‘If he asks you to get into a car or go back to his house, say no. It could be an abduction attempt,’ Nanna said.

None of this was helpful.

Now I’m about to leave and Harper is hovering around me.

‘You look great,’ she says, for the tenth time, which makes me think I don’t look great. Once, it is believable, twice, I’m still with you, but this many times and I assume you are telling me the opposite, that there is some obvious thing wrong with my outfit that I’ve missed. I am tempted to run to my bedroom and change again but there’s no time.

Jesse is lying on the couch, typing on his laptop, glasses on. I noticed he’s started wearing them around the house during the day now.

‘I don’t trust guys named Henry,’ he says suddenly, without looking up from the screen.

‘Why?’ Harper says, hands on hips.

‘It’s the kind of name a serial killer would pick if they were trying to sound respectable,’ Jesse says, looking up.

‘You sound like my Nanna,’ I say, turning away from him. I need positive energy.

‘Henry is not a serial killer, he’s Penny’s cousin, he plays the flute, and his name has always been Henry,’ Harper says to me.

‘He could be a future serial killer. Brooke could be his first victim,’ Jesse says.

I am actually more worried about the fact he might use the date as future stand-up comedy material.

‘Are you trying to sabotage this date?’ Harper says, and Jesse’s face goes a little bit red.

‘Of course not,’ he says, looking back at his screen and adjusting his glasses.

‘Then stop talking about serial killers.’ Harper shakes her head, and turns to me. ‘You look great,’ she says. Again.

‘It’s going to be fine,’ I say to the room at large. ‘I’m good at dating.’ I don’t know why I add this last bit. I’m trying to convince myself. I’ve never been on a date before, not like this, not a date date, where you meet someone you don’t know at a predetermined location. Tristan and I got together at a party with all our schoolfriends around, and most of our time together was either hanging out at home, studying, being on school committees together, or seeing each other at school. We didn’t have a dating period. We were separate and then we were together.

‘I mean, he might be awful,’ Harper says. ‘I can’t know for sure, I’ve only met him at Penny’s family stuff. Staking your reputation on a guy who you don’t know very well is risky, it’s risky, but I think it will be fine.’ This makes me lose a bit of confidence.

‘He’s very nice over text,’ I say.