Go to his bedroom and have sex straight away? With Harper sitting in the lounge? A love declaration and sex feels like a lot of levels jumped, all at once. But we already live together, so maybe it doesn’t matter. I falter. I haven’t really thought beyond the gooey feelings, of offloading them onto him—here take all this—to that part, the expectations, the rest of the night, the next day, and the one after that. My stomach drops. No, no, no, focus on the now. I’ll never do anything if I have to plan out the days and weeks and months that come after it. We’ll make rules, we’ll make a plan, it’ll be fine. Think back to what we told Tristan. We can make whatever rules we need, later. I can get it printed up, spiral-bound.

Be spontaneous, be spontaneous.

Maybe I’ll just pull out my phone and make a rough plan now, to show him, of how the relationship could progress, physically and emotionally, or a graph, a nice clean—

‘Brooke?’ Jesse says. He and Amber are standing in front of me.

‘Oh hi!’ I say, as if I am very surprised.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jesse says. I think his hand is resting on Amber’s back and she’s definitely leaning into him. Their body language is very we are into this. Oh god.

‘Hi, I’m Brooke,’ I smile at Amber, mostly to avoid the question.

‘My housemate,’ Jesse says.

‘I remember,’ Amber says. ‘The one with the fancy fruit platter.’ She does not smile, which makes me smile more. Is it possible for your eyeballs to sweat? Because I think that’s what is happening right now.

‘We’re just leaving to get something to eat,’ Jesse says.

‘Oh, that sounds good,’ I say, as if I’m going to tag along.

Amber is looking at me like I might be a dangerous stalker, and she’s possibly not wrong.

‘Sorry, what are you doing here?’ Jesse says again.

‘Oh um,’ I say, fumbling. My plan was to say, can we talk in private, but those words don’t arrive. Instead I say, ‘Someone crashed into your car.’

‘What?’ Jesse says, looking alarmed.

‘Not badly. But, um, you need to come home and give them your insurance details.’

‘I don’t have insurance!’ he says, looking even more panicked.

‘You don’t?’ I say, slightly horrified.

‘If they crashed into his parked car, why would they need his insurance details? It’s their fault. Wouldn’t you need their details?’ Amber says.

‘I’m not sure. You better come and sort it out,’ I say to Jesse. ‘They want to talk to you.’

‘Why did you come here, why didn’t you just call him?’ Amber asks. She’s giving me a I’m-onto-you look, and I’m not sure my lying can hold up under her scrutiny.