She didn’t even seem to realize I was making an excuse. Or maybe she did and she just didn’t care? I was confused. Did she like me or not? Did she want me to come or not? Why did I even care?

I tripped over her sports bag on my way to the door. Somewhere in all the confusion, I had lost my balance.

I was almost out the door when her phone rang and she sprang up.

“Mum? Is everything OK?” She sounded panicked. I paused, one hand on the filigreed brass doorknob.

“OK, no, I’m fine. It’s just it’s early there and I thought you were calling because something was wrong.”

I couldn’t conceivably hang around any longer without blatantly eavesdropping, so I turned the handle and stepped out of the room.

I stood on the landing of the Quinn house, getting my bearings. Why did she sound so worried on the phone? Why was her mum in a different time zone? And what about dinner? Should I have told her I wasn’t going to go?

My brain was swimming with questions. It was my own fault. I should have stuck to kissing straight girls. When I kissed them there were no questions because I was careful. Be up front about what you’re offering. Don’t get involved with anyone who might expect something more than what you are willing to give. That was important. Sure, I’d never said I was going to date Ruby or anything, but maybe I’d given her the wrong idea.

And yet in spite of my guilt, I couldn’t quite bring myself to feel the regret I was telling myself I should feel.

The house was quiet and my boots left grooves deep in the carpet on the stairs. I stepped over a body on the stairs and braced myself for sticky floors, empty bottles, beer cans strewn about, and the smell of a hundred sweaty, hormonal teenagers lingering in the air. But the sun that streamed through the windows shone on a pristine home you could use in an advert for cleaning sprays and furniture polish. Why did the magical cleaning pixies never come to my bedroom and sort out the pile of clothes under the bed?

I found said cleaning pixies in the kitchen, a team of brightly dressed women with rubber gloves, packing up supplies while Oliver handed over a wad of cash.

“Where did you come from?” Oliver smirked when he saw me.

“Oh, you know, around.”

I took a crystal tumbler from a cupboard that had definitely been empty last night and poured myself a glass of water from the tap. Oliver opened the fridge and handed me a chilled plastic bottle and put his hand out for my glass.

“Thanks, Oliver.” I grinned earnestly and put the bottle in my bag while sipping from the glass.