‘YES! MY ROUND!’ Ellen screamed back, brandishing the fiver her mother had given her for pizza before she left the house.

Ellen elbowed her way back towards the bar, leaving Kate gyrating on the dance floor. A man was leaning in to try and talk to her, but Kate was oblivious, lost in her own movement.

Ellen squeezed into the bar, her elbows slipping on the wet counter. She tried to get the attention of the bar staff, but they seemed to be working according to their own internal system, and Ellen was far down the list. She clung on to the fiver, watching as they squeezed shots of vodka into glasses and then fired Coke out of the gun. And then she noticed Harry Grahams was standing beside her, with a boy she was pretty sure was called Scott on his other side.

‘Hey,’ she slurred, without thinking.

They appraised her, looking blank.

‘Ellen,’ she reminded them, although she wasn’t certain they’d ever got as far as being properly introduced. ‘I go to Rainham,’ she added, then put her hand over her mouth, remembering that she was very much here under false, under-age pretences.

‘Right,’ Harry grunted.

He was quite sweaty, but Ellen decided this was attractive. Scott grinned and made a sort of salute with two of his fingers.

‘So, what can I get you?’ she winked.

They looked at each other, then shrugged.

‘I’m alright, thanks,’ Harry replied. He jerked his thumb back towards his group at the banquette. One of them – possibly Craig Gordon – appeared to have passed out. He was slumped sideways, head lolling. ‘We’re getting a round in anyway.’

‘Oh, go on, do a shot with me!’ Ellen said. She waved the fiver even more vigorously over the bar, earning a glare from the best-looking bartender. ‘We can do Sambucas!’

‘Nah, I’m alright, thanks.’ Harry turned back to Scott, who was whispering something in his ear.

‘So, do you guys come here often?’ Ellen batted her damp fringe from her eyes.

Harry nodded, but didn’t look at her.

‘We love it here,’ she said, with the air of a regular. ‘The music is so good.’

He looked like he might have been about to reply when the female bartender swooped in to serve him and he leaned across the bar to grunt, ‘Five pints of Stella.’

Ellen watched, mouth slightly open, as the woman poured five sloppy pints, arms moving in all directions. Harry paid for the drinks and he and Scott started to pick them up.

‘Want some help?’ Ellen asked, eagerly. It was worth losing her place in the queue to talk to Harry Grahams.

‘Nah.’ Harry managed to pick up all five. Without a backward glance, he stepped away from the bar, the throng parting slightly as he did so.