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For Stephanie. Without your musical recommendations, this book would not exist.

Thank you.

And to JP, PB, PB, BB and BB (and S&S).

ONE

They say a change is as good as a rest, well arrest me, then, because I’m not ready for the changes you bring . . .

– from ‘Change It Up’, by These Exiles

‘JESSY, ALL YOU HAVE to do is message some guys,’ begged my sister, hands clasped before her. ‘I just need you to –’

‘Yeaaaah, no!’

But my older twin wasn’t one to take no for an answer –‘Ouch!’ I rubbed my ear, the music that had been playing there suddenly absent.

Laura tossed my earbud on to her kitchen table. Her glasses had a few smudge marks in the corners, but it didn’t stop the determination in her gaze coming through, flicking away only to look at our best friend. ‘Anna’s going to help, aren’t you, Anna? Ann–’

But Anna was already on the move, her laptop bag, notes and her phone all balanced impossibly in one hand.

‘Sorry, babe, I’d love to – but I’ve got to get going. My caseload at work has doubled since they fired Julian,’ she said with a grimace, gold eyeliner making her dark eyes pop even as she rolled them. ‘I just came by to grab the notes I left here

last night.’ The three of us had spent the evening working on various projects, before giving up and bingeing the latest season of Temptation Hotel.

‘Anna, I am begging you –’ started my sister.

‘And your begging is noted.’ Anna poured coffee into the flask Laura had just handed her. ‘I’m sorry, really, but I have to go.’

I called after her. ‘You’re going to leave me here with her?’

‘Duty calls!’ our best friend said with a wry smile, grabbing her jacket, throwing it around her shoulders and pulling her box braids free. Her hair tumbled down to her waist, bouncing as she shot back, ‘Besides, if I stay much longer, I’ll get roped in too. Not a risk I’m willing to take.’

I laughed as Anna hugged my sister and threw me a wink as she shut the front door to the flat behind her.

‘Escaping before you bully her into this nonsense too. She’s got the right idea,’ I teased.

‘I’ll get her in the end,’ Laura said with a grin that was honestly a little frightening. Laura had a tendency to go a little crazy with her projects. ‘I always do.’

She wasn’t wrong. Laura, Anna and Jessy. Friends for practically forever – and Laura had been talking us into all sorts of things for just as long. She was the one who convinced us to get our noses pierced at fourteen. She was the one who’d found fake IDs to sneak us into the clubs. And now –

‘Look, are you going to help me or not?’ Laura narrowed her eyes as she placed the coffee she’d made for me on to the kitchen table.

I smiled sweetly. ‘Absolutely not.’

I had to stand firm. Unlike the time we got our noses pierced, and the time we got fake IDs, I was not going to

give in. She was just going to have to learn to take no for an answer.

Laura turned away from me, but only to grab a cloth and immediately wipe up the offending coffee ring on the table. ‘What I don’t understand, Jessy,’ my delightful sister forced out through gritted teeth, pushing her glasses up her nose, ‘is why you even bothered to come over here if all you’re going to do is –’

The cheeky – ‘You said it was an emergency!’ I picked up my phone and thrust our chat into her face. ‘The house burning down is an emergency! You’re pregnant is an emergency. Wanting me to join your dating app? Not an emergency. Matter of fact, it’s the exact opposite of an emergency. Can’t believe I left a guy in my bed for –’

Laura’s eyes widened as she threw the cloth down. ‘A guy – a guy? I thought you’d sworn off dating?’

‘Screwing is not dating, Laura.’ I rolled my eyes. Trust her to focus on the least important part of my impassioned speech. ‘The point is, I wouldn’t have come over if I’d known you were just trying to stick your nose into my love life.’

We may not have been identical twins, and we were distinctly lacking in telepathic skills, but Laura knew me better than anyone. She knew I wasn’t ready to start dating again. Casual hook-ups, sure – a girl has needs, after all. But anything more serious than that?

No chance.

I knew Laura’s business venture, Butterflies, was important to her. I’d spent the last few years watching her put herself through coding classes by waiting tables, cycling takeaways across London’s potholed streets, and working some shitty retail job – how she’d managed all three, I don’t know. She’d

finally quit all her jobs a few months ago and started her own company from this very kitchen table.

