Jesse hesitates for a second, before reaching out and taking my hand in his. I expect him to hold it limply, perfunctorily, but he holds it tightly and rubs his thumb over the top of my knuckles gently, and it feels so nice I could almost cry.

Jesse and Tristan chat, and then Tristan moves away, and I immediately take my hand from Jesse’s, and we don’t speak or even make eye contact. But I keep thinking of his thumb rubbing over my hand.

Damn it.

All those movies, all those books, they made fake-dating look fun. Doing this in real life feels awful, because I’m just lying to people, for no reason other than I’m insecure, and I’m lying to my body and maybe my heart, and I don’t know how to make myself numb again.

We find a newly opened karaoke bar and, fifteen minutes later, we’re all in a booth, and Lauren and Penny have their heads bent together, poring over the options for songs and shrieking with laughter.

Penny and Harper decide to sing an old Lady Gaga song together, alternating lines, and then a Beyonce song after that. Harper has a lovely voice, good enough to be in a band. Everything about her, really, screams that she should be in a band. She and Penny look at each other with such joy while they are singing that watching them makes me feel better about the world.

Lauren goes next, singing by herself, then a duet with Henry, who is so nervous he drops the mic three times but actually has a nice voice when he gets going. Lauren is not a good singer, and she misses all the notes, but she has the confidence that gets her through any kind of performance, and she wiggles and shimmies around, throwing her head back, hamming it up.

I keep sneaking glances at Jesse, who is definitely watching Lauren, possibly because she’s on stage singing but possibly because he finds her irresistibly attractive. The thought of him and Lauren in his bedroom at the end of the night is looming over me like a spectre, and I feel it, how much I don’t want it to happen, rolling through me like waves of nausea.

Tristan and Kendra do multiple duets next, and then they call Jesse and me up.

‘No thanks. I don’t sing,’ I say. My voice isn’t as bad as Lauren’s, but I have never enjoyed karaoke.

‘Me neither,’ says Jesse.

Tristan shakes his head. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer!’ he says.