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‘Charming,’ I say, trying to laugh it off. ‘Perhaps Jamie doesn’t find me attractive or like me at all, he just wants to piss you off.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he insists.

I look down at my silent phone.

Until now, I have assumed Jamie’s flirting is simply part of his personality. He flirts because he can, because people respond to it and because he loves the reaction and the attention. Okay, the kiss on my cheek at the arcade was obviously designed to annoy Eddy, but that does not mean all of it has been. What about the time we’ve spent together while Eddy hasn’t been around? Although I suppose he doesn’t really know about all of that. He invited me to his match. We had dinner together, when we were staying in the hotel at the same time – and it’s not like he rubbed it in Eddy’s face afterwards. Then again, if he thinks Eddy and I are together, perhaps that is precisely why he is doing it. Maybe he wants to prove that the King’s girlfriend would rather be with a Prince. I suppose it would fit neatly with everything I know about him. The way he plays, his dirty tactics.

I put my phone back into my bag, deciding that Jamie can wait until later, because I can only fight one battle at a time.

We finally turn into a private estate where every house is detached, painted white and surrounded by gardens that appear to have been installed rather than grown.

Tina’s new house is even more enormous than it looked in the photographs, which I had assumed were taken from flattering angles, like estate agents do. If anything, the photographer showed restraint.

It’s the last – and biggest – house at the end of a private road, behind two stone pillars and a set of electric gates, although the gates are wide open tonight so guests can drive straight in. I wonder how long I can hack it, before I want to drive straight back out, because hanging out with my old friends, particularly Tina, is like riding a mechanical bull. No matter how hard I try, sooner or later, it’s going to throw me.

There is a curved driveway, a double garage and more windows than I can be arsed to count. Warm light spills from every room – I couldn’t afford the bills, never mind the house.

‘I know you said it was big but… wow,’ Eddy says as he parks up.

‘Bloody hell, I wonder how many bedrooms it has,’ I think out loud. ‘I’ll bet even their guests can have guests.’

He laughs.

I look at the house again as we walk up to the large front door. I smooth the skirt of my green dress over my thighs and check for hopefully the final time that it’s containing my boobs as I walk.

Tina has spent what feels like forever posting photographs of this place, beginning with the keys hanging from one of her long, fake nails, to snaps of them moving through every stage of the renovation. The Italian marble kitchen island. The children’s bedrooms. The hand-painted tiles in the downstairs toilet. Yesterday, she posted a photograph of herself sitting on the front step with a mug of coffee and the caption: Finally in my little forever home with my little family. I don’t even know where to begin with that one.

The way Tina talks about it, you would think she and her family had spent the last ten years sleeping beneath a bridge, rather than in a four-bedroom detached house with bifold doors.

Eddy offers me his hand, snapping me from my thoughts.

I take it as we walk up the drive.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he assures me – I wonder if he can feel my pulse, because he seemingly knows to calm me just as my panic hits its stride.

His hand remains around mine as I ring the bell. But we’re a couple, right? And that’s what couples do. They hold hands. Unless, of course, you’re in a couple (or a throuple, or a couple of throuples) with Ron.

The front door opens…

Tina appears in a fitted red dress, with her hair curled over one shoulder and maybe the smuggest smile I have ever seen on her face. Her husband, Tony, stands beside her holding a beer. They look like they’ve done this a hundred times already today, just as they rehearsed it earlier probably, because everyone has to see them in their perfect doorway looking like the perfect couple.

Tony’s expression changes in an instant when he sees Eddy.

‘Bloody hell,’ he blurts.

Tina scowls at him.

‘Darling,’ she says, by way of a warning.

‘That’s Eddy Hood,’ he tells her.

She shrugs.

‘Eddy Hood,’ he says again. ‘He plays for the Leeds Lions.’

Tony offers Eddy a hand to shake. Luckily, I’m holding his left hand, so he doesn’t need to let go.

It’s funny, I don’t think of Eddy as famous, because league players aren’t really that well known, but to someone like Tony, a fan, this must be like me meeting Ryan Gosling.