‘It only sounds fake when you say it back like that,’ he said.

‘Chris L will be there,’ said Lachlan.

‘Will he,’ I said.

Dan closed his eyes, because the jig was up: Lachlan had exposed the ulterior motive.

Chris L was a fearsome person we used to call Mysterious Chris, both for the long silver cape he wore in his internet photos and for his large, black, bug-eyed sunglasses. Sunglasses are not mysterious in and of themselves, they are only covering two things, and both of them are eyes, but taken together, and applied consistently, a silver cape and large sunglasses in multiple pictures created a vibe that was mysterious indeed.

He was the news that walked like a man, and I did not understand how he had ended up living with Lachlan, the man who stood like a plank. But this difficult-to-process fact is exactly what I’d learned not very long after Dan had started sleeping over at Lachlan’s apartment. Their living together suggested that Lachlan was more mysterious than he seemed, or that Chris L was less mysterious than we’d judged him to be. I did not know which scenario was more likely.

Recently, Dan had been treasonously suggesting that I should make an effort to meet and befriend Chris L, which was clearly not to do with our personal similarities but instead to do with making life easier for Dan, the idea being that Chris L and I could bond and create an atmosphere conducive to the construction of a wider friendship group. This way, Dan, who had once walked into my room, apropos nothing, and told me that he felt oppressed by the doctrine of queer family, could have me in place, and Chris L in place too, the better to advance his own romantic ends – a family in two houses, with Chris L and me like children, and Dan and Lachlan doubling in the role of dad.

I was not against being in place – I was proud of my stillness – but I was against, as we all are, being crudely manipulated by those who know us well enough to more finely pluck our strings. There was no finesse in this plan. Real friendship took effort. I would not give them the pleasure of participating.

‘Hey, Lachlan,’ I said.

He looked at me, alarmed.

‘I heard Chris L lathers and rinses, but never repeats. Is that true?’

‘Come out with us,’ said Dan.

‘Why?’

‘It’s important,’ he said.

I rolled my eyes around the room and walked them up the stairs.

Later that afternoon, after Lachlan had left – I knew when he’d gone home from the absence of his baritone voice as much as the footsteps down the creaky stairs – I walked across the landing between my room and Dan’s.