“This is the best sleepover ever,” Ray exclaimed.

 And it kind of was. We watched Mean Girls and ordered pizza. We put on face masks and painted each other’s nails. Then we got a Sharpie and drew fake moustaches and unibrows on everyone in the last issue of Magnify. All the while, we were drinking expensive champagne and giggling and drinking more until neither of us could see straight.

 It wasn’t like we did anything special. It was just so good to feel like a kid again. Or at least ten years younger. At twenty five, it felt like an awkward in between stage. I didn’t feel old, but I felt mature. Or like I should try to be. I felt like I couldn’t do things like Ray and I were doing. Or at least not sober, and that was one thing we certainly weren’t. But even if I’d wanted to do those things, I wouldn’t have anyone to do them with. Ed and Emma were fun, but they’d outgrown Mean Girls years ago, and I couldn’t even begin to understand that. They didn’t want to paint nails or wear face masks either. That was something for doing home alone before a night out (especially for Ed. As a white straight male, he was incapable of admitting he liked to pamper himself, of course.)

 But Ray was more than willing to let herself go a little. It was like she was on one of those rope swings. Where you spin the swing round and round, making the two ropes holding you up intertwine. And then you let go and lean back and it feels dizzy and exhilarating as you spin and spin back to where you started. And when I was watching her right then, I knew I was seeing the real Ray. The Ray I saw on the street busking. The Ray that smiled so beautifully. Ray was snorting and trying to catch her breath after I made some lame joke. And she was smiling and I wanted to take a photograph because I knew a smile like that was going to be few and far between for her after that night. She shook her head, her champagne sloshing around her glass.

 “I mean, literally, the best sleepover ever,” she continued, smiling “I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”

 “Me neither,” I admitted. I collapsed back on to a pillow and Ray joined me, both of us staring up at the ceiling.

 “You were gonna tell me about Jamie,” she pointed out. I put a hand behind my head, closing my eyes to try and get my brain straight.

 “I was,” I murmured.

 “Tell me how you met. I’ll bet it was romantic.”

 I laughed “Far from it,” I said “I was a bit of a blip in Jamie’s plan. He had a girlfriend.”

 “Did you know that?”

 “Kinda,” I admitted.

 “You bloody minx! Seductive little minx!”

 “Not my proudest moment,” I said, hoping Ray wasn’t thinking badly of me. I turned onto my front and propped my head on my elbow “But he wasn’t happy. On that day I met him, I could just…I could tell. And, I mean, happy people don’t cheat on their partners, right?”

 “Right.”

 “So he came up to me at this party. And he was pretty drunk. Like, as drunk as we are.”

 “Very then,” Ray giggled. I giggled too.

 “Yup. Very drunk. And he’s never been like that again. Jamie’s very…sensible. He doesn’t do drinking, really. He doesn’t smoke. He’s very…composed. Anyway, that night, he was all over me. And I’d never met him before, and he seemed exciting, and new, and I loved it. And I wasn’t going to say no to him when he asked me back to his place. He lived in a flat, then. His roommate wasn’t in. And um…yeah. We…we…”

 “Made love,” Ray said dreamily. Then she rolled her eyes.

 “Please. We’re not twelve,” I said, grinning “We slept together. Jamie had mentioned something about a girlfriend on our way there, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t expecting a happily ever after or anything. It was a one night stand. And I wanted to keep it that way.”

 “You’re right. This is crazily unromantic,” Ray laughed, shuffling a bit closer to hear more. She could sense the story was going to get better.

 “I told you,” I said “The next morning, he got me out of there as quickly as he could. No exchange of numbers or anything. But I left my jacket by accident. And then the whole thing was like bloody Cinderella or something. He broke it off with the girlfriend, and then went to see our friend whose party it was. He asked for my address so he could return the jacket. But while he was there, he also asked me out on a date.”

 “Smooth,” Ray said, amusement “What made you decide to make it long term?”

 And for a moment, I was stuck with what to tell her. It shocked me. I grasped at an answer, unsuccessfully. I shook my head “Sorry, I can’t even think straight,” I said with a shaky laugh. Ray grinned.

 “I think you need some more champagne,” she said.

***

 It was half eleven, and we’d finished another bottle of champagne. We were lying in her bed, listening to her band, Prophecy.

 “I can’t believe I’ve never heard your stuff,” I slurred “I must live under a bloody rock or something.”

 “Yeah, well, it’s all shit,” Ray said.

 “No, it’s not,” I said quickly, though it really wasn’t my sort of music. It was sort of heavy and loud and abrasive. The lyrics were good, though. Ray wrote them all herself.

 “It is,” Ray insisted “It’s not me, and I hate it.”

 “What is you?”

 “My old stuff. The stuff I used to busk with.”

 I didn’t ask her why she didn’t just go back to doing that. I knew why. It wasn’t what people wanted to hear. Especially not her fans.

 “Know what I think?” I said, sitting up and stretching my legs across Ray’s.

 “What?” she asked sleepily.

