“You have to stop him, obviously. I mean, it’s your fault for letting him go in the first place.”

Ow. Not okay, Bridge. “I did not let him go. I begged him to stay. I even talked about my feelings and he dumped me anyway.”

She sighed heavily. “Oh, you can both be so hopeless sometimes.”

“That is unfair. I really tried.”

“Then try again.”

“Again? How many times do you want me to throw myself at a guy who doesn’t want me?”

“More than once. And you know he wants you. He’s always wanted you, Luc.”

I collapsed into my desk chair, accidentally activating the tilt so that I nearly slid off under my workstation. “Maybe. But he’s convinced himself it can’t work, and I don’t know how to unconvince him.”

“Well, neither do I. But just sitting there while he runs away to the North is probably not a good start.”

“So you want me to what? Get on a train to Durham and stand in the city centre shouting ‘Oliver, Oliver, I love you’ on the off chance he hears me?”

“Or,” she suggested, “you could go to Durham and meet him at the hotel he’s staying at—which I know because he told me—and then you could say ‘Oliver, Oliver, I love you’ to his face. Also…oh my gosh, you totally love him. I told you. This is going to be the best thing ever.”

“No, it’s a terrible idea. And Oliver will think I’m deeply creepy.”

She thought about this for a moment. “What if I come with you?”

“I think that will look more creepy.”

“I’m coming with you.”

My phone buzzed ominously. And the WhatsApp group—now Bridge Over Troubled Waters—flicked into life with a message from the Bridge in question.

WE HAVE TO TAKE LUC TO DYRHAM

*DURHAM

BECAUSE OF TRUE LOVE!!!

This is your way of asking for my truck isn’t it?

No, I typed quickly.

YES VERY TRUCK MCUH EMERGENCY WOW

I wish, came James Royce-Royce, someone would teach our Bridget a new meme

This was getting out of hand, and there’d only been seven messages. Look everythings okay. No one needs to be driven anywhere. Please go about your lives. Thank you and goodnight

And, of course, an hour later—having taken a personal day that I’d really hoped someone would care about or challenge me on—I was sitting in the back of Priya’s truck, with Bridget, Tom, and the James Royce-Royces.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’ve got jobs, some of them quite important. You can’t seriously want to drive five hours up to Durham just to watch me get shot down by a barrister.”

“Nope”—Priya glanced into the rearview mirror—“we are all up for that. It’s because we care-slash-hate you.”

“This is the most romantic thing you’ve ever done, Luc darling,” said James Royce-Royce. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I gaped at them. “And you’re going to…stand around and watch while I…while I…”

“Tell Oliver you looooooooove him,” offered Bridge.

“While I try and ask a guy who’s already turned me down to go out with me.”

“You’re right.” Thank God Tom was on my side. “Standing around and watching would be a bit ridiculous. Let’s stop at a Welcome Break and grab some popcorn first.”

Priya grinned. “I’d high-five you right now, but I like my truck far too much to take my hands off the wheel.”

“I don’t even know what I’m going to say to him,” I muttered, “and, Bridge, if you tell me to tell him I loooooooove him one more time, I will shove you out of this vehicle.”

That earned me a Level Seven Bridget Pout. “Don’t be mean. I’m supporting you. And, besides, ‘I love you’ is all you should have to say.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“It’s all Tom had to say to me.”

“For the record”—this was Tom—“I said quite a lot of other things. About how sorry I was for hooking up with your best friend—no offence, Luc.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s fine. Tell me to my face what a mistake I am.”

“Point is,” interrupted Bridget, “it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t listening to anything after the ‘I love you’ bit.”

Tom laughed and pulled her close. “I do love you.”

“Oi.” Priya banged the wheel. “The only person who’s allowed to fuck in my truck is me. I mean me, and whoever I’m fucking.”

“Yes, we’d inferred that, darling,” remarked James Royce-Royce. “Otherwise you’d just be lying in the back seat having a massive wank.”

Priya frowned into the mirror. “Thanks for that speculation into the scale of my masturbatory habits.”

“Would you rather I said a tiny wank? A micro wank? A wankette?”

I covered my face with my hands. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m walking to Durham.”

“There, there.” Bridget offered me a consoling pat. “It’s going to be fine. Oliver really likes you. And you really like him. You’ve just been really bad at making each other believe that.”

“Actually he’d done a great job convincing me. Right up to the point where he said it was over and walked out of my flat.”

“He’s scared, Luc.”

“Yeah, I got that. Credit me with some emotional intelligence.”

“But you’ve also got to understand that he’s spent his entire life trying to be the perfect son and the perfect boyfriend, and it never seems to work out for him.”

I made an angry noise. “Yes, I got that too. I did pay some attention while we were dating. The difference is, his parents are dicks. And his boyfriends, I assume, have also been dicks.”

“Some of them were quite nice. The boyfriends, I mean. His parents are awful and hate me.”

“Oh how could anyone hate you, Bridget?” asked James Royce-Royce, with an almost inhuman lack of sarcasm.

She thought about it for a moment. “They seem to get very cross when you’re late. And it’s not like I’m late on purpose. Things come up. And I once asked for a Malibu and Coke at a party, and they looked at me like I’d asked for a glass of baby’s blood.”