We made plans to meet—I stayed noncommittal about the sleepover—and I tapped the big red icon to end the call. Nick chose that moment for a snack run to the kitchen. “Hey,” he said, patting my pom-pom of hair on the way past the couch.

“Hi.”

“How’s it goin’?”

I twisted around to see him elbow deep in the fridge. “Yeah, good, I guess. Um, where’s Lins?”

He stopped looking in the fridge and closed it. “She’s in our room, but I’m right here.” He held out his arms like Jesus does in those pictures from Sunday school, but a benevolent being Nick was not, and I wasn’t keen on raking through the debris of my love life with him.

“What? I can be a person, Sarah.”

I sighed audibly, which he took as an invitation. He sat at the end of the couch and looked at me expectantly. I knew Nick’s jokey, blokey personality wasn’t all there was to him. Deep down—sometimes, way deep down—he had a good heart and I knew he thought of me as a sister. I took a deep breath and launched into the digest version of my situation. He listened without interrupting, his brow slightly furrowed, and he nodded in the appropriate places. I wrapped it up with, “So, I’m going to dinner with Josh. Tonight.”

“But you don’t know if you want to sleep with him, because you’re worried he just wants some sort of ongoing holiday romance.” It wasn’t a question. Nick was just confirming he understood, and hearing it said back to me made me feel better—like my feelings were reasonable and valid.

“Exactly,” I said. He nodded solemnly.

“You know, Sarah, we’ve been friends for a long time.” He was right. I’d known him since he and Lindsey started dating more than a decade before. But we’d also forged a friendship separate from mine with Lindsey. Yes, he was a massive pain in the bum sometimes, but I knew that if I needed his help—even in the middle of the night, for whatever reason—he would be there, no questions asked. He really was like a brother to me.

“And I’ve watched you go out with some of the biggest wankers in Sydney.” I laughed at my own expense, and he gave me a warm smile. “No really, I don’t know how many times I’ve asked Lins where the hell you meet these tossers—” I signalled for him to get on with it; his digression was getting depressing.

“Anyway, you know I love ya”—I started getting teary—“and even if you don’t know this, I mean really know it, you deserve someone great, someone who loves you, and someone who’s going to be here. Not some wanker who faffs about and strings you along.” It was the most he’d ever said to me about that sort of thing and I blinked back tears.

“So, if this Josh guy doesn’t want to get serious, give him the flick. And if he does, I promise to be nice to him.” I laughed through my tears.