“He’s known. Oh, he’s known. He’s alluded to it before. He’s talked about this girl, this Taylor, as the only girl he loved, a girl he made a huge mistake with. Guess that mistake was Matthew…” My heart aches. “Or the mistake could have been leaving her.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath in through my nose. “Those damn stupid socks.”

“You mean the Nessie ones?” says Linden.

I nod. “I had no idea why he wore them, he just called them lucky.”

“That’s what he said to me when I made fun of them.”

“Did he get defensive?”

“Yeah, kind of. But he sometimes does when you don’t really expect him to.”

I let out a ragged breath and sit down on the stool. My legs just won’t stop shaking. None of me will. My own blood feels rattled. “That’s Bram, isn’t it? Does what you least expect him to. I saw those socks on Matthew. There’s no way that was a coincidence. He knew about Matthew from the very start.” His words run through my head. “He said he did to them what Phil did to Ava and me.”

“What a fucker,” Steph says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, what are you going to do?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I just ran. I couldn’t be there.”

“I don’t blame you,” she says just as James comes by.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Steph says. “But Nicola needs a shot of whisky and fast.”

“Make it two,” Linden says quickly. He looks a bit shell-shocked. I guess it can’t be easy knowing you’ve always been an uncle, you just didn’t know it.

“And James,” I add in. “If you’re still offering me that assistant manager position, I want it.”

He smiles at me as he pours the shot. “Good to hear.” But I don’t smile back.

“I guess we should say congratulations,” Steph says softly. “But it just doesn’t seem right, right now. I’m so sorry, Nicola.” She searches my eyes and they become sadder by the second. “I know how much you’re in love with him.”

And that’s what really stings. That I love him. That he doesn’t love me. And that this happened. One person’s love isn’t enough to keep two people together, I knew that much already.

James hands me the shot and Linden and I down ours at the same time. It burns but not enough. I want it to burn away the gauze over this night.

“I’ll have another,” I tell James and then Linden and Steph chime in with their requests.

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door to the bar and we all turn around to see Bram standing on the other side, looking pitiful.

“Don’t open it,” I hiss to James. “Tell him you’re closed.”

James looks at Linden. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing to worry about,” he says and nods at the door. “Let him in. I want a few words.”

“Shit, it’s not going to be one of those nights in here, the ones that never end?” James asks. “Because when they do end, I end up calling the cops.”

But Steph is already up and crossing the bar. She stops at the door, glares at Bram through the glass and then unlocks it.

“What do you want?” she asks him, opening it a crack.

“I need to speak to Nicola,” he says. He looks over her shoulder at me. “Please.”

Linden taps me on the arm. “Go on,” he says. “Talk to him. I’ll have my words after.”

Talking to Bram is the last thing I want to do. The situation can’t get any better. His words have the power to make it even worse. And no matter what happens, what’s done is done and I know things are going to suck for quite some time.

“It’s fine, Steph,” I say to her. I walk over to the door and she reluctantly backs away, her eyes never leaving Bram’s.

“I’m pretty sure we pinky swore on something,” she grumbles and then goes on to join Linden back at the bar.

“Nicola,” Bram says. His eyes are red, filled with worry, mouth twisted bitterly. He looks like shit, like he’s been ravaged by something terrible. But it doesn’t make me feel a thing, not even glad. “I need to explain.” His eyes flit to a booth. “Should we talk inside?”

“No,” I tell him and squeeze myself through the door, taking great pains not to brush up against him in any way. How weird one’s body goes from being a magnet, something you couldn’t stay away from, to being something you can’t imagine touching ever again.

I thought that being outside I’d be able to breathe, but it’s a strangely humid night and the mist feels like it’s choking me. I shove my hands in my jeans, my arms stiff and close to my body as I stare at the ground.

“So you found me here,” I say to him. “Explain, then.”

“I would have told you – ”

“No,” I say sharply. “Just forget it with the things you woulda shoulda done. You didn’t, okay? You didn’t, and it’s too late for that. So just start from the beginning. You have a son.” How ironic it is that under any other circumstances, that would have sounded beautiful.

He breathes out, long and hard. “Yes. Matthew is my son. Seven years ago, I met Taylor. I fell for her fast and I fell for her bloody hard.”

“How wonderful,” I can’t help but comment.

“Please, listen,” he whispers and then clears his throat. “I fell for her because she was something good. She’s a good woman, I know you don’t want to hear that but it’s true. She brought me a sense of normalcy and purpose during a time that I didn’t have any. I was a fucking wreck back then, you have to understand. All the drugs, the parties. I was far gone down the tracks. I shoved everything I could up my nose, I drank everything I saw. I pissed away money. I made a lot of enemies and bought a few friends. You would have never even given me the time of day. I was just the worst rubbish walking the streets.”

He swallows thickly. “But Taylor saw something in me that I didn’t know was there myself. And for a period of time I was in love and on my best behaviour, anything to be with her, the woman who made me feel like I wasn’t a worthless piece of shit, even though at that point I most certainly was. I thought love conquered everything, Nicola. I thought wrong. Because she ended up pregnant and my first instinct, my first thought was I needed to run. I needed to get out of it, to leave her with the responsibility.”

My veins are starting to throb with rage. I’m relating to Taylor more than I’d like.

“I couldn’t be a father. I really was a worthless shit. And I started to think she was a crazy loon for ever believing in me. I loved her, I really did, but it wasn’t enough to make me stay. It wasn’t enough to make me not cheat.”

I gasp. “You fucking cheated on your pregnant girlfriend?”

He looks at the ground, his shoulders sloping. “I’m not proud of it. But I did. That’s how I fucked up. And I fucked up a lot.”

I’m starting to feel sick. “How could you be such a pig? God, do I even know you at all?”

He raises his eyes to meet mine and they’re flashing with shame. “That was a different me. I’ve told you what I was like.”

“I didn’t know you were that horrible.” I can feel my lips curling with disgust.

“Well, I was, okay!” he yells. “Now do you understand why people can’t ever give me a chance, why they never let me become anything more than what I was? I was a horrible fucking person and I did terrible things. Maybe I didn’t rape women or rob banks or deal drugs, but I was horrible in other ways. I hurt Taylor in a way I could never repair and I hurt my relationship with Matthew from the get go. Because by the time I started to smarten up, by the time I started to pull myself together, it was far too late. Taylor didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Smart woman,” I mutter.

“And Matthew was kept away. I tried, I tried and I tried to get them into my life but she wasn’t having any of it. So I did what I could, which was to send money every single month. I paid child support and then some. I made sure Taylor and Matthew had the best life possible.”

“But you never gave them a dad.”