Coffee rings and all.

I was ridiculously proud of her, and ridiculously certain that she was going to become a billionaire before we were thirty – Laura was amazing like that. She’d inherited all the go-getter genes and left none for me.

I put my earbud back in, tapped my phone and pulled up my playlist again. The little nub of tension between my shoulder blades started to melt away as the latest track by These Exiles soared into my ears. I took another sip of my coffee and started to scroll the timeline. Now I knew Laura’s emergency was just her meddling, I could go back to doomscrolling through reactions to yesterday’s episode of Temptation Hotel – the only romance in my near future.

Or at least, I would have, if Laura hadn’t chosen that moment to interrupt my scrolling with, ‘Considering I’m facing bankruptcy, the least you could do right now is actually listen to me.’

I almost spat out my coffee.

‘What? You said you wanted me to chat with random guys on your app – you didn’t say anything about money troubles.’ Panic raced through me, the taste of coffee bitter on my tongue.

Laura bit her lip, guilt written across her face. ‘Fine, not exactly bankruptcy – but it could happen if the investors pull out and the app dies. This is serious, Jessy. This is real life – adult life. If things don’t go well . . . they go badly.’

A few minutes’ difference, that was all it was – but the gap between our births had always been big enough for Laura to act like we were years apart.

She sighed, her top riding up a little at the sides and her suit trousers bunching around her hips as she pulled a vape out of her pocket. She took a long look at it and regretfully stuffed it away again. ‘God, I could really do with a smoke right now.’

That was when I knew something was really wrong. Laura had quit smoking last year, and, damn, hadn’t Anna and I heard about it. She didn’t turn to it unless she was really stressed, and I couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to resort to a nicotine hit.

Shit.

I paused the music and pulled my earbuds out. My stomach twisted as I pointed at her to sit. ‘Talk to me. Now.’

‘These investors, they’re great, but . . . but that review meeting I practised with you for? It didn’t go well.’ She pushed her glasses up her nose again. ‘Like, at all. They’re going to pull out by the end of the summer. I’ll have nothing, Jessy. Butterflies will just . . . die.’ Laura’s voice cracked. Heartbreak was written all over her face.

I hadn’t seen Laura this vulnerable in years.

It didn’t seem possible. Laura had dedicated everything she had to Butterflies. Hell, she was still living in this dump – mould on the walls, holey carpet, creepy landlord and all – because she’d found the cheapest, dingiest place to live and put every other penny into her app.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said, managing to find my voice in the silence as I pulled at my cardigan, tugging it closer around me. ‘I thought the app had thousands of downloads. Loads of people are using it.’ She’d told me so herself when we’d practised her review pitch – I’d colour-coded the pie chart.

‘Loads of guys are using it,’ my twin said with a sigh, worry flickering over her face. ‘Tons of men are on there, and

they’re all waiting around because . . . Look, research shows that, on average, there’s a seventy–thirty men-to-women split on dating apps –’

I loved my sister, but it was difficult for my eyes not to glaze over when she started quoting figures. Hyper-fixating on numbers was her thing, not mine – and I was the one in finance. ‘Can we skip the statistics?’ I pleaded. ‘I spend all week looking at spreadsheets that I barely understand.’

But Laura was already on a roll: ‘– need an eleven per cent increase in female-instigated –’

‘Sis. Seriously?’ I could feel a headache building.

‘I’m just saying: men have a seventy-five per cent chance of meeting someone on a dating app, while women only do so sixty-six per cent of the time –’

‘Laura!’ I finally snapped. It couldn’t be healthy having all these stats running through her head.

My twin glared at the interruption, but took a deep breath before admitting, ‘There aren’t enough women on the app.’

Well, I couldn’t say I was surprised. Dating wasn’t exactly a picnic, no matter how you went about it. Who wasn’t sick of being chatted up by men with commitment issues, mummy issues, or – my personal fave – daddy issues?

‘I just need you to use this profile –’

‘Will me joining even make a difference?!’ I asked desperately, pushing aside the nausea that rose at the mere thought of dating again. ‘It sounds like you need a lot more than one or two extra women to –’

‘I’ve put the word out: asked all my old work friends, everyone I can find from back home. I even dropped a message in the old school group chat,’ Laura rushed, words pouring from her mouth like she’d anticipated my every argument.

