I was thankful when Helen appeared holding two champagne flutes and kissed Simone on the cheek. ‘You made it,’ she said. She wore an open-backed dress that accentuated her curves. Her lips were the brightest shade of red I had ever seen. I remember staring at the white of her teeth. How they shone like pearl. ‘And this must be your husband?’

When Simone was offered one of the flutes she shook her head gently and rested a hand on her stomach.

‘Oh no, of course,’ Helen said. ‘What was I thinking?’

The two headed to the kitchen for a softer beverage and I followed Phil upstairs to discard the coats. On the landing he introduced me to his teenage son, Josh, who stood awkwardly in a shirt and sweater vest that hung off his slender frame. I almost pitied him. He was at least a decade younger than anyone else at the party. His body was elongated, perched on the precipice of adulthood. He smiled and we both nodded as his father listed his various scholarly ambitions and extracurricular activities. I told him it was nice to have met him and he seemed relieved when his father nodded, giving him the go-ahead to slink off.

‘Do you guys know what you’re having?’ Phil asked as we laid the coats down.

‘A boy,’ I said.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s good. They’re easier – until they aren’t.’

When Phil took me on a tour of the house, I noticed his slacks were tailored to sit tightly round the curvature of his calves, whereas mine hung loose over my shoes; that my shirt was ill-fitting and bunched round the waist, whereas the lines of his were fitted. And I worried for a moment that I must have looked to him the way Josh did to me, like a child playing at being a man.

He explained that he worked in retail, although I later found out that he actually owned a chain of burgeoning boutique grocery stores across the Midwest. He also mentioned that he played a fair amount of sport in his college days, and it was only when we passed a wealth of trophies in his office that it became clear he had walked away from a professional career.

It didn’t take me long to realise that his success and subsequent modesty was a recurring theme. What I struggled to determine, much like the stone rabbits, was whether it was genuine or a polished act, a false modesty.

Regardless, I found that I liked the man. He had an amiability that he could turn on and off in a way that was both benign and persuasive, and it wasn’t until we circled round and met up with Simone and Helen that I realised I’d drunk perhaps a little too much.

When we returned to the coatroom at the end of the evening I pressed myself into Simone, running my hand up the length of her thigh. We kissed in the cool darkness, her lips wet and full, and I laid her down gently among the coats.