He replied to his Mum; he’d arrived – he was fine. She’d messaged telling him to get a cab home on the account; she said she’d ordered him one for twelve fifteen. It was only a short night bus back to the railway bridge and then a five-minute walk home, but there was no point arguing with her.

‘Your mental mum let you out then?’ came a voice behind him, and Quinn felt a friendly punch land in the side of his ribs. He turned to give Jonesy a thump on the arm. ‘It’s yer birthday, it’s yer birthday,’ Jonesy sang, grinding his hips into Quinn and waving his arms in a dance.

Duncan Jones was one of Quinn’s best friends and one of the only people who could get away with making jokes like that about his mother.

‘You got Dr Quincey here drinking?’ Jonesy asked Matt, taking the Coke out of Quinn’s hands and sniffing it. ‘The mentalist isn’t going to like that.’

‘He’s got to have the odd night off,’ said Matt.

‘Let’s not talk about my mum tonight, dickheads,’ Quinn said.

‘Let’s talk about Matt’s mum then. Mrs Dingle is looking proper MILF these days,’ Jonesy said, making a kissing, clicking sound with his tongue and giving Matt a wink.

‘Don’t you … ’ Matt took a lunge at Jonesy. Quinn stepped between them and held out a palm to intercept Matt’s flailing fist.

‘Boys!’ came a warning voice from one of the trestle-table mums. ‘We’ll have none of that, please.’

The night rolled on. Deepak Patel reappeared, having failed to get into the pub, DJ Music Melvin turned out to be half decent, and Quinn danced and drank and laughed with his friends. At one point a few girls came shuffling over to dance next to them but Matt scared them away with his version of breakdancing.

‘If you want to pull, you’ll have to ditch pizza-face,’ Deepak said, pointing at Matt, who by this point was staggering around the dance floor, sloshing his drink down his T-shirt, shouting out lyrics to ‘Bootylicious’ by Destiny’s Child. ‘Those girls clearly want to get to you, but Matt keeps leching on anyone who gets close.’

Quinn hadn’t thought about trying to kiss anyone tonight. He never tried to kiss girls, it just happened sometimes without him doing very much. His school was all boys, but whenever he and his friends hung out with girls, it was usually his louder, more outgoing friends who did all the talking, while Quinn, without trying to, came off as the quiet, interesting one.