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I shouldn’t have been so nice to him at the convention. I’ve obviously given Jake the wrong impression and made him think that me and Max are cool.

I am already mentally crafting a text to Daphne.This is absolutely, categorically, NOT a date.

I’m also mentally adding another step to ThePlan –GET. RID. OF. MAX.It feels more imperative than ever. I underscore it about sixteen times in my head.

Jake, as ever, reads into my silence, and looks back at me from where he’s halfway down the hall to the kitchen, and I’m standing frozen in the doorway. His eyebrows pinch together, and his mouth turns downward.

‘You don’t mind that Max is here, right? I thought it’d be chill. He’ll enjoy rewatching a couple of episodes of OWAR …’

‘No!’ It bursts out of me too fast and too shrill. How do people do this? How do they keep their cool around a boy they like, when there’s a massive spanner thrown in the works by the name of Max? I try again, ‘No, that’s – it’s totally chill, yeah.’

Jake relaxes, grinning at me once more. His hair is all skew-whiff, like he’s had his hand tangled in it on one side while he studies, and I’d love to reach over and smooth it out. I settle for taking my shoes off instead, lining them up neatly on the shoe rack in the entryway to distract my hands.

‘D’you wanna go on up? We’re just hanging out in my room.’

‘Oh! Um … I thought …’ Is Max not also downstairs? Am I going to have to hang out with Maxone-on-one? In aBEDROOM?This is so not how this evening was supposed to go. I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘Are you sure you don’t want some help with the snacks? I can make some cups of tea, maybe, or –’

Jake wanders towards the kitchen and waves a dismissive hand over his shoulder that feels like a slap in the face. ‘Nah, don’t be silly, you go kick your feet up, I’ll follow you in a minute. Cheese and pickle?’

‘Ooh, go on then,’ I reply, trying to be normal, and he fakes a gag before disappearing into the kitchen to make his go-to after-school snack: a toastie.

I dither in the hall for the count of three before I make my way upstairs, taking them slowly. I can’t avoid the inevitable, but every second shaved off hanging out with Max counts.

Jake’s new house is bigger than his old one, considerably. It doesn’t make sense to me – I thought most parents downsized when their kids left home, and Jake will be off to uni in two years like Ginny is – but I look in awe at the sleek architecture of the massive landing window and the reading nook his mum has created in a little annex between bedrooms, making the expansive white space cosy and homely. Most of the doors are closed, except for one wide open and showing a bathroom with a walk-in shower, and another cracked open that must be Jake’s room. There’smusic playing inside, low enough to be background noise to a conversation.

The floorboard creaks beneath my foot as I step closer, which I don’t doubt Max will have heard, so I suck in a breath and step inside.

Jake’s room is … more or less exactly the same. The configuration is all different, but the furniture and colours and posters and clutter haven’t changed a bit: the blue and grey bedsheets, a navy feature wall behind his bed, his desk overtaken by a gaming set-up and a couple of books stacked neatly. There’s a new addition to his dorky collection of posters – an OWAR one, signed in silver Sharpie by several cast members he met at the convention recently. It’s got pride of place behind the TV.

The only thing out of place ishim.

My eyes snag on Max after a quick scan of the room, and linger.

He looks surprisingly … well,normal, actually. He’s sitting in Jake’s low, curved gaming chair, wearing a white school shirt like Jake, although his is still tucked in and the sleeves are rolled up more neatly and firmly, in no danger of flapping loose. He’s concentrating on a textbook in his lap, a highlighter in hand and a pen pinched between his teeth, brow furrowed in concentration.

Once again, all I can do isstare at him.

He’s got dark hair. Thick and almost jet-black, worn half-up in a loose bun, the rest long enough to brush his chin. Even without the weird armour things to bulk them out, his shoulders are broad.

He glances up, eyes locking on mine intensely, and he doesn’t say so much as a ‘hello’. He notices my lipstick, staring unashamedly just as much as I am. His gaze flicks to my T-shirt, then, and one of his eyebrows twitches upwards as if in disdain.Heclearly thinks it’s a try-hard move.

I blurt out, ‘I would never have recognized you without the wig and the ears.’

It’s true. If I’d walked past him in the street, I’m not sure I would’ve known it was him.

‘And here I thought you’d show up in full cosplay for an OWAR marathon,’ he quips, and even though his tone is light, it’s laced with just enough sarcasm that it feels like a dig. For a moment, I think maybe he can even see right through me, and knows why I’mreallyhere. ‘I’m kind of let down, newbie. You call this commitment to the fandom?’

I hate him.

I actually, properly, hate him.

I drop my school bag down and perch on the edge of Jake’s bed, which is about as far away from Max asI can get. I tuck one knee up and lean on my hand. It’s a pose lots of the movie heroines do, and I can only hope I look as confident and effortless as them. I donotneed Max knowing he’s gotten under my skin, or Jake thinking I hate his new friend.

So I will be his friend, too. I will be nice to him, and I will be polite and I willnot lose my cooland lose Jake in the process. I can’t. And if that means putting up with this judgemental prat, so be it.

‘Oh, Max,’ I tell him. ‘You havenoidea how committed I am.’

CHAPTER 8