‘There’s literally no one I’ve ever known that I haven’t reached out to at this point. If Mum was still – I’d be begging her too. Please, Jessy. I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. You know I never ask much from you!’

I hesitated as I pushed a curl of hair behind my ear.

It was true. Laura was always so self-sufficient, never needing anything from me. In fact, it was usually the opposite; she always gave to me. Gave up those expensive piano lessons so I could keep going. Gave up hockey because our mum couldn’t afford equipment for both of us. Looking at her now brought back memories of everything she had given up for me.

Sometimes, looking at Laura in distress was like staring into a cracked mirror. I had the darker hair, she wore glasses – but it was the same eyes, the same chin.

‘You know I’m not dating. Not after . . .’ It cost me, to even begin to say those words. I’d needed time to process the colossal fuckup that was my last relationship, and, truthfully, I’d probably been ignoring it more than actually trying to move on.

Who doesn’t want to just stuff down all their emotions and pretend the bad shit never happened?

A shadow flickered across Laura’s face. ‘You don’t talk about him. I . . . I haven’t known how to ask.’

Pain roared through my chest as though it had happened just yesterday. The bags packed by the door. The note I was supposed to find, not read with him standing there.

For a moment I was dizzy, my head spinning, the nausea that had roiled in my stomach returning in a flash. As though I could never think of dating without thinking of Ross and all the promises he broke.

I tried to reassure her with a smile. ‘I don’t want to talk about him, anyway. I know you’d listen if I wanted to.’ I really was trying.

Laura was staring at me, concern painted across her face.

‘I’m fine.’ Even I wasn’t convinced – but I was not going to be unpacking my relationship trauma this morning.

‘You’re better than fine. You were too good for that –’

‘Laura, I said I don’t want to talk about it,’ I repeated more forcefully, pulling a hairband from my wrist and tying up my hair.

‘I’m not asking you to date these men, Jessy,’ Laura said quietly, after a pause. ‘I just need you to talk to them a little. I’ve already created your profile; all you have to do –’ She broke off.

Rain was starting to patter against the cracked windowpanes of Laura’s kitchen, and in the growing gloom – honestly, London in summer was so grey sometimes – my twin looked at me before starting again. ‘I . . . I really need Butterflies to work.’

I took a long, deep breath.

I was going to regret this. I knew it deep down, and I was going to be mad about it. Future Jessy was standing on the window ledge, banging on the glass, shouting, ‘Don’t do it!’

But it was too late. She wasn’t here, and Present Jessy could see that her sister needed her – for once.

‘How much replying are we talking about exactly? Because I am not – ouch – shit, my coffee!’

Laura had launched herself at me, pulling me into a firm hug. ‘Thank you.’

I hugged her back, tightly.

‘Don’t thank me. Just tell your investors to give you

more time,’ I said, as Laura finally loosened her grip and sat back down.

‘Thank you,’ repeated my twin. ‘Seriously, Jessy. You only have to message each guy once a day. That’ll count as engagement. There are even conversation starters on there that you can use; you don’t have to think about it.’ She looked at me with a hesitant smile. ‘But you never know . . . you might meet someone you actually like.’

Right. I very much doubted that.

TWO

It’s a trap and I know it, but I step right in, knowing that a trap with you could become a home if you would only stay . . .

– from ‘Stay’, by These Exiles

‘LOOK, PATRICK,’ DEREK BEGAN.

‘No,’ I said firmly. I sounded calm – far calmer than I felt, anyway. In reality my head was pounding, and this conversation was not helping.

Derek fixed a strained smile on his face. ‘All I’m saying,’ he went on, in that tone that he thinks is really patient, but which I know means he’s at the absolute end of his tether, ‘is that you have to pick a celebrity to date. Anyone you want, Patrick. But we need some goodwill right now.’

‘Come on, Derek,’ Wes said lazily. My bandmate and childhood best friend was playing a scale on the electric keyboard as he leaned against the recording studio wall. His messy blond hair fell over his eyes, and he flicked it back with a twitch of his head. ‘We’ve just got back from tour. Surely the powers that be can give us a bit of a break before trotting us back out again –’

‘The problem, boys, is that no one is talking about the completely sold-out international tour – or the fact you broke records with merch sales. The only thing anyone is talking about is how the North American leg ended in disaster.’ Derek’s eyes were wide as he passed around the coffees he’d just grabbed us from the place opposite the studio. The canteen here was awful, and if there was one thing our publicist was good at it was supplying us with coffee. Especially when he wanted something from us.

