Noel stretches his legs out straight in front of him, setting the cup between his knees and leaning back on his hands. I sip my hot chocolate and try not to show I’m watching him as his eyes scan from the pumpkins, to the sun disappearing below the horizon, to the Christmas trees.

‘Do you think your parents would like it?’ he asks softly, and I know from the gentle tone in his voice that I don’t have to answer if I don’t want to.

‘They’d love the hot chocolate.’ I know full well that he meant it in a much bigger sense, but I’m not sure whether I want to talk to him about it or whether I can talk about it without crying.

‘They’d love it,’ I say eventually. ‘Running off to Scotland and buying a Christmas tree farm was exactly the crazy sort of thing my dad dreamed about doing in his retirement. He never got that far, but …’ I swallow and bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself welling up again. ‘It’s exactly what I wanted the money from their house to be spent on. It’s what I was waiting for without realising I was waiting for it.’

‘I thought you were drunk and good at buying shoes?’

‘Well, yeah, that too. But it was an answer to a question I didn’t know I’d asked. My whole life has been covered by a blanket of grief, and that auction was the first sparkle of hope I’d felt in two years.’

‘I want to ask you what happened to them, but I don’t want to pry, or push, or make you talk about something you don’t want to talk about. I’m going to leave that sentence there and if you don’t want to talk about it, just stay silent and I’ll start talking about rainbows and fluffy kittens or something.’

It makes an unexpected laugh burst out of my throat. He has a knack for making me laugh when it’s the last thing I feel like doing, and he has no idea how much I appreciate it in moments like this.

‘It was a car accident.’ I close my eyes so I don’t have to see anything. ‘Dad died at the scene, Mum died from her injuries two days later in hospital. No one’s fault. An accident. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong patch of black ice on a September evening two years ago.’

He nudges his shoulder against mine again and holds it there for a long moment. I don’t open my eyes, just let myself appreciate the silent gesture of warmth and strength.