As he bent down and kissed her softly on the lips, he had been lit up inside with a feeling he’d never had before. It made him want to run around the room, sing loud songs, do press-ups. Was this being in love? The daring prospect of telling her had jabbed him inside but it was too risky. Instead he had buried himself in her and tried to make the most of the moment.

He doesn’t want to admit he still lives with his mum and dad. It doesn’t really go with the ‘bad boy’ image she seems to have of him, because of the dealing.

Last night she had actually made a point of inviting him along to meet her friends.

He’d been nervous, which had made him pissed off, and so he hadn’t really gone into that pub with the best attitude, he knew that.

The Eagle was a big student place and it wasn’t somewhere he usually went. It was packed out and hard to hear what anyone was saying. Her friends had been alright, he supposed. Two girls called Lydia and Cam were okay, even though Cam clearly had the hots for him and seemed to stare at him all night, turning on a full-beam smile whenever he caught her. There was a bloke called Brynn, who was one of those men who camped it up and fooled all the girls into thinking he was gay, so by the time he made his move, they were too surprised to resist him.

It was the one called Robert who had really got up Liam’s nose though. He had handed Liam a bottle of Sol and then said something about how it was exciting to imagine Watson and Crick drinking in this very pub.

Liam had said, ‘Who?’ and for a moment there had been a silence in which he’d caught Anastasia’s expression. She was embarrassed.

He’d looked on the way out at the blue plaque on the wall. Yeah, okay, maybe the people who’d invented DNA or whatever were not exactly on his cultural radar. But it didn’t mean he was somehow less than the rest of them.

‘Come on,’ says Anastasia now, ‘let’s get our pictures taken.’

She is looking towards the photo booth at the back of the shop. He starts to laugh.

‘Seriously?’ It’s the kind of thing he did when he was twelve, thirteen.

‘Don’t be a spoilsport!’

There’s a mother and a very overweight kid using it right now, clearly getting passport photos for the kid, who is whining.