Jason and I arranged our date for that Saturday, which meant I had five whole days to panic about it.

Thankfully, my second week at university was a welcome distraction.

Both Rooney and I were now faced with actual university work – real lectures and tutorials and reading ten whole books in four weeks. And we were settling into our new life living together too. We’d always go to lectures together and go to lunch together, but she liked to go down to the bar in the evenings or go out to a club with other friends, while I preferred to sit in bed with biscuits and a fanfic. Sometimes Rooney would talk to me about ideas for her Shakespeare play, chatting excitedly about how she would do the set and the costumes and the staging, and other times we would just talk about whatever – TV shows. College gossip. Our home lives.

I didn’t really understand why Rooney had chosen me. Clearly, she could have anyone she wanted as whatever she wanted – friend, partner, hook-up, even someone to playfully banter with. But despite being able to befriend anyone, and having fifty acquaintances already, it was me she ate with, and walked through Durham with, and hung out with when she wasn’t partying.

I was probably just convenient. That was the nature of roommates.

But all in all, it was OK. I was OK. Maybe I wasn’t the socialite I’d come to university hoping I could be, but living with Rooney was OK, and I’d even managed to secure a date with someone. An actual romantic date.

Things were looking up.

As it turned out, there was nothing interesting to do in Durham apart from eat out, drink, and go to the cinema. Unless you particularly like looking at old buildings. But even that got tiring after you’d walked past them every day on your way to Tesco.

I wanted to think of something actually fun to do with Jason, like ice skating or bowling or one of those cool bars that doubles up as a mini-golf place. But Jason immediately suggested going to the little ice-cream café on Saddler Street, and I didn’t have anything better to suggest, so I agreed. Plus, ice cream is nice.

‘You’re going on your date?’ Rooney asked, just as I was about to leave our room on Saturday afternoon, about ten minutes before we’d agreed to meet. She looked my outfit up and down.

‘Yes?’ I said, looking at myself.

I was just wearing my normal clothes – mom jeans, a cropped woolly jumper, and my coat. I thought I looked quite good, actually, in my usual sort of cosy bookseller way. We were only going for ice cream, for God’s sake.

‘You look cute,’ said Rooney, and I felt like she really did mean it.

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you looking forward to it?’

I actually hadn’t really been looking forward to it. I guessed this was due to nerves. Everyone gets nervous about a first date. And I was very nervous. I knew that I needed to chill out and be myself, and if I didn’t feel that spark after a while then we just weren’t meant to be.

But I also knew that this was a chance for me to actually experience romance and be someone who has fun, quirky experiences and doesn’t die alone.

No pressure, I guess.

‘Pistachio,’ said Jason, looking at my choice of ice cream as we sat down at a table. He was wearing his teddy-bear jacket again, which I loved for its sense of familiarity and cosiness. ‘I forgot that you’re literally a disgusting gremlin when it comes to ice cream.’

The café was cute, tiny and decorated with pastel colours and flowers. I admired Jason for suggesting it. It was straight out of a romance novel.

I glanced at his selection of ice cream. ‘Vanilla, though? When they had cookies-and-cream?’

‘Don’t bash vanilla. Vanilla is a classic.’ He popped a spoonful into his mouth and grinned.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘I forgot how basic you are.’

‘I’m not basic!’

‘It’s a basic choice. That’s all I’m saying.’

We sat at our little round table in the ice-cream café and talked for an hour.

We talked about university for most of that. Jason explained that his history lectures were already a bit dull, and I lamented about the length of my reading lists. Jason admitted that he didn’t think the drinking-clubbing lifestyle was really for him, and I said I felt the same. We spent a long time talking about how we both felt Freshers’ Week was a monumental let-down – marketed to be the best week of your whole university life, only to turn out to be a week of endless drinking, visiting gross clubs and failing to make real friends.

Eventually conversation dwindled a little, because we’d known each other for years, and we’d already had dozens, if not hundreds, of deep chats. We were already at the point where silence didn’t feel awkward. We knew each other.

But we didn’t know how to do this.

Be romantic.

Date.

‘So this is weird, isn’t it?’ said Jason. We’d long since finished our ice cream.

I was leaning on my hand, elbow on the table. ‘What’s weird?’

Jason looked down. A little embarrassed. ‘Well … the fact that we’re … you know … doing this.’

