And, with that, he ran out of the room.

“—mostly avoid childcare emergencies,” Jennifer continued.

Sophie finished her wine. “Darling, that’s not an emergency. That’s our life now.”

“Tell you what.” Jennifer made a fuck this gesture. “Let’s pretend I did a speech. I love you all. Let’s eat.”

Peter sailed in from the kitchen, bearing a tray of martini glasses full of gunge and lettuce. “To start,” he announced in his best MasterChef voice, “prawn cocktail. And I’m sorry, Oliver, we thought about you for the main, but we couldn’t be buggered to do a veggie starter so we just didn’t put the prawns in yours.”

“You mean,” said Oliver, “I’m starting my evening with a glass of pink mayonnaise.”

“Wow. Yes, we really screwed you on that one.”

Bridge and Tom had been whispering quietly to one another, but now she looked up in confusion. “Wait a minute. Why are we having prawn cocktail? Nobody’s eaten prawn cocktail for twenty years. And, actually, why are we all drinking Bacardi Breezers?”

“Apparently”—Sophie had poured herself yet another glass of the good wine—“this whole party is nonconsensually retro-themed.”

Jennifer squirmed sheepishly. “The thing is, I didn’t want people to feel pressured to do costumes or, well, make any effort at all. So I decided to make it a surprise. So…surprise?”

We settled down to remind ourselves why people stopped eating prawn cocktail. Spoiler: the reason is because it’s horrible. Fortunately, we all seemed to agree on that, so nobody felt compelled to politely eat it anyway.

“Don’t worry.” Peter began to clear up around us. “I think the main course should actually be edible. It’s beef Wellington, except Oliver, who gets mushroom Wellington which, I’ll be honest, we sort of made up.”

Oliver handed back his largely untouched glass of pink mayonnaise. “Which is to say the main course should be edible for everyone except me.”

“I’m sorry, Oliver.” Peter gazed at him with mock contrition. “But you should have stuck at being our only gay friend. Trying to be our only vegetarian friend as well is frankly pushing it.”

“You know,” I said, “the mushrooms sound lovely. If there’s enough, I’ll have some too.”

Bridge actually made a squee noise. “And you used to be so grumpy and unromantic.”

“I’ve never been grumpy and unromantic. I’ve occasionally been”—I tried to think of something—“brooding and cynical.”

“And now Oliver’s brought out your inner marshmallow.”

“I’m eating a mushroom, not jumping down the bleachers singing, ‘I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.’”

Jennifer toasted me with a Smirnoff Ice. “Good on theme reference.”

We were just dishing up the Wellingtons, both of which were enormous, when Ben came back looking haggard.

“Drink me.” He collapsed next to Sophie. “In the ‘give me a drink’ sense, not in the Alice in Wonderland sense.”

She drinked him. “Everything all right, darling?”

“We’re going to have to give Eva another raise. Twin A went missing and she looked all over the house for him, and was about to call the police, when she glanced out the window and saw him in next door’s kitchen between the cooker and the knife rack.”

“I take it he was fine?”

“Sadly yes. Neighbours are a bit traumatised, though.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “We’ll send them a gift basket. You know, like the last three times.”

We got on with eating for a while. Despite the warnings, the mushroom Wellington was honestly…fine? I mean, it would probably have been improved by the addition of beef but, then, most things are. Unfortunately, this also brought us to my least favourite part of the “meeting other people’s social circles” experience: the bit where they decide they’ve got to take an interest in you for the sake of their friend.

“You’re,” Brian kicked off, “some kind of…rock star? Is that right?”

I nearly lost a mouthful of Wellington. “No. Very much not. My dad’s a rock star. My mum used to be a rock star. I’m, like, the opposite of a rock star.”

“A scissors planet?” suggested Amanda after way less thought than it should have taken.

“Um. Yes? Or maybe…no?”

“That makes more sense.” Brian gently shifted his beard braids away from the gravy. “I wasn’t sure what a rock star would be doing with Oliver.”

“What is wrong with you this evening?” This was not Oliver’s “you are teasing me and I secretly like it” voice. This was Oliver’s “I am properly upset now” voice. “Are you trying to make me look as unattractive as possible in front of a man I actually like?”

“Ignore him, Oliver,” said Jennifer. “He’s overcompensating for ten years of being the single one.”

Oliver still had that prim, icy look about him. “I’m not sure that makes his behaviour acceptable.”

“I’m sorry.” The table was too small for expansive movements, but it didn’t stop Brian from trying. “I really am. It’s just you’ve dated a lot of people and they’ve never been right for you and I want to know what makes this guy different before you get hurt again.”

“I’m not your teenage daughter,” snapped Oliver. “And thinking about it, even if I were your teenage daughter, the way you’re acting would still be deeply controlling and weird.”

“He’s right, dude.” Amanda gave her husband a disappointed look. “You’re being a prick.”

“I … Sorry.”

There was a long silence.

Until Oliver eventually sighed and said, “It’s fine. I suppose it’s sweet that you care. In a profoundly unhelpful way.”

I felt suddenly and intensely shit. Because I was sitting here, eating these people’s food and drinking their Bacardi, watching them be all excited and hopeful that their friend—who they obviously cared deeply about, and who’d apparently been more miserable than I’d noticed—was finally happy.

And the whole thing sort of still had an expiration date.

For a while now, I’d been living quietly with the knowledge that I was probably going to be a bit messed up when…if…this ended. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might mess Oliver up too.