Which was every time we saw him.

I had only seen Derek this stressed a handful of times – and I couldn’t help but feel guilty as I spotted his tika was smudged. He’d only been to temple for puja that morning. We might be a rowdy bunch, but we weren’t divas. Normally we had no problem doing all the shit the label asked us to do. Even when it seemed completely pointless.

Like right now.

‘You really think Patrick dating a celebrity again is a good idea?’ Wes shot a look over at me. ‘The first time didn’t exactly go . . . well.’

‘Didn’t go well’ was an understatement. Derek had given me a similar spiel about needing to date someone in the public eye last year and, like an idiot, I’d gone along with it. He’d introduced me to Celine Dellacorte, an up-and-coming actress. Young, hot and talented – she was perfect. And she just happened to be signed to the same PR agency . . .

But that had ended in disaster, and I wasn’t about to get burned again.

I sighed and leaned back against the wall. The plan had been to come in and sort through the kit. Too many cables, mixing boards and mics had been dumped into random boxes

at the end of our sell-out performance in New York. Wes had agreed to come in and help, along with Ben and Matt – our other bandmates. Only Matt had never turned up, and now Derek had found out the rest of us were here and derailed us with his latest scheme.

‘Listen, after someone’s little mistake,’ Derek said, in what he clearly thought was a delicate tone, ‘the whole band needs to pull their weight!’

I tried not to wince. Someone’s little mistake. If you could call a DUI that.

We’d been celebrating the end of the North American leg of the tour, still in New York, and Ben had insisted on driving us to some ‘exclusive’ club that he’d been raving about when he slammed into the back of a car. Thankfully the elderly woman driving the other vehicle was fine, but with three points already on his licence Ben would have been well and truly screwed once the police arrived. Which is why I’d offered to pretend I’d been the one behind the wheel. Ben and I often got told we looked like brothers; it had seemed like an easy fix.

Only, I’d done a bit of celebrating of my own that night already.

It was just a drink. Just one. But it always was, wasn’t it? That was what people said when they were caught drinkdriving. Just one blip over the limit, but it was enough.

I woke up the next day to my mugshot all over the tabloids, and all the work spent cleaning up my image for the last two years had been wiped out overnight.

I could admit that my first few years of fame weren’t my proudest. I was a wreck back then: throwing parties that left hotel rooms trashed, going from one model to another – women

and cars. I’d really tested the limits of Derek’s powers. But I’d cleaned up my act, and I couldn’t remember the last time my face had been plastered all over the internet.

Until now.

‘We’re topping the charts,’ I tried again. ‘We went platinum last month, and we’re in the middle of an international tour. Isn’t that enough?’

‘No,’ said Derek simply, pushing back his dark hair. ‘It’s good, but it’s not enough. When people search These Exiles, the first article that surfaces is still the arrest. We need to kill that story, and quick. We can’t go into the next leg of your tour with this hanging over us. Besides, you’re not the only one having to make sacrifices. Ben is hosting a series of charity events; Matt, wherever the hell he is, is going to be on that new celebrity reality show –’

‘God help him,’ I couldn’t help but mumble.

‘– and Wes will be shipping out with the UN tomorrow for one of their celebrity missions. You got off lightly,’ Derek said pointedly. ‘You get to date a celebrity of your choosing. Consider yourself lucky you’re not being bundled off to rehab.’

‘This is not what we signed up for, Patrick,’ Ben muttered from the side of the room. He was sitting on the floor, legs kicked out, eyes not leaving his phone. The dark tattoo that spiralled down his neck was just visible, and the bags under his eyes suggested it had been another heavy night. ‘None of this is.’

He was right.

Four lads from a small town with no regular buses and a sports centre that spent more time closed than open – we hadn’t expected any of this.

Starting the band had just been for a laugh – something to do. We all loved music, we all were bored out of our minds, and college was just an excuse to see our friends. But then things changed overnight and, before we knew it, we had a record deal, and our first album was coming out just as we should have been starting uni.