 “I think you should do a Hannah Montana. Lead, like, a double life. Get a wig. Get some other clothes. And go out and busk again. No one would recognise you. Not with your freckles and a wig.”

 Ray smiled up at me “You know, that’s not such a bad idea,” she said. I saluted her.

 “Hey, you’re welcome. I’m full of good ideas.”

 “Such as?” Ray said, laughing.

 “Don’t rush me,” I said dramatically “Creative genius at work…OK! Picture this! A movie…about a love triangle. Starring me, as the hottie that Brad Pitt and…Benedict Cumberbatch are fighting over. But! Plot twist! At the end of the film, Natalie Dormer rides in on a horse, steals my heart, and we ride off into the sunset…am I original yet?”

 Ray laughed, shaking her head “Natalie Dormer, eh?”

 “Uh, yeah! Who doesn’t like Natalie Dormer?”

 Ray laughed again “Freya Sherman…where’ve you been all my life?”

***

 I was shaken awake at seven am by Ray. I could hear my phone ringing. I opened my eyes blearily, and looked at Ray. She didn’t look happy.

 “Your boyfriend is calling. Again,” she said pointedly, shoving the phone into my hand. Then she disappeared down the ladder and I blearily hit the receive button.

 “Jamie,” I said.

 “Where the hell are you? You didn’t call!”

 “I…” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wiped at my eyes, trying to wake myself up.

 “Emma called. She said that girl you’re interviewing is a bitch. So where did you go? Did you go out or something?”

 “Jamie, calm down, alright? I stayed the night at her place. She’s nice. She was just…” Just? I couldn’t think of a word to follow that.

 “I don’t want you with that girl again, unless you need to be, alright?” Jamie said “I’m not having you hang out with someone who acts so superior to you and thinks she can treat you like that. Emma said she wouldn’t even walk with you-”

 “Thanks for the concern, Jamie, but I’m fine. She’s nice. And it’s not up to you who I hang out with, OK?” I said, a little irritably.

 “No, it’s not OK,” Jamie said “I want you home. Besides, isn’t she gay? I don’t want you sharing her bed.”

 “Grow up, Jamie,” I snapped, then pressed End Call.

 I was pissed off, then. I wanted to know what Jamie thought gave him the right to dictate my social life. I’d let him, up until then, because I never really had one anyway. He liked Emma and Ed. Very safe options. Both straight, both uninterested in me romantically. Jamie was also one of those people who thought that someone gay simply lusted after everyone of the same gender. As though being gay also made you uncontrollably polygamous and incapable of controlling your own sexual desires. He was especially paranoid, knowing that I’d been with girls before. But I had no sympathy for him. He was being ridiculous.

 I turned my phone off, knowing he’d try calling for at least another half hour. Then, predictably, he’d sigh, check his watch, and set off on the dot of half seven to get the train. Five minutes walking time, five minutes to queue for tickets, five minutes to spare.

 I climbed down the ladder from the bed. Ray was nowhere to be seen. I felt strange, wondering around the landing in yesterday’s clothes, now crumpled, in the house of someone I only met formally the day before. I called Ray’s name as I was heading down the stairs, and heard a loud squeal and a crash. I hurried down the stairs and headed for the kitchen where Ray was howling in pain, a frying pan and half a dozen sausages strewn across the floor.

 “What did you do?” I asked.

 “I was trying to be nice and make you some breakfast, but I burned my bloody thumb,” Ray said mournfully, clutching at it and observing the carnage the accident had caused. I tried not to laugh at her as I led her over to the sink and ran her thumb under the cold water.

 “It’s the thought that counts,” I insisted as Ray looked over her shoulder at the sausages again “I get the feeling you don’t cook very often?”

 Ray scowled “Not much,” she admitted grudgingly “I go out a lot for dinner. Or get takeaways. Or microwave meals. Sometimes my Gran comes round and cooks.”

 “You’re hopeless,” I said with a smile “Let’s see what you’ve got in the fridge. I’ll whip something up.”

 It turned out her fridge was pretty well stocked. Ray said her Gran had come round and put stuff in the fridge in case I happened to look in during the house tour.

 “She said I shouldn’t come across as completely hopeless,” she said as I took a fresh batch of sausages, eggs, bacon and tomatoes out of the fridge. I tossed her a tomato.

 “It’s a good job I know how to cook,” I said “You can chop tomatoes. If you think you can handle it.”

 Half an hour later, we were sat at the table by the window, eating a full English breakfast. Ray was smiling much that morning, but she wasn’t permanently scowling either, which was refreshing. Just being with her was refreshing. Unpredictable and exciting, like a first date. But I got the feeling that effect wouldn’t wear off with her. She stared out the window as she ate, the radio humming quietly in the background.

 “I was wondering,” she said, not meeting my eye “After this week…we can be friends, right? I mean, if you want.”

 “Do we have to sign a contract or something?” I teased “Of course we can.”

 Ray smiled, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes “Sorry,” she said “I’m out of practise with the whole friends thing.”

 “Don’t worry,” I told her “I’m not going anywhere in a hurry.”