“No one wears hats anymore,” I grumbled, but I took her coat anyway. Bea was very good at being Bea. No one ever really told her no. I begrudgingly headed to the coat closet and ran smack into Freddie.

“I see Bea’s put you to work,” he said, shrugging off his dark blue wool overcoat and handing it to me. “And at your own birthday party. Shocking.”

“Are your arms broken? Hang it up yourself.”

“Sassy as ever, Killer,” he said, but he reclaimed his coat and took Bea’s in the bargain.

“Someone’s got to keep you in line,” I said. “How are you?”

“Better than Knickers, I assume,” he said. “He’s been busy.”

“You know how these things go,” I hedged.

“Yes, ebb and flow, and all that,” Freddie said, not making eye contact with me. “I’m in a bit of an ebb at the moment. Never been broken up with this much in my life.”

“Was this the…physicist?”

“No. She dumped me because she said she was getting back together with her ex-boyfriend. This one was a research scientist for a cancer lab,” he said. “Really interesting stuff. I brought her a sandwich at her flat while she was collating some data, and asked a few questions, and she kicked me out for being ‘too distracting.’” He made the air quotes with a frown. “I thought it was a sexy compliment, but then she ended it because she didn’t think our lifestyles would mesh. She didn’t even give my lifestyle a chance.”

“You at least should’ve gotten points for the sandwich.”

Freddie’s gesture said, I know, right?

“Chin up,” I said. “It’s a cliché, but the right person will turn up eventually. You’ll find your place.”

We paused next to each other in the doorway that led into the living room. Someone had lit a fire in the hearth. Gaz was using a level to check the tiers of the cake for evenness and taking notes in a Moleskine notebook. Across the room, the four ladies were huddled around Lacey’s phone.

“Is this your boyfriend?” Cilla asked. “Well done.”

“I heard that,” Gaz bellowed from across the room.

“He’s objectively handsome,” Cilla called back at him. Gaz huffed in the general direction of the cake.

“Watch out, you’ll blow it over,” Freddie called out.

“I’m not the Big Bad Wolf,” Gaz said.

“It looks precarious,” Freddie insisted. “You need to work on your structural integrity.”

Gaz told Freddie in very strong terms what he could do with his structural integrity, and Freddie turned to me and yanked on my ponytail. “Still glad this is your place, considering this unseemly lot?”

“Damn right,” I said. We exchanged uncomplicated smiles, and impulsively I wrapped my arm around his chest and hugged him. “It feels like home when you’re all here.”