Oh. Yeah.

‘It’s …’ I didn’t really know what to say. ‘I guess it is. A bit.’

Jason kept his eyes firmly down, not looking at me. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all week and I just … I mean, I didn’t even know you might like me like that.’

Neither had I. But then I had no idea what ‘liking someone like that’ was even supposed to feel like. If it was going to be with anyone, it was probably going to be with him.

His voice grew a little quieter and he smiled awkwardly, like he didn’t want me to see how nervous he was. ‘Are you just doing this because of what Rooney said when we all went out that night?’

I sat up a little. ‘No, no – well, I mean, maybe a little bit? I think her saying it made me properly, um … realise that I wanted to. So … I guess I started thinking about it after that, and … yeah. It just felt like … I guess it just felt right.’

Jason nodded, and I hoped I’d made sense.

I just needed to be honest. Jason was my best friend. I needed to make this work and do it at my own pace.

I loved Jason. I knew I could be honest with him.

‘You know I’ve never done this before,’ I said.

He nodded again. Understanding. ‘I know.’

‘I … want to go slow.’

He went a little red. ‘Yeah. Of course.’

‘I like you,’ I said. At least I thought I did. I might have if I tried, if I encouraged it, if I pretended it was real until it was. ‘I mean, I-I think I could – I want to give this a chance, and I don’t want to regret anything when I’m on my deathbed.’

‘OK.’

‘I just don’t really know what I’m doing. Like. Theoretically, yes, but in practice … no.’

‘OK. That’s OK.’

‘OK.’ I think I was going a bit red too. My cheeks felt hot. Was it because I felt flustered around Jason or because this whole thing was a bit awkward to talk about?

‘I don’t mind going slow,’ said Jason. ‘Like, all my romantic experiences until now have been a bit shit.’

I knew all about Jason’s past romantic experiences. I knew about his first kiss with a girl he thought he really liked, but the kiss was so terrible it actually put him off doing it again. And I knew about the girlfriend he’d had for five months when we were in Year 13 – Aimee, who went to our youth theatre group. Aimee was kind of annoying in a Jason is my property and I don’t like anyone else hanging out with him sort of way, and Pip and I never liked her, but Jason was happy for a little while, so we supported the relationship.

Or, at least, we did until we figured out that Aimee had been making all sorts of comments to Jason about how he wasn’t allowed to hang out with certain people, and he needed to stop talking to other girls – including me and Pip. Jason put up with that for months until he realised that she was, in fact, a shithead.

Jason had sex for the first time with her, and it pissed me off that he’d had that experience with someone like that.

‘This won’t be shit,’ I said, then rephrased. ‘This … won’t be shit, will it?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Definitely not.’

‘We’ll go slow.’

‘Yeah. This is new territory.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And if it doesn’t work out …’ Jason began, then seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say.

I’ll be honest: I still wasn’t even sure that I was into Jason. He was super nice, funny, interesting and attractive, but I didn’t know whether I was feeling anything other than platonic friendship.

But I would never know unless I persisted. Unless I tried.

And if it didn’t work out, Jason would understand.

‘… we’ll still be friends,’ I concluded. ‘No matter what.’

‘Yes.’ Jason leant back in his chair and folded his arms, and God, I was glad that I was doing this with Jason and not some random person who didn’t know me, who didn’t understand, who would expect things from me and would think I was weird when I didn’t want to …

‘There’s one other thing we should probably talk about,’ said Jason.

‘What?’

‘What are we going to tell Pip?’

There was a silence. I honestly hadn’t even thought about how Pip would feel about this.

Something told me she wouldn’t be happy about her two best friends getting together and majorly distorting the dynamics of our friendship group.

‘We should tell her,’ I said. ‘When we find a good time.’

‘Yeah. Agreed.’ Jason looked relieved that I’d said it. That he didn’t have to be the one to suggest it.

‘Best to just be honest about it.’

‘Yeah.’

When we left the ice-cream café, we hugged goodbye, and it felt like a normal hug for us. A normal Jason and Georgia hug, the sort of hug we’d been having for years.

There wasn’t any sort of weird moment when we felt like we should kiss. We hadn’t reached that point yet, I guessed.

That would come later.

And I was fine with that.

That was what I wanted.

I thought.

Yeah.