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      ‘OK! OK, brilliant,’ he said, clearly surprised and a bit overwhelmed. ‘Ehm … I know, what about the Natural History Museum?’

      What? But you’re a rich City person. I mean, surely I deserved the Oxo Tower at least?

      ‘Next Saturday? Are you on duty?’

      I reluctantly said no, I wasn’t on duty, which at least was the truth.

      ‘Great! I’ll meet you there at two! OK! Fantastic! Brilliant!’ Unable to stop thanking me, he retreated back to his group of Jameses, where I was disgusted to see him being slapped on the back by his friends. And I wasn’t too proud of myself, either.

      Kate came over. ‘Well, you’ve certainly made an impression. Do they know you actually run a daisy hospital?’

      ‘I’m sorry, Kate. No one would have spoken to me otherwise. AND, hey, it worked! I got a date!’

      ‘Finn is not a date. He’s a walking CD-ROM.’

      ‘That doesn’t sound too bad to me. What does he do?’

      ‘He’s developing string theory for stock markets.’

      ‘Wow, I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like he must be RICH.’

      ‘No – wow, he must be DULL. Just a friendly warning … Oh, and he actually works for the University of London, doing a research project, so he’s not even rich.’

      ‘I’m going to the Natural History Museum with a student?’

      ‘And he’s going with a nurse.’

      

      The ‘party’ didn’t last too long after that. Bizarrely, the pub shut at nine – it was probably run by the banks, making sure their bonus-slaves didn’t stay up too late enjoying their youth. So we found ourselves back round the kitchen table, slightly drunk, by ten o’clock, opening another bottle of wine. Kate was talking about how much shit she put up with at work, but I kept getting confused with all those Jameses, so I just nodded along generally.

      Josh finally returned, a bit wobbly on his gin and tonics.

      ‘I got a date!’ I hollered, as soon as he walked in the room.

      ‘No!’ he said, clearly amazed.

      ‘Yeah, a full-on nerd date,’ said Kate, leaning into her glass of wine.

      Josh sat down, his eyes shining.

      ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how did he ask you?’

      ‘Well, he just said, “Would you like to go to the Natural History Museum …?”’

      ‘Under false pretences,’ said Kate.

      ‘And you said yes,’ said Josh, breathless with admiration.

      ‘Yup!’

      ‘He just said, “Would you like to go to the Natural History Museum”?’

      ‘Apparently they let you in half-price if you don’t know anything about science,’ added Kate.

      ‘And that’s all it takes to ask a girl out.’

      ‘That’s all it takes to ask me out,’ I said, before Kate pointed it out.

      ‘Wow,’ said Josh. ‘It’s that simple.’

      ‘It’s that simple.’

      We all stared at our drinks.

      ‘Kate,’ said Josh, ‘would you like to go to the Natural History Museum?’

      Kate’s head snapped up and she looked perturbed.

      ‘Are you asking me out on a date, or are you just testing?’ she said crisply.

      ‘Don’t be daft, this is practice. Do you think I can pull it off?’

      ‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘No, that would never work.’

      ‘Right. OK. Fine,’ said Josh.

      ‘It’s not a universal chat-up line,’ I said consolingly.

      ‘No, Holly is what’s technically known as easy,’ explained Kate.

      ‘OK,’ I said, rising somewhat unsteadily to my feet. ‘If you’re going to be horrible, I’m going to talk to my other friend around here, Addison.’

      I lurched out of the kitchen, a tad unsteadily, and wandered across the landing, to the fast becoming familiar under-door blue glow.

      I pushed the door ajar.

      ‘Addison!’ I said loudly, for the benefit of my ex-friends sitting in the kitchen. He did that gorgeous rigid back thing. God, I love that.

      ‘What are you doing?’

      I leaned forward, peering over his shoulder. To my amazement, instead of indecipherable computer babble, on his monitor was a picture of a hugely breasted fat lady.

      He coloured and immediately dived for the escape button, but it was too late.

      ‘Addison!’ I said again, shocked. In my slightly drunk frame of mind, I felt deeply insulted. After all, here I was, and he still felt the need to … well.

      ‘Addison,’ I said a third time. He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. ‘Do you know lots of women?’

      His beautiful dark gaze was focused solely on his computer keyboard.

      ‘Because, you know, you might find … what you’re looking for … closer than you think.’

      I couldn’t believe I was being such a tart. On the other hand, tart tactics were required when dealing with someone as shy as this. Plus of course I was pissed – that wonderful moral leveller.

      I took his hand.

      ‘You know,’ I said, ‘you’re very attractive.’ Really, I like to take all my chat-up lines from Dynasty, circa 1986.

      His hand lay in mine like a piece of wet melon. Not noticing, I leaned over and kissed his forehead. He smelled of that wonderful Banda paper you used to get in schools: fresh and dry and inky.

      He wasn’t kissing back though. I realized this after say, thirty, maybe forty seconds. No reaction. Nada. Nothing. I kissed his head again. He didn’t even move.

      ‘So,’ I said tartily, ‘ehm, you know where I sleep …’

      Sheesh. This was it. This was the pits. Robocop or the Natural History Museum. Even I hadn’t plumbed my own depths before.

      Amazingly, he simply took my hand off his forehead and squeezed it. Less amazingly (given he was a sober person who’d just been come on to by a mad harpy), he then handed it back to me and returned to his keyboard. I stood there for about ten seconds more – just to prolong the humiliation, I suppose – then retreated backwards slowly, whilst he busied himself with some computer stuff which, as far as I could see, had nothing more to do with big-breasted Betty.

      

      ‘Oh God.’

      ‘You’ll get over it! You’ve got over worse stuff!’

      ‘Like what, exactly?’

      ‘What about that time you taught yourself to snowboard to impress big Eric and broke your ankle?’

      Josh was failing to comfort me at the breakfast table. Not only this, but I had an interview today for a real live flower shop, which I had to do after the utter humiliation of basically prostrating myself in front of my flatmate. I wasn’t sure that counted as extenuating circumstances.

      ‘Anyway, I’ve done much worse things.’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘I don’t know … what about that time I got bitten by a dog?’

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