That was four years ago now. I hadn’t taken a full week off in . . . I couldn’t remember how long. My neck ached, my DMs were apparently full of scams – not that I’d been allowed to read them for years now – and I was having to wear more and more ridiculous hats to stop being recognized. I dropped my gaze, reaching into a box for a length of cable that no one had bothered to wrap properly, and started pulling it into loops.

‘Think of the next album deal. You think the record label is going to let you negotiate better terms after a DUI?’

The unfairness of it was gnawing at me. I glanced up at Ben. His eyes were filled with guilt.

I couldn’t hold it against him. I’d hardly been picture perfect, and he hadn’t forced me to take the blame.

The door opened. Matt wandered in, breaking the tension.

‘New idea?’ I asked. That’s it. Turn the conversation back to music.

‘Bad idea,’ Matt said with a sigh, his dark eyes and gangly frame marking him out as the heartthrob of the group – much to his discomfort. ‘Again. What does he want?’ He flopped on to the beanbag next to me.

One thing I appreciated about Matt: he was at home everywhere he went.

‘Derek’s giving us our penance – our “make the world love us again” assignments,’ Wes said with a grin. ‘And Patrick gets to date a celebrity.’

‘Look,’ Derek wheedled, coming over to me and kneeling down like I was a toddler. ‘I know last time was a bit of a –’

‘Shitshow,’ I snapped.

‘The record label needs to be able to sell you,’ Derek said. ‘And after that drink-driving disaster, and, let’s be fair, your less than stellar record –’

‘It’s been years,’ I bit out, not looking at him. I mean, what did they expect would happen when they gave a teenager millions to do with as he liked? Safe investments?

‘– and you’re more marketable if your lead singer is in a romantic relationship with another celebrity. Have you ever heard of Brangelina? Kayne and Kim? J-Lo and Ben, both times?’

‘I do not –’ I said firmly, rolling my eyes at Derek’s painfully outdated celeb gossip – ‘want to be Brangelina.’ A shudder went through me at the thought.

‘If These Exiles can survive this, we can look at truly global advertising,’ wheedled Derek, moving away from me and heading over to Matt, who glared stonily at him from his keyboard. ‘Hot sauces, fancy undrinkable gins, fragrances, the works!’

Wes snorted. ‘I don’t want to be the face of a fragrance!’

‘No one wants you to be the face of a fragrance,’ Ben shot over from his corner.

I let them bicker as I picked up my coffee. When I lifted the lid, I could smell the grapefruit notes.

This is what I need.

‘– don’t want to fall into the same trap as Patrick –’ I couldn’t tell who’d said it. It didn’t really matter. They were right, whichever one of them it was.

‘Celine was Satan’s mistress,’ Ben was saying darkly, ‘and you know it.’

She was a mistake. But like the very best of mistakes, I hadn’t known it at the time. A gorgeous blonde with a smile that lit up rooms and a talent that lit up the box office. I’d bumped into her at one of those pre-award parties . . . or at least that was the story we’d spun for the blogs. Our first encounter might actually have been at our agency’s office, but the story had become a little truer when we’d woken up in bed together the morning after a night out.

That was how it started: friends with benefits. Then, just when I’d realized perhaps there was more – at least on my side – she ran off with her co-star. I didn’t know what hurt more. Her leaving me, or the cliché of it all.

I couldn’t do that again.

Derek was smiling uneasily. ‘Look, Patrick, it’s your name we’ve got to rehabilitate.’

I swore under my breath.

‘You’re the frontman. The lead singer. You’re the most visible member of the group,’ he said in a rush. ‘You’re the one everyone remembers –’

It didn’t help that I was our main songwriter. It was my words we sang up there every night on tour, my words the crowds sang back to us – some fans had even tattooed my lyrics on to their bodies, which made me slightly uncomfortable. I thought they were good, obviously . . . but even I hadn’t imprinted any of them permanently on my skin.

Besides, no good lyrics had come to me in weeks. I wasn’t panicking about it – just quietly anxious. Because there was always another album needed. Another chart-topper the label was waiting for.

‘Fine,’ said Derek with his hands up. ‘What about a compromise?’

