Samantha had watched too many reruns of Friends on Channel 4 in the common room and had told her long-term boyfriend, Ian, still back at home in the Midlands, that she wanted to go ‘on a break’. Ian was presumably now making hay while the sun shone. Chloe tried to stop her eyes from rolling back into her head. On the table next to them was a bigger group, screaming with laughter and buying round after round of shots. Lissy was leaning across her to talk to Samantha about Ian’s text silence. Chloe tried to scrape up some enthusiasm for the conversation. It wasn’t difficult. She only had to throw in a ‘You’re too good for him’ or ‘You should get over him by getting under someone else’ and she’d be golden. She should do it. Samantha and Lissy had been kind to her. Yes, their Sex and the City marathons and obsession with home-made face masks were a long way from her vision of university, the hoped-for debates and literary salons, but it had to be better than nothing.

Something buzzed against her thigh. Jumping, she scrabbled for her phone, pulling it out. ‘Busy tonight? Z x,’ read the screen.

‘She’s blushing!’ said Samantha.

‘He texted you?’ Lissy looked delighted, as if this was playing into the sitcom she was living out in her head. Chloe nodded, deciding that was easier than explaining. ‘Not busy, just having drinks with girls from my/our corridor. C x,’ she texted back.

‘Don’t text back now!’ yelped Lissy as she watched Chloe press send. ‘You have to wait!’

‘Too late,’ smiled Chloe, taking a swig of her drink.

‘You won’t hear from him until at least tomorrow now,’ said Samantha, her face solemn. As if in reply, Chloe’s phone buzzed, spinning on the sticky table. Her body thudded as she picked it up. ‘Want to come over? 29 Archer Crescent.’

The sickly lemonade taste of the Bacardi Breezer burned the back of Chloe’s throat.

‘What did he say?’ Lissy pulled at Chloe’s arm.

‘Asked me over,’ Chloe confessed. She wanted to share the excitement, even if she wasn’t being exactly honest. ‘Where’s Archer Crescent?’

Both girls raised their eyebrows, almost in unison. ‘He lives on Archer Crescent?’ Chloe nodded and pretended to listen while Samantha gave her directions and Lissy explained how much houses on Archer Crescent cost.

Chloe got to her feet, grabbing her bag. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Drinks on me tomorrow, okay?’

The girls smiled at her back as she turned for the door. Chloe knew they’d spend the evening talking about what a mistake she was making, about how easy she was. But she quite literally could not have cared less.