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“This is Pip, he’s Lindsay’s-“

“Friend,” Valentine says smoothly, when she pauses just the tiniest
fraction of a second too long, and he looks at Lindsay with a strange expression,
eyebrows raised just slightly like he’s checking he’s doing it right. That’s what
ends the whole stupid thing completely, it’s that resigned little look.

“My friend?” Lindsay repeats, as scornfully as he can manage,
and crosses the room to slip an arm round Valentine’s waist and bump a clumsy
kiss against his cheek, in front of all his mother’s nosy old gossiping harpy
friends who babysat him as a child. The world doesn’t end, the sky doesn’t fall.
Valentine just looks down at the carpet and smiles, shy and speechless for once,
and that makes everything okay.