‘Gimme a hug, you motherfucking legend,’ Alfie Lim says. His voice is unusually subdued. He stands with his arms outstretched. His eyes are shining with sincerity and for a second Will wonders if Alfie might cry.

‘Do I owe you one, or do I owe you one?’ he says, slapping Will’s back as they embrace.

‘It’s nothing. Don’t mention it.’

‘Don’t mention it? Don’t fucking mention it? You’re a dark horse, Parks.’ Alfie laughs. ‘Common room?’ he asks, resting a hand over Will’s shoulder. ‘Bought some Pop Tarts on my way in. Well, I say bought them …’

Will doesn’t reply but allows Alfie to guide him along in the direction of the sixth-form common room – somewhere he’s yet to set foot in.

‘I’m guessing you outran them?’ Alfie says.

‘Of course.’

‘Fat fucks! Couldn’t catch a cold. You shoulda seen them, trying to get past the bins. There was like ten people laughing at them outside the chippie.’

‘You’re kidding.’ Will chuckles, amazed that he probably could’ve walked to Smugglers and still evaded them.

‘So I’m dying to know,’ Alfie says as they head into the warmth of the building. ‘What did you have about your person that made you leg it like that?’

Will shrugs. ‘Nothing really.’

‘Right-ho.’

A girl from upper sixth leaves the common room as Alfie approaches with Will hanging a pace behind. The double doors flap back and forth as they close. A cocktail of a hundred fragrances mixed with toast and instant coffee wafts into the corridor. Will’s been this close before back in the first week of term, but no closer. He hears R&B pumping from an overstretched stereo, the rattle of a ping-pong ball on bats, a celebration over a video game win. Combined, it’s a familiar sound to Will: other people having fun.

He crosses the room behind Alfie, particularly aware of his own height, of his stiffness. He feels hopelessly out of place, as though his very presence is going to kill the buzz any time now.

‘Offensive weapon?’ Alfie asks, spooning an absurd number of sugars into two coffees. ‘Class A drugs? Warrant out for your arrest?’

‘Sorry?’ Will leans against the windowsill but the angle is somehow wrong and he can’t seem to remember right now what he normally does with his hands and arms.

‘You running off.’

‘It’s … yeah, nothing really. Did the police come back for you?’

Alfie does an exaggerated laugh and slaps his thigh. ‘Good one, Parks! You reckon I hung about for them?’

‘You buggered off?’

‘Like Lewis Hamilton off the grid, cuz. Second they disappeared down that alley, I was out of there.’

‘Good work.’ Will takes a sip of the tepid and revoltingly sweet coffee.

‘Mate, without that little disappearing act of yours, I’d still be in the cells now. They’d be throwing away the key.’