After an awkward pause in which Jack wasn’t quite sure what to do with his face, he realized he was supposed to leave the office now. He did so, his hand slightly sweaty on the stainless-steel door handle.

He started to walk, slightly dazed, back to his desk. He noticed Deepti was still sitting there. She did a thumbs-up with both thumbs. Jack did one back. He smiled, unable to help himself.

‘Beer?’ Deepti asked.

‘Beer,’ he said, decisively.

And that was why Jack felt so hungover today. Plus, it turned out that Bryan had offered Flora a job too, so now they’d be a team. So they’d really had something to celebrate. When Jack thought about this, it almost made his hangover better. Almost, but not quite.

There was, Jack decided, nothing he wanted to watch on the massive television. He turned it off and put the remote on the coffee table in front of him, then pulled his laptop on to his lap and made his pilgrimage to all the usual sites: Reddit, Twitter (he was still getting notifications, even now, a week later) and Facebook. A few friends from university had seen the clip of him from BBC London and had messaged him over the last week, saying they couldn’t believe it was him, and that they should meet up for a pint.

No one had suggested a drink today, but there was a single red bubble on his Facebook account: a friend request. Jack clicked on it and saw that Benjamin Kenny had sent him a friend request. For a second, Jack drew a blank. Finally, he got there: Ben! From the attic. He had not expected Ben to send him a friend request.

Jack clicked on Ben’s profile. It was fairly blank – his profile picture was of him with several friends. But it was discernibly him: the same dark hair, blue eyes, the quirky grin, slightly lopsided. He returned to the friend request page and clicked accept, before going to his own profile. Jack’s profile saw sporadic activity: the odd post from his Aunt Nancy, who composed her wall posts like they were texts she was sending only to Jack; the odd photograph from a day festival, or a birthday party. There were a few tagged photos from his graduation last year.

As Jack was looking over his own Facebook page, a flashing toolbar appeared: Benjamin Kenny had messaged him. Jack clicked on the red flashing icon.

hey jack!

how’s it going?

hope you’ve found somewhere to stay while the house is sorted out

He was pleased that Ben had messaged, actually, because it meant that he couldn’t be all that cross about the Twitter business. Jack started typing quickly.

hi ben!

not bad, how are you?

yeah i’m staying at my sisters in earlsfield

hopefully not for too much longer tho

i think alexa has sorted it out :)