‘Very.’ I touched the stem of my wineglass but didn’t pick it up. I wanted a cigarette. Not that that was new. I’d wanted a cigarette every three and a half minutes since I quit a month ago. I wanted a cigarette so much more often now than I ever had when I actually smoked, despite the industrial-strength nicotine patch stuck to my ribcage, giving me bad dreams and leaving me looking like I had some sort of tropical skin infection.

‘Yeah.’ I shrugged. ‘He was nice.’

‘Was?’

‘Yeah, was. It was just … I don’t know. He ticked all the boxes, but I just wasn’t feeling it, you know?’

Lina looked like she wanted to say something, and I could guess what. I’d heard it all a hundred times. You need to give it time. You’re too picky. It’s not like the movies. Give them a chance.

‘Anyway …’ I touched the stem of my wineglass again, looked at my fingers. I didn’t want to give him a chance. A chance to do what? I liked being on my own. I didn’t need a man, didn’t need anyone to look after me. ‘It’s not a good time. Work is really busy. We’re doing a major presentation next week and I have not stopped, and it’s not going to get any better for months. And then we’re going in six months.’ I took a sip, ignoring the look that flickered across her face. ‘Matt’s going to have to drink a lot of wine by himself come February. Or he can save it all for when you get back. It’s only three months, right?’

Three months. We’d fly into LA, then slowly drive across the country—she’d drive, unless by some miracle I got my licence by then—finishing with a month in New York. We’d been planning it for years, since we finished high school, long before Matt and our jobs and all the orthopaedic surgeons, and it was finally happening. We even had a date. February fifteenth, the day after Valentine’s Day, because Lina was a sucker for Hallmark holidays. We just needed to book our flights.

I can’t believe how excited you are, Lina had said last time we’d talked about it. You’re never this excited about anything.

It was exciting. It was everything we’d been planning for years. But when she’d said that I’d felt funny. Sometimes I didn’t even want to go. New York was dangerous. America was dangerous. Flying was dangerous, and the logistics were almost overwhelming—so many bits to line up. But then I thought of Lina and none of that mattered. This was our dream.