Mrs Petrovski let out an, “Awww. I just wish Hennessy was here to see your face right now.”

“Me too. I’ll show him these recipes tonight, and maybe we can write a recipe out to you guys.”

“We would love that,” she said. Everyone else nodded.

When we got off the bus at my stop, Merry asked if I was okay. “Sure,” I replied.

“You weren’t kidding about the bus fan club.”

I snorted at that. “No. They’re pretty cool though, yeah?”

“Are you kidding me? Jordan, that was the coolest thing ever! And I think it’s an omen.”

“An omen for what?”

“For tonight, silly. It’s gonna be perfect.”

Except it wasn’t. It was going to be a disaster. Because Angus was late getting home, and apparently he’d spent the entire day in a closed, confined space with industrial glue.

He was as high as a motherfucking kite.

He walked in with the glazed smirk, slits for eyes, and greeted us with a “Heyyyyyyy” that would put Fonzie to shame. “Are we still meeting your bus boy for dinner? Because I have some serious munchies.”

After it took Angus ten excruciating minutes to get his boots off, he moseyed on into the shower, and I practised my Lamaze breathing techniques. “Oh God, Christ on a cracker, this is going to be a disaster. I’m going to call Hennessy and cancel. He’ll understand, I’m sure.”

Merry laughed at me. “Are you kidding? Oh my God, Jordan, it couldn’t be more perfect.”

I gawped at her like she’d lost her mind. Which she had. Obviously.

She sighed. “A stoned Angus is a happy, placid, agreeable, hungry Angus. If at any point before now he was thinking he could interrogate Hennessy, you certainly don’t have to worry about that any more. Just keep a plate of fries or corn chips in front of him, and you won’t hear a word out of him.”

I let out a long exhale. “Well, we could hope so. If he calls him Bus Boy, I will die, just so you know. And in the unfortunate event of my untimely demise, please delete my browser history.”

She snorted. “What for? It’s not like you have some kinky, nasty pig porn to delete. I don’t think anyone is going to consider seventeenth-century French poetry as some kind of debauchery.”

I gasped, my hand to my heart. “Don’t underestimate the comedic brilliance of Voltaire.”

“Please, for the sake of my sanity, do not quote him.”

“‘It is difficult to free fools of the chains they revere.’”

Merry sighed, long and loud. “You are relentless.”

“Thanks.”

Angus appeared from his room wearing underpants and a brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt that looked like it had gone twelve rounds with a packet of Skittles. “Okay, I am ready for food.”

Merry squinted at him. “Aren’t you forgetting something, dear?”