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But wow. Being brooded over was intense. Subconsciously, she dropped Teijo’s arm. Was Devan undressing her from across the room, with his eyes? She took a deep, shuddery breath, suddenly feeling hot.

‘Are you OK?’ Teijo asked, looking concerned.

Well, she was fanning her burning cheeks with an Alyssa Heart, The Love Coach flyer.

She saw the edges of Devan’s mouth twitch into the smallest smile. He was tall and confident, not fazed that he was a hot-blooded man in sequins, or that old ladies were swooning over him. And yet the way his hand ruffled his hair when he looked at her, his mane always a bit dishevelled in a young Hugh Grant kind of way, told her he was nervous under the bravado too.

Urgh, she was falling hard. Being in the same room but not being near him was torture – but if she got too close, people would see the sparks coming off her.

‘Not worried about your dance, I hope,’ Teijo continued. ‘Maybe you two could get up on the stage? I could film it? You could both say a few words about how you’re feeling …’

Not the stage of doom.

‘I need a drink!’ said Alyssa quickly. But not an alcoholic one – she’d never get drunk in this hall again. ‘Got to go.’

This night was getting trickier by the moment, and it wasn’t even the brainchild of that algorithm. She’d planned this one herself.

It was time to escape to the kitchen, which was surely the only bearable place at any party. She needed to stick her head near a fridge.

‘Thank goodness,’ she said, as she pushed through the door of the quiet kitchen. She filled a paper cup with iced water and sat up on the worktop. The hall’s kitchen was now clean and well stocked, after she and the locals had worked on it. She didn’t mind admitting she felt good seeing it come together. It still surprised her that she cared, and that now and again she pondered sticking around – but there was no chance of that if she couldn’t brave a certain excruciating conversation. Later. Maybe.

Several people bustled through as she sat there cooling off. Mrs Halfpenny marched in wearing an ‘It Takes Two to Mango – Be a Banana’ T-shirt, which from the knitted cape she was once again wearing, Alyssa assumed was part of her new self-love quest. She raided the cupboard for biscuits for the Clucky Ducks gang, because they apparently couldn’t stomach the ‘tiny spicy olives’.

Sylvie and Emmalina came to grab their coats, as Emmalina had to be up early for football practice. Emmalina gave Alyssa her usual ‘I still think you’re snogging my dad’ wink and hugged her fiercely. Even Alyssa’s mum shimmied in to chop more apples for the sangria, wiggling her hips to the guitar music and telling Alyssa, a little tipsily, what brilliant work she was doing. Her instinct was to bristle, and then the pep talk from Emmalina jumped back into her head. ‘I wouldn’t mention it if I thought they were creeps.’

Was it time to find out for herself? She jumped down from the worktop, gave her mum an awkward wave, and then darted back in the direction of the buffet table, where she could almost bet her dad would be hovering, not one to miss out on free nibbles.