The prosecco is warm, the canapés are beetroot-based, and Rory Bennett is laughing at something a literary agent has said.

You are not watching this. You're standing by the poetry table in a Bloomsbury bookshop, holding a plastic flute and a tote bag that says READ LOUDER, and you're studying the spine of a collected Larkin with great intellectual intensity.

He's allowed to talk to people. It's a launch. It's literally the job.

Her name is Cressida Vane. You know because you've seen her on panels: silk shirt, cheekbones you could shelve a hardback on, a laugh like a Radio 3 jingle. She's touching his sleeve. Again. He's leaning in like she's said something brilliant, head tipped, that crooked smile out in full, the one that always looks like he's about to say something he shouldn't.

He is wearing black. Obviously.

Four. That's how many times she's touched him. You're not counting. You're auditing.

"You alright?" says Dominic from Halloran & Birch, appearing at your elbow with the soft, damp optimism of a golden retriever in a gilet. "You've gone a bit... stabby."

"I'm fine. I'm great. I'm having a lovely time."

You turn and look at Dominic properly, perhaps for the first time in your life. He's perfectly nice. Floppy fringe, good teeth, a cardigan that has clearly been loved. He once wrote a thing about marginalia that you actually quite liked.

Oh, you poor sod. You're about to be used.

"Dom," you say, and put a hand on his arm.

His whole face lights up like a Christmas tree in Woolworths.

What follows is, frankly, a masterclass. You laugh at his Hilary Mantel anecdote like it's the funniest thing since the invention of the semicolon. You tilt your head. You say "No!" in the right places. You ask about his process. You touch his elbow with the lightness of a woman who's never been wronged by a man in tweed, and Dominic starts telling you about his novel, and his novel, and a novella he's got in the drawer.

You nod like a woman at a séance.

Across the room, a pen clicks. You can't hear it. You feel it.

Don't look. Do not give him the satisfaction.

You look.

Rory has stopped listening to Cressida mid-sentence. He's holding his flute at an angle that's going to end badly for his shirt, and he's watching you with an expression you've only seen in the small hours, when he's stopped performing: a flat, dark stillness, like someone's turned off the lights behind his eyes. His jaw ticks once.

Cressida says something. He says "Mm," without turning his head.

Gotcha.

It's a thrilling, shameful, deeply unprofessional feeling, like finding a tenner in an old coat. You laugh at Dominic's next sentence even harder. You're not even sure it was a joke.

"So I said to her, the thing about Barthes is—"

"Dom, you're a genius," you breathe.

"Am I?" says Dominic, delighted and slightly alarmed.

"Having fun?"

The voice arrives from directly behind your left ear, low and smooth and so calm it should come with a warning label.

You don't jump. You've got standards. You turn, slowly, with the serenity of a woman who has done absolutely nothing wrong.

He's close. Close enough that vetiver and clean linen are doing their usual hostage routine. Close enough that you can see the little scar on his chin from that rugby match, and the faint flush at the tip of each ear, which is the single most satisfying thing you've ever witnessed.

"Rory," says Dominic warmly, offering a hand. "Great to see you, mate. I was just telling—"

"I'm sure you were." Rory shakes it without looking, gaze never leaving you. "Dom. Would you mind awfully? Cressida's been asking after your novel."

"Has she?" Dominic gasps, and is gone like a man who's been told the Booker shortlist is arriving.

The silence is loud.

"That was cruel," you say.

"That was efficient." He steps in, and your back finds the Larkin. "You were enjoying yourself."

"I was networking."

"You were laughing at a man's Barthes anecdote."