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‘We’ll be ready when we’re ready,’ Angie snaps. ‘Get out.’

Tim leaves as instructed but it’s me that Angie gives the dirty look to – like I was asking him to perve over me.

‘I don’t understand why the tan isn’t developing,’ Mel says as she reads the instructions again. ‘I did everything I was supposed to. I think. Maybe I didn’t mix it right. I think maybe I forgot to put in the stuff that makes the tan happen. I think we’re just covered in moisturiser.’

I rub at the skin on my chest – it does just feel like moisturiser, but it’s not soaking in at all.

‘Well, we’re going to be late,’ Angie says coolly, still clearly a bit pissed off at me for something I didn’t do. ‘We’ll have to go and try this again another time.’

‘Sorry, Lia,’ Mel tells me. ‘I really wanted to make you look hot for your love triangle.’

I snort.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I insist with a smile. ‘You’re doing a great job. Let’s go have fun.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Mel says with a sigh, giving me a very naked, very slippery hug. ‘Let’s go get wasted.’

Not what I said but, well, why not, eh?

23

The pub is buzzing with its usual evening energy – voices raised in laughter, clinking glasses, and the faint scent of booze and pub grub lingering in the air.

It was nice to see a stack of flyers for the Bonfire Night Festival sitting on the end of the bar, even if they were already sticky with spilt beer – oh, and someone had drawn devil horns on Adam’s face in the promo photo.

We’re sitting at a corner table, surrounded by a mess of empties and shot glasses filled with a suspiciously neon-blue liquid.

Mel, ever the life of the party, is standing on her chair, gesticulating wildly as she tries to explain the rules of some convoluted drinking game she seems to have invented on the spot.

‘Okay, so, if I ask you a question and you get it wrong, you drink,’ she tells us. ‘If you get it right, you make someone else drink. But if it’s a question about a movie, and it was made after 2010, everyone drinks.’

Angie looks baffled.

‘Mel, that makes no sense.’

Mel waves her off.

‘Just go with it,’ Mel replies. ‘Okay, Lia, what’s the capital of Brazil?’

‘Erm, Brasília?’ I say, fairly confident.

‘Wrong! Drink!’ she shouts.

‘But that’s right!’ I protest, laughing as I bring the shot glass to my lips.

The blue liquid is sweet and sour, making me scrunch up my face as it goes down.

‘Adam, what is 1,984 times 823?’ Mel asks, turning her attention to him.

Adam grins at me, shaking his head, before throwing back his shot like it’s water.

‘Mel’s game, Mel’s rules,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure any of us could have got that one.’

Mel is already moving on to Angie.

‘Okay, Angie, what’s the name of the third instalment of the Twilight Saga?’ she asks.

‘Ooh, Eclipse, Eclipse,’ she says excitedly.