‘Can I make one of those?’ Evie asks, pointing.

‘I’ll do it,’ Duke offers, and Evie thanks him as she shrugs off her coat and takes a seat.

‘It was bad?’ Evie asks.

‘No,’ Duke replies, and it comes out as a strange laugh. Evie’s confused.

‘I know it makes no sense,’ he continues, noticing the expression on her face. ‘Although maybe it does. I don’t know. Everything feels underwater today. Blurry and a bit slow, you know? Even when people talk to me, I feel like it’s coming from far away, like I can’t even hear properly.’

Evie drinks her coffee. ‘It must be a big shock,’ she tells him. ‘I told Magda I can’t imagine my dad ever tracking me down, let alone showing up, but honestly, if he did …’ She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. The implication is that she’d be a goddamn mess. ‘You’re handling it really well.’

They exchange a meaningful look.

‘Can I do anything?’ she says, predicting the answer is no, but goddamn it, he’s so handsome, and kind, and so incredibly lost … It’s not often Evie finds herself feeling more grounded or rooted or sorted than the person opposite her at a table, but today, on this occasion, she can see it plain as day: Duke is beat.

Tears start to pool in his eyes. ‘Bollocks,’ he says, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand. ‘Sorry. Urgh.’

‘No, please don’t apologise,’ Evie insists. ‘Cry! Let it out!’

‘Kayla will kill me. My eyes are going to be impossible.’

‘Fuck Kayla,’ Evie says, and it makes them both laugh that she’d say something so strongly. ‘In the nicest possible way,’ Evie tempers it with.

They sit, and Duke lets the tears flow, and eventually Evie tells him: ‘I’m honoured you’d let me in, you know.’ He looks at her. He’s got questions in his eyes, but they don’t make it to his lips.

‘What?’ Evie adds.

He shakes his head. ‘I like you,’ he tells her, and it gives Evie a funny feeling, how he says it. She’s desperate for the confirmation that whatever is happening is worth taking note of, but as quickly as that feeling comes, something else washes over her, too. Fear. Panic. The urge to crack a joke.

‘You’re okay,’ she tells him, shrugging a shoulder. ‘I guess.’

He drinks his coffee, too, but he’s not crying anymore. She offers him a stick of gum and he takes it.