‘Oh God.’ It came out before I could swallow it. ‘I think that’s Rowan’s T-shirt.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Molly rushed out. She spoke at such a speed that I wondered whether she’d been ready with the answer since this madness started. ‘Maybe she slept with Ian, or Monty, and grabbed Rowan’s T-shirt for convenience.’

‘Sure,’ Betty agreed but her tone was flat, ‘then she came for breakfast with him.’

Faith spoke quietly. ‘Do you want to leave, Edi?’

Yes. ‘No, no, not at all,’ I lied. ‘This is fine. This is what we agreed. This is …’

‘Look, I’m going to be the horrible one and just point something out here.’ Lily gestured behind me with her fork and moved it side to side; I imagined her shifting focus between Rowan and his squeeze. ‘This is more than flirting, I can tell you that much for free.’ Molly opened her mouth to disagree but Lily only shifted the focus of her fork, then. ‘I know you want to be a cheerleader for love and that’s great, but Rowan is still out for breakfast with a girl wearing his shirt and no one is going to do that on a first date.’

Molly looked scolded. ‘Being angry isn’t going to fix anything.’

‘I’m a woman living in the twenty-first century.’ Lily speared a piece of pancake on her fork. ‘It’s my birthright to be angry.’

Betty clicked her fingers three times. ‘Can we focus on Edi for a second? It’s her fire, after all.’ She lowered her voice and spoke just to me. ‘What do you need, lovely Edi?’

For my Rowan to be my Rowan again, I thought. But I couldn’t bring myself to admit it aloud to them all. Instead, I grabbed my bag and felt around for my phone. ‘So, I turned off notifications because it was just buzzing at me all the live-long day, but maybe there are some messages.’ I clicked into the dating app. ‘And maybe we could, I don’t know, do some swiping. This guy seems nice.’ I thrust my phone under Lily’s nose.

‘Fuck-boy. Swipe left.’

‘How do you even know from a picture?’ Cora asked, and Lily shrugged.

‘It’s a gift.’

‘It really is.’ I noticed then that even though Betty was joining in, she was also still staring behind us, ‘Lily can smell a fuck-boy from a mile away.’

‘Is she gorgeous?’ I didn’t turn around to look. But I trusted Betty to stare for me.

‘A hundred per cent would not swipe right,’ Faith rushed to answer. ‘I’m a better judge of these things than Betty is and let me tell you, Parcell …’ She tucked an arm around me. ‘I’d swipe right on you, whatever dopey picture you had set on your profile.’

I leaned against her. ‘You’re being kind.’

‘Honest,’ Molly said, ‘she’s being honest.’