I could barely contain my glee. I swiveled toward Oliver, expecting him to be embarrassed. He sauntered over to his dad and took the mike. He reached his arms overhead, and then stretched his legs on the arm of the sofa like he was warming up for a sprint.

“I have but one request.” He directed this at me.

I assumed he was going to ask me not to breathe a word of it to anyone. I was wrong.

“Please save your applause for the end of the performance.”

7.

After three more renditions from Oliver in various genres, two more Sarah McLachlans from Harry, and one amusing duet from Ruby, and a very sozzled, slightly dramatic Jane, Ruby reminded me I’d left my top upstairs and why didn’t I come upstairs and get it. Harry and Jane were too tipsy to question why or when I’d left articles of clothing in their house.

“Oliver’s actually not bad,” I said as I followed Ruby upstairs. “You know I wouldn’t tell him that, but he can hold a tune. I won’t be advising him to pack in his university plans or anything but . . .” I was rambling. I was nervous. Sitting beside her all night, even when I was watching Oliver belt out “A Whole New World” (both parts), I felt this hum of electricity, a static charge that kept building and building.

Her room was more lived-in than last time. The sports bag I’d tripped over was gone and there were books on the shelves. Ruby took a seat in a peacock-blue armchair that hadn’t been there last week, folding her legs onto the seat.

“So where’s my top?” I said.

“I have no idea. I threw it in the laundry and it disappeared.” She grinned.

I perched on the edge of the bed beside her open laptop. It was frozen mid-scene from a film I didn’t recognize.

“What are you watching?”

“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” she said. “I’m at the bit where Hugh Grant is telling Andie MacDowell he loves her in the rain.”

“Never heard of it.”

She looked genuinely shocked. “It’s a classic. It’s my favorite. The romantic comedy to end all romantic comedies.”

“I don’t really watch those. They give people unrealistic expectations of love.” If you were the kind of person who relied on romantic comedies to tell you what life was like, you were going to be very disappointed. Heartbreak isn’t eating a tub of ice cream and then running into the new love of your life at the independent bookstore. If that was how Ruby saw relationships, she probably wouldn’t understand my aversion to them.

“What films do you like?”

“If I had to pick a genre it would be horror.”

“Doesn’t that give you unrealistic expectations of how likely you are to be stabbed by a knife-wielding maniac?”