‘That’s six whole days. You can fritter your life away watching twenty-two overpaid losers kicking a ball around a field. I’ve got choons to write.’

And he strode off in the direction of his bedroom. Halfway down the corridor, he called nonchalantly over his shoulder, ‘Thanks for the game, Sam.’

The excitement in the house had been building all week, and was now at fever pitch. Dan had been working flat out writing new songs, only stopping for a couple of hours on Saturday night to congratulate Ross and Katie on their engagement. By Tuesday morning he was pleased enough with three of the new songs to add to the best of the band’s existing repertoire, and the Flaming Geysers had been rehearsing nonstop ever since.

Much as Sam had been impressed by the music, it was impossible to concentrate on her work with it going on around her, so she had fallen back on the college library, trying to make herself as unobtrusive as possible. She had been amused to see a couple of posters advertising the Barfly gig on the library noticeboard, and wondered if any of her fellow students would be going. She was pretty sure that none of them was aware of her connection with the band.

Now it was Friday evening, and Sienna had come round to the Crack Den early so they could get tarted up together. The boys were already at Barfly, setting up.

‘Oh, God, I’m so excited for them, I could piss myself,’ Sienna said in her crude posh-girl manner as she popped the cork on another bottle of Dom Pérignon.

‘Charming.’ Sam laughed. ‘But yeah, it is really exciting. I hope the thing about the A&R man wasn’t just a bit of music-biz bluffing.’

‘Hmmm. No smoke without fire, I’d say.’ Sienna topped up both their glasses and started applying a third layer of mascara.

‘Hope you’re right. Dan’s been working so hard all week, it would be a shame if it was all for nothing,’ Sam fretted.

‘Well, it wouldn’t be all for nothing, anyway – Mikey says they’ve got some brilliant new material out of it.’

‘Yeah, it’s awesome.’

‘And why the sudden concern for Dan?’ Sienna teased. ‘Is there something going on between you two? I know he fancied you when we first met, but you were still going out with Mark then. And Mikey said he thought something might have happened when I was in Tuscany, but Dan’s always denied it …’

Sam felt a wave of enormous gratitude towards Dan. But there was something else too. Something much stronger, which she was only just admitting to herself.

‘Well, he’s right to deny it, ’cause nothing’s ever happened,’ she said hotly.

‘You’ve gone bright red!’ Sienna said with glee. ‘OK, I believe you – I think … But you’d like something to happen, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you? Come on, Sam, you can admit it to me – and I could hardly blame you. Dan is hot. If I didn’t only have eyes for Mikey, I could easily go for him myself …’