‘CrossFit?’ I was dubious at best. ‘But you hate exercise. And you’re always the last one to call it a night. Don’t let me down, Adrian.’

‘What can I say?’ he said with a shrug. ‘I’ve turned over a new leaf.’

I glared at him with narrowed eyes.

‘You’re trying to crack on to a girl at CrossFit.’

He shook his head, no. ‘I’m trying to crack on to the girl that teaches CrossFit.’

‘It’s Sumi’s birthday,’ I reminded everyone as I saw the Uber app open on one phone after another. ‘This is supposed to be the wildest night of the year and you’re all going home before midnight?’

‘It’s been a really long week,’ one of Sumi’s friends commented.

‘It’s been a long year,’ added another.

‘And roller skating really took it out of me,’ Jemima added to a chorus of agreement. ‘Sorry, Ros, but I’m really old.’

‘You’re thirty-four,’ I wailed. ‘You’re a baby!’

‘This was a really fun night,’ Lucy declared, officially calling an end to proceedings. ‘Thank you so much for saving the day, John.’

‘Ah, no worries,’ he said, waving away her appreciation with a smile. ‘We don’t get to use this room often enough anyway and you know chef is always looking for guinea pigs to test new recipes on.’

‘You must let us pay for drinks,’ she said, fishing around in her handbag for her wallet. ‘It’s the least we can do.’

‘Not at all,’ John said. ‘My treat. What’s the point in running a bar if you can’t get your friends pissed on their birthday?’

Slowly, Sumi was raised from the table, her arms draped around Jemima and Adrian’s shoulders, and carefully led downstairs as everyone buzzed around one another with kisses on cheeks and vague promises of getting together ‘sometime soon’. At the back of the pack, I waved them all off, making sure everyone was in their taxi, their Uber, setting off for the right bus stop, before I checked my phone one last time.

Still no word from Patrick.

‘Not in a rush to get home then?’ John asked as I lingered in the doorway.

‘Not really,’ I admitted, my stomach sinking further with every passing second. The thought of returning the shed and its dripping roof did absolutely nothing to soothe my mood.

‘Want to finish off those margaritas?’

I crossed my arms over my chest and considered my options. Drink very strong cocktails with a man I was less than keen on or get back on the bus to my pimped-out shed and wonder endlessly why Patrick hadn’t bothered to turn up?

‘It would be terrible to let them go to waste,’ I said, resignedly following him back upstairs.