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“That was before I found out I was eating your bollock hedge!”

Rooster folded in half laughing. Chicken made a noise so high-pitched and violent it sounded like he was being murdered. Sunshine slapped the table hard enough to send the Toblerone flying onto the floor. Even Trent had gone red trying not to crack, though Riley had fully given up and was openly wheezing into his pint.

Monster looked ready to kill me.

Which, to be fair, was reasonable.

He lunged.

I darted backwards just as he came around the table, his hands out like he meant to throttle me, and I nearly crashed into Liam, who shoved me away on instinct and shouted, “Don’t touch me! You’re contaminated!”

“See?” I said, backing up further as Monster kept coming. “This is why I can’t do nice things.”

“You put your pubes in a sandwich!”

“Only one sandwich,” I corrected. “Maybe two. I got generous.”

“Maybe two?!” Monster bellowed.

Dante looked around the room like he was actively deciding whether arson was a viable leadership strategy. “What the actual fuck is wrong with all of you?”

“Mostly him,” Chris said, pointing directly at me.

“Agreed,” Riley added.

“Deeply agreed,” Trent muttered.

Monster jabbed a furious finger at me. “He poisoned me!”

“You’re not poisoned,” Doc said from the doorway, having apparently arrived just in time to catch the worst possible version of poker night. He looked at the plate. Looked at my trousers. Looked at Monster. Then sighed the sigh of a man who had seen it all, and nothing surprised him anymore. “Disgusted, yes. Poisoned, no.”

“Can I sue him?” Monster demanded.

“No.”

“Can I hit him with a chair?”

“Also no.”

“Can I at least make him eat one?”

I held up both hands. “Let’s not say things we can’t take back.”

“So, he just gets away with it?” he spluttered.

“I think this would be a nice time for you all to appreciate my suggestion box. Isn’t this a brilliant suggestion? Don’t you feel it’s a good use of the box?”

That was when the kitchen door slammed open upstairs. A second later, Rachel came storming down the stairs with a carrier bag in one hand, a pizza box balanced in the other, and a murderous expression on her face.

“What,” she demanded before she’d even fully entered the room, “is all that fucking shouting?”

No one answered.

Fucking cowards.

Rachel stopped dead in the doorway, taking in the scene. Her eyes scanned the overturned chairs, the mess on the poker table, my pride and joy in the form of sandwiches.

And then she looked at my trousers half undone.