“Excuse me,” Merry said, sliding in around the drunk couple. She held three bottles of water. “Sorry, it took forever to get served. They’re really busy.”

I’d never been happier to see her. “Oh, thank God.” I grabbed her arm and turned her back toward the door. “We need to leave. I called him my Headphones Guy to his perfect fucking face.”

Merry shot Hennessy a look and held out a bottle of water for him. He took it, still smiling, though somewhat confused. Then Merry looked up at me as I dragged her to the door. “To his face?”

“What was I supposed to do? You left me unsupervised!” I stopped at the couple who were still standing in the doorway, and only just then I realised what the guy had meant when he said they thought the room was empty… “Oh praise baby motherfucking Jesus, I hope you have antibacterial wipes.”

Now Merry was hauling me out through the crowded pub. I yelled back at the couple, hoping they’d hear, “At least wipe it down afterwards, we have meetings in there!”

We burst through the crowd onto the street and Merry looked up at me and sighed. “What else did you say?”

“What didn’t I say?” I answered. “I was a mess, crying all over him because of the whole asexual thing, thank you very much. Then I was nervous and we both know how well that ends. And I think I might have told him that he was my Headphones Guy, that he had a perfect face and a perfect name, because who the fuck calls their kid Hennessy, and now he thinks I’m a raving lunatic because you. Left. Me. Un. Supervised.”

Merry cracked her bottle of water, took a long drink, sighed, then hooked her arm around my elbow. “He really is very good looking,” she said as we began the walk back to my flat. “I can see why you’ve been crushing on him forever.”

I took a swig of my water. “Fucking hell, I wish this was wine. Where is Jesus when you need him?”

Merry hummed a happy sound. “I’m proud of you for going tonight. It wasn’t easy, but you did it, and you faced it head on.”

“I cried like a motherfucking baby.”

“Because you realised it’s okay,” she replied. “And it is.”

“Can we not talk about it right now,” I mumbled. “I need to get my head around a few things, I think. And see what makes sense when the dust settles.”

“Sure thing. Is Angus home tonight?” she asked.