I whistled. ‘Are you sure we’re ready for that sort of commitment?’ I’d meant it as a joke. But when he didn’t answer, something in me shifted. Then I remembered who it was I was texting … ‘Hey, how’s everything going, Row? Like, with the dating thing?’ I locked my phone, to put a stopper in the text I was midway through typing. Fred had asked how I was spending the evening and, while Rowan knew that I could, potentially, be dating other people right now, I hadn’t yet got to the point of explaining that to the woman I’d be dating.

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Are you asking if I’ve been seeing people?’

‘I guess? I’m more asking whether it works for you.’

He put the remote down and reached over to grab my hand. When he squeezed, I felt my fingers pinch around my engagement ring. ‘I don’t feel like we’re as close, Edi, if I’m honest.’ I opened my mouth to rush in with a reassurance, but he interrupted my words while they were still just breath. ‘But I’m secure enough to know that relationships change and, I don’t know, there are always going to be times where we’re closer, or more distant. Right?’

I stalled. ‘Right.’

‘You don’t seem convinced. But I just mean, we both want this time, and we’re doing our best with it. If either of us felt like it wasn’t working, we’d say.’

He seemed so sure that I found myself nodding along in agreement. But is it working? I was sitting with my feet in my fiancé’s lap while I was texting another woman. Is this what engagement does to people? I wondered. But when Rowan let my hand go and felt around for the remote again, I took it as a sign that our conversation was closed. Still, there was one last thing I needed to push.

‘Have you told me about everyone you’ve dated?’ I asked. He’d only mentioned two girls so far. Betty had seen him out with someone last weekend and in a diplomatic way had told me they looked ‘cosy’. The description she gave, though, of a redhead with a slim build, didn’t match either of the women I knew about. I realised, then, that I wasn’t asking him whether he’d dated anyone else. I was asking him whether he was a liar.

‘Babe.’ He reached over but this time with his other hand, so he could keep the remote ready. ‘Of course I have. I’m not out there playing the field every weekend, Edi, just … I don’t know, seeing what comes up. Like you are.’

And he was a liar.

I flashed a thin smile and reached for my phone.