He shrugged. ‘I don’t feel like going home yet. And I want to hear your story.’

I hesitated, not sure what to do, not sure why I was here at all. ‘Okay,’ I said finally.

He grinned. There was a dimple in his cheek I hadn’t noticed before. ‘Come on,’ he said, turning his body as though to show me the way.

I took a breath and followed him.

The pub was down near the water, away from the city. It was the polar opposite of Sawyer’s, all formica and pine and plastic, brightly lit, loud, even though there was only a small crowd gathered around the pool table and a smattering of people around the edges of the room, couples and trios and one or two bigger groups sitting around buckets of beer and near-empty bowls of cold chips. I found us a spot in the far corner of the courtyard while Tom went to buy drinks, opening my pouch of tobacco to roll myself a cigarette.

‘Those’ll kill you,’ he said, putting a glass on the table and sliding onto the bench next to me.

I touched a filter to my lip twice. ‘So I’ve heard,’ I said, letting it rest at the corner of my mouth as I found a paper, filled it with tobacco.

He laughed, and took a sip of his beer.

I finished rolling the cigarette, tapped the end with my index finger, put it in my mouth and lit it. He was watching me. ‘What?’ I asked, exhaling.

He looked thoughtful, and I wondered again what I was doing here, why I’d agreed to this. Nic would have got over it eventually. Holly probably was cool.

‘Nothing,’ he said, to my shoulder. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘This certainly isn’t a fancy restaurant.’

‘No.’ He picked up his beer again. ‘It’s a good local, though. You’ve never been here?’

I shook my head. ‘We go into town, usually. Or to the PBH.’

‘We?’

‘Sawyer’s people.’ I smiled. ‘You know, your typical hospitality drunks.’

‘Ah.’ He said, nodding.

I looked at my untouched drink, the outside of the glass wet with condensation, wee-yellow lime cordial floating on top of the vodka and soda, and took a drag of my cigarette. I felt like I was in group but not, so far away. I felt like I could say anything, and it would be okay, and it scared me how much I wanted to. A memory of something that had never happened.

‘You live near here?’ I asked instead, trying to find a thread to pull me back from telling him all the things I wanted to, trying to be careful.

‘Yeah, down near the water.’

‘Nice.’

‘It is. I’m still getting used to it.’

‘Where were you before?’ I asked.

He hesitated.

‘Sorry, I’m just …’

‘It’s fine.’ He shrugged. ‘I used to live over the bridge, in Cremorne.’