The bench shoots cold into my arse cheeks. I sit up very straight. My hands are rammed into my pockets. I listen to every sound. Bare branches click against the wooden roof in the wind. Something plops in the water. There’s a long, low creaking noise somewhere that could be a tree.

I think about Rob and Luke. I wonder if they came in here, after we’d gone. I wonder if they lay on the cold bench together. Half singing, half sighing. Kissing. Their hands in each others’ pockets.

I wonder if Rob would do that with me.

Then I hear his beat.

I sit. Shiver. Wait.

It gets louder.

I step out of the look-out and push through the branches. I’m right in his path. He doesn’t flinch or shout out, even though there’s no way he could have known I was there. He just turns off the Walkman, licks his big lips and blinks, like his mum.

‘It’s me,’ I say.

My heart’s banging. My hands don’t feel cold any more. He sniffs and looks over my shoulder at the darkness that’s the pool behind us. The wind blows the hood of his parka up against his neck. I imagine it getting caught on the patches of stubbly-soft hairs there.

‘I came for you,’ he says.

‘I know.’ I hook the hair out of my eyes and smile at him. ‘I came to find you.’

He starts laughing then. Not his half-hidden laugh. A loud laugh that sounds like a honking goose. He doubles over with it.

‘What’s funny?’ I ask.

‘We’re always – ’

But he’s laughing again.

‘What?’

‘Looking. Looking for each other,’ he says. He honks out some more laughter.

I step closer to him. My hair blows into his face but he doesn’t brush it away.

Then I slip my hand in the pocket of his trousers. It’s not easy to do, not like it looked for Rob and Luke. I have to step in really close so my nose touches his shoulder and twist my wrist round at the right angle. There’s not much room in there.

He stops laughing and swallows. ‘I’ve got a job,’ he says. ‘Turkey plucking.’

‘That’s good,’ I say, digging around in his warm pocket, breathing into the shiny parka material, until I feel what I’m after. ‘That’s good, Shane.’