He lit another cigarette, passed it to me. Mel and the others were laughing. I laughed too, raised my glass, wanted her to come over and rescue me.

‘So that sounds very noble,’ Zac said. ‘But you don’t think it could lead to you and Sarah breaking up?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ I laughed, a fake one. ‘You never know.’

He asked more, I deflected more, wanted to get home to Sarah and the kids.

‘Can you keep it to yourself for now?’ I said. ‘I haven’t even told Josh.’

* * *

I let the cork blow into my gripped hand, poured two glasses, toasted Sarah, started darting around the house to get ready. I’d left the kids at Kyle’s, nodded and smiled as he explained why his mounting work commitments meant he’d not be able to babysit for a while. We had to collect them by nine in the morning, no question.

A knock on the door: Zac.

‘Hey, man,’ I said. ‘Come in. What’s that?’

He pulled an expensive-looking travel case past me, made for the kitchen.

‘So, these are for you,’ he said to Sarah, kissing her cheek, unzipping the case. ‘Given it’s your birthday or whatever.’

Sarah rubbed her hands together charades-style. ‘Ooh, what is it? Let me see, let me see.’

Zac bit his bottom lip. ‘So, this is a bit embarrassing, but some of these have been opened already. I got them when I was regional manager at Teas & Tisanes earlier this year, just before I resigned. But yeah, anyway, Chris told me about the teapot, and, yeah …’

‘Oh, Zac, wow.’ Her eyes widened.

Tins with oolongs, tins with matchas, black, green, white and vanilla teas … the kitchen bench was filling fast. We had a friend, it seemed, in Zac, and a friend – I really hoped so – in Biddy.

‘Oh, and, of course, this …’ He reached into his jacket pocket, handed Sarah an envelope.

A ticket to the Australian Ballet.

‘My god,’ she said. ‘Zac. I thought this was totally sold out, not that I would have … Wait, am I supposed to go alone?’

‘I have the other one at home, for Chris. I’ve heard it’s really good. Unless you’re busy that night, Chris? I should have checked.’

‘I actually know this choreographer,’ Sarah said.

‘Yes, I thought you might,’ Zac said, smiling.

I took the ticket from Sarah, looked at the date – next Thursday; I’d not be able to go. I’d surely mentioned I was working late that evening.

‘And for you, boss …’ He reached into his jacket again, handed me a tiny plastic ziplock bag of off-white crystals.

Sarah took the bag from me, held it towards the window. ‘Are we supposed to swallow that? It looks gross.’

‘You can if you want,’ Zac said. ‘I reckon it’s better just chopping and snorting it, though, to get it over with or whatever. We can do a line now if you want?’