he was the last man left on the face of the earth, I would rather have had sex with my own foot than make a go of it with Adrian Anderson.

‘Christ almighty, is that your mum?’ he gave me a nudge as my parents approached. ‘She looks well fit.’

‘Shut up before I remove your testicles with my house keys,’ I replied, my cheeks flushing the exact same shade as my mum’s strappy sundress. Everyone else at the Andersons’ party was wearing exactly what you’d expect: a bit of Jasper Conran here, a touch of M&S there, plenty of floaty and floral. But not my mother. The hem of her dress barely flirted with her knees, clung to her tiny waist and strained over her absolutely massive chest. I looked down at the round-neck, loose-fit watercolour-print Zara midi dress I’d bought on the way home from work the night before, feeling like a complete frump.

‘She looks fantastic,’ he said, waving them over. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her out of jeans before. What has she been doing?’

‘More like who she’s been doing,’ I grumbled. ‘Her and my dad are “getting to know each other” again, if you know what I mean.’

‘I don’t but I’m dead serious, your mum could get it,’ he whispered before throwing his arms open for a hug. ‘Mr Reynolds, Mrs Reynolds, so nice to see you. It’s been a dog’s age.’

‘Adrian, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s Gwen to you,’ Mum said, tittering as my friend kissed her hand and spun her around, making the handkerchief hem of her dress flare outwards.

Dad wasn’t nearly as impressed. Ever since we were little kids, he’d never been especially keen on Adrian and Adrian hadn’t really done anything to change his mind, whether he was kicking a football through his greenhouse or suggesting that the very expensive and beautiful steam shower Dad had designed for Adrian’s parents’ new bathroom was ‘cool in a sexy gas chamber kind of way’.