I sat down beside him. ‘Is Vivian still here?’ He raised an eyebrow. Chris L laughed. ‘Oh my god,’ I said.

‘That’s my cue,’ he said, and stood up.

‘No, stay, Vivian,’ we both whined. ‘Hang out with us, come on.’

He hemmed and hawed, and moved his eyes towards his laptop screen, and I followed, and smiled in amazement. ‘Marriage,’ I said.

‘Huh?’ said Chris L.

What I had seen was Vivian reading a Wikipedia entry about same-sex marriage in Australia, its histories, legalities. ‘I thought I saw,’ I said, but I caught Vivian’s eye, and though I was cooked, I could also be quick on the uptake. ‘Nothing,’ I said wittily. He closed the laptop screen.

But Chris L was off. ‘Marriage,’ he said. ‘I can talk about marriage.’ I was staring out the sliding door at the orange glows of Dan and Lachlan’s ciggies. I almost missed the part where Chris L revealed his secret, that he had been married, was married, to a guy in Sydney.

‘What?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘It was no big deal,’ he said. They were dating when they passed the law, they did it as rebellion. Did the guy still live in Sydney? ‘Maybe!’ said Chris L.

We learned astonishing facts about Chris L, astonishing private details. Sydney. Marriage. So I talked through all my feelings about that, which were really all of Dan’s, my inherited opinions, how we’d never see that outpouring of public support again, not for trans rights, not for Safe Schools, even from gay communities, because marriage propped up the edifice while boys in dresses troubled it, and certainly not for people who’d been locked up on an island by the same public who’d come out in droves in support of same-sex marriage.

‘That’s definitely my cue,’ said Vivian. ‘Goodnight, kids.’

‘Goodnight,’ I said, and felt briefly concerned. Had I said too much? But Chris L and I were quickly back to mutual fascination, getting all over each other. I faxed in from another world, querying and digging. What’s it like living with Lachlan? Not like you and Dan. What’s with you and Vivian? It’s casual, he said.

‘I don’t know,’ he uhmmed and ahhed. He wasn’t suddenly loquacious. But his sunglasses were off and his eyes were deep and dark. ‘I don’t think I care about boys, like, that much even,’ he said. ‘Not the way I care about clothes and work and things.’

‘I love that,’ I told him. ‘No, I love that,’ I said.

And I loved this feeling, the differences between us. I did care about boys, but I didn’t care about work. I didn’t care about clothes, but suspected I could do. Talking to him felt completely new, not bitchiness and argument, but short bursts, tiny words. It was a smear of influence. I loved that, I said again.