“Oi. Are you Sadie?”

There was a split second I thought about denying it, but I realized I probably hadn’t changed enough in the past thirteen years to get away with it. My hair was the same, I still fitted into the same size clothes and, for all I could remember, Adam Linley had just recognized me by the same blue H&M T-shirt I’d let him take off me one night. But now clearly he’d seen me before I saw him. Bugger.

I turned in the direction the voice, but the hefty old guy I’d spotted sitting on a mobility scooter in the corner of the pub when I’d come in had somehow managed to maneuver himself through the crowd and had parked himself right next to me. His bulk was all that stood, or sat, between me and Adam Linley’s voice.

“Jeez almighty, mate, get off me!”

The man next to me at the bar turned and gave the handlebars of the mobility scooter a bit of a shove as it bunny-hopped into him. I moved left as I tried not to brush the sweaty arm of the driver, who was leaning out of the scooter in my direction. I stretched my neck around him so I could see Adam, but he half stood up and shifted his body into the same angle as mine. I realized with horror that he was moving in.

“Hey! Piss off, you!”

My voice came out much louder than I’d intended and a handful of people at the bar turned around. And then a terrifying thing happened. A miracle of space cleared around us and I realized that the old guy in the scooter was not actually that old at all. Just as that was sinking in, Adam Linley’s voice started coming out of his mouth, and before I knew it he’d planted a sweaty kiss on my cheek. Which was a damn sight better than the place it had originally seemed headed for.

“I get that a lot,” said Adam. It was hard to tell if his statement was in reference to being told to piss off or the sudden extra room he commanded around him. Interchangeable, probably.

“You know, I didn’t know who the hell you were when you texted, so I wanted to stay on the down low, but I remembered as soon as I saw you. I’d never forget a foxy-looking doll like you. Ha ha. Holy shit, it was a long time ago, but you still look in pretty good shape, don’t you? For a woman with a kid.”

I looked around and wondered how much of a head start I’d need to crowd-surf my way out of the pub before a mobility scooter could reach top speed.

One thing that hadn’t occurred to me if we did really find Norman’s father was that he might be in a worse state than us. I was just a mother trying my best and dragging Norman along through life with me, but the whole assumption of this plan (for me, at least) had been that a father might be able to offer him something else. Something more. You know, like...a guy, Mum.