‘My phone is dead, so I just ran here,’ I say.

‘You were just on your phone, we saw you,’ Amber points out.

God, she should be a detective or a true-crime podcast host.

‘I thought my phone was dead, but it was just turned off,’ I babble. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter, just come.’ I pull on Jesse’s shoulder. Amber is wearing very high heels, so I am betting everything on the hope she won’t want to walk there and back.

‘Brooke—’ Jesse starts to say.

‘He’ll be back in ten minutes,’ I say to Amber.

‘Not a problem, I can come too,’ she says to me, leading the way out of the bar, looking extremely comfortable in her shoes.

Fuck.

The three of us start walking towards the house, and I contemplate throwing myself in front of traffic. It’s the only way to exit this hell of my own making.

Unless. If I text Harper right now, could she run out and bang up Jesse’s car a bit? How far do I want to take this?

I think of one last desperate move that doesn’t involve destroying Jesse’s uninsured property.

‘Amber, you can wait inside with me when we get there,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, we haven’t seen any mice in a few days.’

Jesse shoots me a look and opens his mouth to say something but it’s too late. The minute the word ‘mice’ left my mouth she stopped walking.

‘You know what? I’m just going to wait right here on this bench,’ she says, sitting down on a bench seat on the footpath. She immediately pulls out her phone and smiles to herself as she starts typing a message to someone.

‘I’ll be ten minutes,’ Jesse says to her.

‘It’s fine,’ Amber says, without looking up, and waving a hand. ‘Take all the time you need.’ Her tone is cold. I have officially ruined Jesse’s date.

Jesse and I walk the rest of the way home together, and I am acutely aware that this is it, this is my moment, I only have one more block, time is ticking.

‘What’s going on?’ Jesse says, when he can apparently take the silence no longer.

‘What do you mean?’ I say, still stalling.

‘You are very obviously lying.’

‘I’m not.’

‘So I’m about to walk around this corner and see my car all smashed up?’

‘Well, okay, I was lying about that,’ I say.

‘What the hell, Brooke?’ he says. He shakes his head. I feel like I’m not putting my best self forward in this conversation.

‘Look, I can explain,’ I say, but then I just keep walking to our house, and he follows me. We both stop when we get to his very-much-not-smashed car.

‘Why did you come to the bar?’ he says.

‘I needed to talk to you,’ I say.