I looked up. Derek had that pleading look on his face. Hell. ‘What kind of compromise?’

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be worse than another Celine situation.

‘Hokapp,’ Derek said triumphantly. There was only one appropriate response to that. I swore. ‘What, the celeb-only dating app?’ Ben said, looking up from his phone for the first time, curiosity tinging his voice.

Trust Ben to only be interested when a dating app was mentioned. This was much more his playing field than mine.

‘Look, you’ll join Hokapp, you’ll find someone with a great profile, huge social media following – but it will be organic, you can pick the person you like the most. Hell, it doesn’t have to last long – just till the Songwriter Awards, that’s nice and public, and it’s only next month. All you have to do is sign up.’ Derek made it sound so easy. ‘Come on, Patrick. I don’t think they’re asking for much – they had been talking about hosting auditions for this new woman of yours. I know you wouldn’t like that.’

My stomach rolled. I really wouldn’t. ‘So, I just sign up to a dating app? That’s it?’

‘That’s it!’ Derek said with a desperate smile. ‘Just think about it.’

I looked around the recording studio. The nice, easy day I’d planned to have sorting our equipment had vanished into thin air.

TIME PASSES STRANGELY IN a recording studio. With no windows, no sense of the sun moving, it’s easy to

forget there even is an outside world – especially with Matt and Wes experimenting with some new melodies. Like this, I could forget all about Hurricane Derek and his demands.

‘And here, the bridge – Ben, will you cut it out?’

‘Sorry,’ Ben muttered, looking not even slightly apologetic. ‘It’s my sister. She’s complaining about this new guy she’s started seeing and wants me to hook her up with –’

‘Absolutely not,’ Matt said with a grin. ‘Not going to date your sis–’

‘Do you think I’d let you?’ Ben was always so easy to get a rise out of. ‘She’s too good for you, and I already spend way too much time with you idiots.’

‘What happened? I thought she was excited about this one,’ I asked distractedly. Emma had joined us for our last show in New York and flown back with us. She’d spent the whole time messaging back and forth with some guy.

‘Yeah, but she says he’s started flaking on her ever since they came off the app –’ Ben broke off abruptly and I looked up – to see him grinning at me.

‘What?’ Nothing good ever came from a smile like that.

‘Butterflies. That’s it – that’s how you get out of this relationship crap with the label.’ Ben carried on looking at me, phone forgotten. ‘Emma met this guy on Butterflies. It’s a dating app one of her old friends launched recently. She begged Emma to join, said she wasn’t getting enough engagement or something. I’d join it too, but Emma said she’d throw up if she ever saw my profile on a dating app.’ He laughed. ‘It’s a new app, anyway – you probably won’t even get a match.’

Wes glanced at me curiously. ‘It’s actually not a bad idea.’

I paused, a cable half-twisted in my fingers. He was right.

‘Well, I guess I didn’t promise Derek I’d use Hokapp, did I? If he asks, I could always say I’d joined an app.’

Ben slung his arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Paddy boy, no one’s even heard of it. It’s the perfect app for you.’

‘If Emma’s thinking about ending it with that guy, think you could put in a good word for me?’

Ben turned to glare at Wes, who had a smirk teasing at his lips. ‘The hell I will –’

The argument – well, bickering really – echoed about me. I wasn’t paying attention. Ben’s words were ricocheting around my head. I pulled out my phone and tapped in a quick search. It took a couple of scrolls on the app store to even find what I was looking for. Perfect.

There – Butterflies. A nondescript icon that looked out of place next to the slickly professional logos surrounding it. Thank you, Ben. Before I knew it, I had the app downloaded and was faced with an empty profile.

Right, then: no mention of the band, just generic statements that could apply to anyone.

I like . . . music. I like cats. I like coffee. All true.

Ben glanced over my shoulder. ‘Don’t forget to choose old or bad quality photos of you. Last thing you need is some fan stalking you on there.’

Where was that shot that Wes took of me in Saint-Tropez last year? The white glare of the sun had left exposure spots all over the image – conveniently placed over half my face. You could barely tell it was me. And I’m sure I had a pic somewhere of the time I’d let my beard grow out of control, before Derek had insisted I go back to being clean-shaven for the tour. And what about that one of the four of us at the top

of the Empire State Building, backs to the camera . . . there we go. Upload photos . . . crop carefully . . .

