Nine looks left and then right. He’s really hamming it up. ‘Because I don’t trust you yet. You two are kind of, ah, suspicious. You know that, right? Two beautiful girls like you, you’re right out of a spy movie.’ He winks at me. It suddenly dawns on me; he’s just as bad around girls as I am. He overcompensates and looks kind of ridiculous doing it. It makes me like him more, even if he is totally embarrassing us both.

The girls look at each other and smile. The blonde digs into her purse, scrawls something on a scrap of paper and hands it to him. ‘The next stop is ours. Give me a call after seven and we’ll think about hooking up with you guys somewhere later. I’m Nora.’ I’m stunned his stunt worked.

‘I’m Sarah,’ the brunette says. Of course that’s her name. I shake my head. If that isn’t a blinking sign that we must end this conversation now, I don’t know what is.

Nine reaches his hand out to shake theirs. ‘I’m Tony, and this handsome stud next to me is Donald.’ I clench my teeth and give them a polite wave. Donald?

‘Cool,’ Nora says. ‘Well, talk to you later.’ The train stops and they get off. Nine leans over and waves to them through the window. After the train pulls out of the station, Nine chuckles to himself. He is looking very smug.

I elbow him in the ribs. ‘Are you nuts? Why would you deliberately draw that kind of attention to yourself – to us? You had no right to drag me into your stupidity. And, why in the world would you do anything to encourage them to look at our Chests? Let’s hope any girl stupid enough to buy your crap is too stupid to think too hard about any of it!’ I liked him a whole lot better when he just looked like a loser.

‘Calm down, Donald. You think you could keep your voice from squeaking so loud? It’s no big deal. Nothing is going to happen to us here.’ He leans back, hands folded behind his head. When he speaks again, though, he doesn’t sound so puffed up. ‘Sandor would have been so damn proud of me just now, you know? I bet you’d never know it, but normally, I’m crazy nervous around girls. And the more I like them, the worse it is. No more. After what I’ve been through this past year, nothing really scares me anymore.’