‘I’m grateful for my new best friend,’ she said, gazing down at her stomach. ‘Whom I can’t wait to meet.’

‘What are you going to do if it turns out to be a serial killer?’ Adrian asked while Sumi booed Lucy’s answer. ‘Or even worse, what if it’s ugly?’

‘How is ugly worse than a serial killer?’ John asked. He returned to the table with a pitcher of fresh margaritas, holding it aloft to rapturous applause.

‘Serial killers charismatic are at least.’ Adrian held out his glass for a top-up. ‘If the baby is ugly, there’s nothing we can do. Until it’s old enough for surgery.’

‘He is joking, isn’t he?’ Jemima asked me.

‘It’s easier to assume he is,’ I replied. ‘I know he’s not ideal but we just don’t have the energy to interview for a replacement and you’ve got to have a boy in your group so someone can answer the sports questions at the pub quiz.’

‘I will love my baby even if it’s an ugly serial killer,’ Lucy announced before knitting her eyebrows together. ‘Which it won’t be.’

‘And what about you, Ros?’ John reached his arm across my face to fill my glass. ‘What are you grateful for?’

Sumi leaned forward to stare at me with unfocused eyes, her face and her hair falling into the remains of her Barnsley chop as she did so.

‘I’m grateful for a lot of things,’ I replied, pursing my lips as John took the empty seat to my left that I was still saving for Patrick. Two hours after he was supposed to meet us. ‘Mostly, I’m grateful for old friends.’

‘To old friends and new ones,’ John said, raising his glass into the air.

‘To friends!’ Sumi repeated, throwing the contents of her glass up into the air so that it splashed down on her friends in a light, sugary margarita rain. ‘Wait, didn’t I already say friends? You can’t say something I already said, go again.’

I thought hard for a moment, fully aware that Adrian was filming me on his phone. If he was posting this to Instagram, I would kill him.

‘Then I’m grateful for second chances,’ I said.

‘Bleurgh,’ Sumi stuck her fingers down her throat and I responded in kind with a finger of my own.

‘Didn’t I hear your boyfriend was coming tonight?’ John asked, leaning his head over to one side while Jemima brushed Sumi’s hair back from her face and dodged her sloppy, drunken kisses.

‘Yes,’ I replied without correcting his terminology. It was perfectly all right for other people to call Patrick my boyfriend, even if it was a bit early to be claiming it myself. ‘He is. He will be here very soon.’