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Finally, she pins Francesca with a glare and bursts out in a sharp, biting tone, ‘So, see? I am a bad person. I’m not loyal .

I’m not going after the man I love or trying to repair my family before it’s too broken, I just want to destroy the happiest day of my best friend’s life because I’m a jealous bitch.

That’s who I am. That’s why I wasn’t going to stop either of you from trying to fuck up the wedding, because I’d still get to watch her life fall apart but wouldn’t even need to get my hands dirty. I was using you guys.’

Francesca turns the phone screen-down. Her hand trembles. Gemma, meanwhile, clenches both her hands into fists, her elbows balanced on the edge of the table as she leans low over it.

‘Did she really snog a stripper on her hen do?’ Francesca asks.

Gemma sniffs. ‘Yeah. The guys – the performers – they were milling around a bit at the start of the night, and Kayleigh was flirting with them just for kicks, and this one guy really took a shine to her. We weren’t supposed to be taking videos or anything either, but the bouncer was too pissed off about this guy coming down from the stage and Kayleigh’s behaviour to notice.

He tried to slide into her DMs after. The cowboy dude, I mean, not the bouncer.

She’d tagged the club on her Insta story, so … ’

‘Did she reply?’

Gemma shrugs. ‘She said she wasn’t going to. But she did just evict her maid of honour from the group chat and make a new fake one for me instead, so … Who knows? Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought, either,’ she adds, with a sorrowful look my way.

Francesca reaches over to give Gemma’s arm a squeeze. Gemma hunkers down smaller, and Francesca glances my way, her eyes bright through the darkness, a pale shade of greyish-blue like hoarfrost. She looks at me plaintively, but I don’t know how to help, what to do.

We are both speechless, because what do you say to something like that?

Some trio we make. The ‘work wife’ plotting to steal the groom, the brother of the bride hoping to call the whole thing off for the family’s sake, and the maid of honour planning to humiliate her best friend in front of dozens of wedding guests.

‘You were really going to do this?’ I ask. ‘Play that video?’

‘Yes. No. I don’t … Fuck, Leon, I don’t know .

I just wanted to get back at her. It’s not like she wouldn’t have gotten over it.

It’s not like Marcus wouldn’t have forgiven her.

They’re both always flirting with other people …

’ She pauses, glancing at Francesca, then snaps her gaze away.

‘And it’s always a drama, but neither of them actually cares .

They both just … It’s an ego thing, you know?

They like knowing they could have anyone they wanted, and they both like being the one who got picked, like it proves they’re the best. It’s this whole back and forth they always do … ’

She sighs, lifting her hands to press her face into them. Her glasses bump up to her forehead.

‘The worst part is, I’m so jealous of it. Watching them pick each other again and again and … And …’

She trails off, and is quiet for a long while before Francesca brings her own phone out. She opens the message thread between her and Marcus, leaves it on the table for us to look at. Gemma peeks between her fingers, curiosity getting the better of her.

Francesca takes a deep breath. ‘I suppose they’re made for each other, then. Marcus implied earlier that if I’d been there tonight, we might have … gotten together.’

The words feel like a punch in the chest. But while I’m thinking: That bastard, I knew he was no good, we all said … The part that really gets me is the idea of Francesca, wrapped up in Marcus’s arms, his mouth on hers.

Which I have no right to feel any kind of way about. And, again, I remind myself that she chose him; this is exactly what she’s been hoping for.

But she looks so disappointed about it, I can’t help but ask, ‘I thought that was what you wanted?’

‘I want to be the woman he’s in love with , the one he wants to spend his life with.

Not a seedy hook-up before he marries someone else.

Not the … the fuck-buddy at the office everyone knows about, carrying on an affair.

I … want to be the one he picks,’ she adds, glancing at Gemma before looking down at her lap.

Gemma snorts softly and shakes her head.

And Francesca sits there looking small and sorry for herself and sad and somehow, still hopeful , like this might still turn out to be the epic romance she’s been imagining this whole time, like Marcus hasn’t proved completely and absolutely what a tool he is, and something in me snaps.

‘Why?’ I ask her. My voice comes out sharper and louder than I meant for it to.

She startles, looking up at me, and even Gemma sits up a bit straighter to watch.

‘ Why ? He’s shown you who he is, what he’s like.

He’s shown you a thousand fucking times, I bet, and you keep refusing to see it.

He’s been stringing you along to feed his ego, like Gem said, and you don’t even seem to care .

You let him. If he was going to pick you, you don’t think he would’ve had the guts to break up with Kay and tell you he wanted to be with you – when it’s so bloody obvious you’d pick him?

He made his choice, and it wasn’t you. It’s like you don’t have a single ounce of self-respect or—’

‘Leon,’ Gemma says, and it’s a warning I ignore.

How long has Kayleigh been stringing all of us along?

How long have we chosen not to see it, turned a blind eye to the thousand tiny ways she’s rebuffed and rejected us?

Francesca has to see that’s what Marcus has been doing to her all this time.

How can she still want to choose him? This isn’t family she’s beholden to, this is …

it’s just some guy . She should take the out and run a fucking mile, and be grateful for it.

‘He’s a piece of shit!’ I exclaim. ‘Half the things you’ve said about him tonight, it’s like you’re embarrassed to own up to it, because you know – and you’re still pursuing him. If you think Kay deserves him, what do you think it says about you?’

‘ Leon .’

‘You’re a joke to him! If you heard the way he talks about you – the work wife – you wouldn’t be this delusional, acting like there’s any world in which he actually fancies you.

He talks about you like you’re a joke . And I bet if you had made it there tonight, you would’ve shagged him, and then you’d watch him walk down the aisle and keep fooling yourself into thinking you still had a chance.

You let him walk all over you! Where’s your sense of self-worth?

Why can’t you see , he’s never going to pick you? ’

Francesca’s breath hitches when I at last pause to catch mine, and before I can blink, she’s scrambling to get over Gemma and out of the booth, and running for the door.

‘Well, you fucked that up royally, didn’t you?’ Gemma tells me.

‘I just … I—’

The door slams as Francesca runs out, and I’m already getting up and tripping over my satchel when Gemma says, ‘Go after her, you big idiot! Fix it .’