There. Profile complete.

I scrolled through it one last time. Boring, sparse and not the least bit interesting. No one in their right mind would bother matching with me.

This was fine. I could do this. All I had to do was put up with a few conversations that would always fizzle into nothing. After a couple months, I’d feed the label some bullshit about not finding any connections, which would be true. After a couple months they’d forget about it all, and I wouldn’t have to endure the embarrassment of another failed fake relationship.

Most importantly, Derek would be happy and keep bringing me coffee.

DAY HAD SLIPPED INTO night while I was in the studio, which had saved me hiding my face as I walked round the corner to my flat. It wasn’t quite a home yet, but it was better than nothing.

Pizza, then bed. Tomorrow I could wake up with absolutely nothing to do for weeks, a blessed relief after –Ping!

I checked my phone.

Butterflies: You and Jessy just matched!

THREE

Do you think in every world we’re dancing like this, laughing like this, do you think in every universe I found you like this? – from ‘Serendipity’, by These Exiles

Monday

I WAS GOING TO kill Laura.

Of all the ways to be spending my days, I never thought I’d find myself here, swiping endlessly and responding to painfully dull conversation openers. I’d finally got fed up yesterday and turned off the notifications. Guilt had gnawed at me all day, though, and now I was sat watching the timer run out on my latest match. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to start the conversation. Again. Fuck it.

Jessy

How’s your day going?

I hit send. Well, it was pretty innocuous. But it was a message – Laura had never said how long they had to be.

Ping.

Paddy Good, thanks. You?

Not even a minute had gone by. Keen much? I couldn’t even remember which of the countless profiles I’d swiped on this was. I switched tabs and went to scroll through his –

‘Jessica!’

The shout was so loud I almost dropped my phone on to my desk. I looked up as my manager glared at me over my desktop.

‘It’s Jessy, Karun.’ Seriously, how hard was it to remember I preferred Jessy?

‘Is the report ready?’

I smiled sweetly. ‘Yes, it’s in your inbox.’ Which he’d know if he spent time actually at his desk and not monitoring us like a prison warden.

Karun sniffed. ‘Good. And that pivot table is needed by Wednesday. If you need help with it –’

‘I’ll be fine, thanks,’ I said, looking back at my screen as though I had very important emails to address. Truth was my display had turned itself off – I’d left it inactive too long.

‘No phones at the desk,’ he said curtly before striding away.

I gave the mouse a wiggle and watched the screen come to life.

The day dragged.

I’d been so excited to get this grad job. Proper employment, with a proper salary. I could afford not to depend upon Laura any more; I’d moved out of the flat and got my own room.

Yes, it was still a houseshare, but at least it was in a nicer part of the city – which had felt like freedom . . . Now it just felt like a collar, squeezing tightly round my neck.

It was only hours later, when I’d dropped, exhausted, on to my bed, that I realized I’d never replied to Paddy.

Shit. And I’d promised Laura. I groaned before flipping myself over to grab my phone.

Paddy

Good, thanks. You?

I rolled my eyes. Honestly – was this the kind of scintillating conversation I had to look forward to?

Well, the world wasn’t going to end if I didn’t answer today. That could be Future Jessy’s problem.

Tuesday

Jessy

Sorry, busy day yesterday

Paddy

No worries

Wednesday

Jessy

So, how’d you like your coffee?

It was weird. I’d tapped on one of the pre-written questions the app gave me – dull but serviceable – after his non-reply, but nothing.

I looked down at the message again. Read. But no reply. Seriously weird. He’d taken half a second to reply to my first message and now, nothing?

I was not going to double message. The point was just to engage with the matches, not actually care about them.

I closed the app.

Thursday

Paddy

The best coffee is that made by someone else

Jessy

Strong disagree. No one makes coffee like me, except Maria

Paddy Maria?

Jessy

The owner of my favourite café and all round goddess. Life isn’t worth living without Maria

Paddy

Well damn. Maybe I should be in Maria’s DMs. Is she single?

Jessy

Wow, can’t believe I’ve been outdone by an Italian grandmother

Paddy

Wait

Paddy What?

Paddy I feel set up

Jessy

She’s hot though, if you’re into that