‘Hey,’ I say, swallowing hard as I get to him.

‘Grace,’ he replies, leaning forward and kissing one cheek and then the other. His skin is warm and his stubble rough, he smells just like he did on the day we met and my pulse is speeding up.

‘Come,’ he says, taking me by the hand and leading me inside before I can say anything else.

There are people in the hallway; a couple kissing against the wall to my right.

‘This is Grace,’ he announces as we move towards another door at the end of a hallway.

‘Hi Grace,’ everyone says in unison and I cringe. I’m good at lying, great at lying, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

He pushes open a heavy black door and the room beyond smells like oil paints and turpentine and weed and dust. The music is loud, far louder than it seemed from the street outside. It’s old-school hip-hop. The walls are lined with canvases all covered in the same white cloths I saw at Le Voltage, and the shelves are filled with a selection of paints. A general mess of newspapers and comics lies scattered haphazardly.

All around us swirl people I don’t know – dancing, drinking, looking at us as we move through – but Noah keeps hold of my hand and leads me to a sort of kitchenette. He opens a fridge and pulls out a bottle of champagne as I lean back on a counter and watch him. He pours us each a drink and then hands one to me with a wink. ‘I’m glad you came,’ he yells over the music.

‘Me too,’ I yell back, taking a sip but not breaking eye contact, not even for a moment.

‘Are you going to show me some of your work in progress?’ I ask loudly, reminding myself that I’m here for a reason. But he frowns – did he hear me? – and so I point to the covered up canvases.

‘What?’ he yells, bringing his face in right beside mine so he can hear me.

But now I can smell his shampoo. Muted peppermint.

‘Are you going to show me some of your work in progress?’ I say into his ear.

He turns to me, and I can feel the warmth of his breath on my ear as he says, ‘Hell, no. I still haven’t recovered from being told I’m like Berthe.’ Then he pulls away and he’s grinning.

And I’m grinning too; my pulse is tapping fast.

He reaches for my wrist and pulls a Sharpie out of his back pocket. ‘But I am going to brand you.’ I watch as he draws something on my inner wrist: it’s round on one edge and jagged on the other. It’s half a broken heart.

‘Is this some sort of warning?’ I shout over the music, eyebrows raised.

‘No.’ He laughs, letting go of my wrist and leaning in close again so I can hear him. ‘It’s just so nobody asks you to leave. This is a very exclusive party, you know,’ he mocks.