‘How much time have you spent in your life managing other people’s drunkenness?’ Jesse asks, when I settle back against the couch beside him.

‘A fair bit.’

He doesn’t know about Lauren, not really, or Dad, so he doesn’t know the true extent of it.

‘Were you happy, at school?’ he asks. His eyes are so serious.

‘I was. Sometimes.’ I pause, and look at him. ‘I think I was pretty lonely at school but I didn’t realise the feeling was loneliness because I was surrounded by people all the time.’ The confession slips out, like water through the cracks in a dam. He’s causing cracks in me.

‘Yeah. I know that feeling,’ he says.

‘You do?’

‘I felt like that at home.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’ There’s a beat, where we just look at each other. Jesse looks away first this time.

Henry suddenly leans towards us.

‘Do you want to hear my comedy set?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ says Tristan emphatically.

‘Oh, we definitely do,’ Jesse grins.

‘Okay. It’s not, like, edgy or anything,’ Henry says, pressing his hands together anxiously.

‘We don’t need edgy,’ I assure him. I almost want to hug him. I suspect he and I operate with similar levels of anxiety humming through our brains.

Jesse reaches out and holds my hand while we listen, sliding his fingers between mine. It really feels like we’re a couple, that we’ve been a couple for a long time, while also feeling like the most new, exciting, delicious secret in the world.

I lean into him a little more. The feel of his hand against mine is irresistible. I look at him at the same time he looks at me. Henry is talking, doing a sort-of-funny bit about the selfcheckout at supermarkets, but I can barely hear him, over the roaring, pounding of my heart in my ears. We’re so close, it’s almost unbearable. I’m worried I’m going to just pour myself on top of him, like a glass of water. I need to get myself under control but I don’t know how.

‘I’m just going to get a drink,’ I say, letting go of his hand and standing up.

Jesse’s eyes follow me.

‘Brooke, you’re going to miss Henry’s punchline!’ Tristan yells.

‘I’ll be back,’ I say, hurrying away from them. I lean on the bar, ask the bartender for water, and then sit on a bar stool sipping it, trying to get my bearings, trying to dampen all the nerve endings that have come alive inside me, trying to convince myself I am not really feeling what I’m feeling right now. I need to cool down, in every sense of the word. I take off my jacket and run a droplet of water up and down my arms.

‘Hey,’ says Jesse, at my shoulder.

‘Hey.’