‘A friend is pining over a guy.’

She laughed. ‘The friend isn’t you, is it?’

Cora let out a loud, ‘Ha!’ before slamming her palm over her mouth. Lily reached into the back to slap at her legs.

‘Not even,’ I tried to carry on like there wasn’t a small war breaking out in the seats around me. ‘I’ll have you know I’m being held hostage here, practically kidnapped.’

‘I’m about to go into work, so why don’t you call me when you’re home?’

‘Wait, where’s my sympathy?’ I tried to sound beat up in the hope that it might carry as flirting. Does this count? I wanted to ask the girls but there wasn’t the time or means. I just had to hope that—

‘I’ll give you sympathy over dinner when you’re home.’ It’s flirting. ‘My place?’ It’s really flirting. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t while you’re away.’

‘Well, what does that rule out?’

There was a pause of a few seconds. ‘I’ll tell you over dinner.’

Fred hung up, then, and Lily and Cora fell over themselves in a chorus of whoops and laughter, with the climax of a loud whistle rising from the back seat.

‘Okay, okay,’ I tried to talk over them, ‘I think that’s enough.’

‘Not even close,’ Lily said, ‘you just bloody wait until we tell Betty.’

‘Betty?’ Cora squeezed my shoulder again and gave me a wink. ‘It’s Faith I can’t wait to see. Christ, she’ll be so proud.’

Lily made a show of sniffing hard; she forced her breathing jagged and said, ‘God, don’t they just—’ a huff and a sniff and a splutter ‘—good God, they just grow up so fast …’

Chapter 28

Before

Faith was red in the face from laughter. She’d been complaining of a stitch in her left side for five minutes, but Betty had persisted – ‘What? I don’t think it’s an unfair question’ – which only made Faith laugh all the more. By the time Cora and Molly were waddling back into the living room, laden with trays of snacks and glasses of wine, Faith was panting out of an open window.

‘We either missed something good or terrible.’ Molly sounded nervous. ‘Which?’

‘Hilarious,’ Faith answered. She was still breathless. She let out an ‘oof’ sort of noise while she fanned herself, pulling winter air into the warmth of the room. ‘Betty would like to know the intricacies of female sexy time.’ She tried to keep a straight face but there was a smile cracking through every other word. ‘Apparently she’s curious but not curious-curious, only like, straight-woman curious.’