Ellen looked at Ben. ‘I suppose you can come too.’

Alexa smiled at her.

She added, ‘But you aren’t allowed to touch any door handles.’

They stayed until 10.30 p.m. – even Alexa. Admittedly, she was crashing at Ben’s nearby, which gave her some licence to stay out later than usual. Unlike Jack, who was definitely a little bit drunk, and had to make it halfway across London, back to Maisie’s.

Jack and Ellen walked to the station together. They were quiet for a little while, unused to being alone with one another again. Ellen’s mouth tasted a little metallic. She wished she had a cigarette. Jack walked a little faster than she did, and she had to trot, ever so slightly, in order to keep up.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Jack asked, out of the blue. Or at least, she was fairly certain that’s what he’d asked, except that at the exact moment he spoke, a fire engine bombed past them on the New Cross Road, siren shrilling. Ellen wondered if any of their three handsome rescuers were aboard.

‘Sorry, what was that, Jack?’ she asked, not looking at him.

‘Are you OK?’ He didn’t slur, exactly, but he sounded looser than he usually did, less halting and uncertain.

‘Oh, I’m fine, really,’ Ellen replied, surprised to learn that she meant it. She continued. ‘I mean, I’m humiliated, obviously. And it feels icky to learn that I was exchanging, albeit very chaste, pretentious messages with a fourteen-year-old boy for months when I was seventeen.’ She laughed, dismally. ‘And that constituted the sum total of my teenage romances.’ She sighed. ‘But I’m fine, really. And I suppose it was nice of Ben to put me out of my misery.’

‘Yeah,’ Jack replied. ‘He’s not so bad, really.’

‘No. Not at all.’ Ellen elbowed Jack in the ribs. ‘Plus, we’ll need to get used to him now. He’s going to be around the house all the time.’

Jack stared at her. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, after a beat. ‘Of course. With Alexa.’

Ellen thought about them all, reunited in Rokeby Close under one roof, Ben too. In time this would no longer seem weird, or even especially remarkable. Perhaps some mornings, while Alexa was showering, she and Ben would do a post-match analysis of whatever night out she’d returned from only a few hours previously. He’d be genuinely amused by her stories, now they could be friends (really) and could laugh (properly).

‘I hope we do all have dinner together on Saturday,’ Jack added, quietly.

‘I’m certain that dream can be realized, Jack.’

They’d reached New Cross Gate station now. Ellen tapped her debit card on the reader and looked up at the board. Her Overground train was going in three minutes. Jack was still fumbling with his backpack, on the wrong side of the gates.

‘Hey, Jack, I’ve got to go.’