‘He hurt her . . .’ Jake cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to cry in here. No way. No matter what. ‘He hurt her bad.’ It was a joke, this kid calling him posh boy. When the only holidays he and his mum ever had were on the Morrises’ charity. When his trainers were from Tesco. His bloody mum, making him not one thing or the other. Going to Oxford but failing, so she couldn’t even get a proper job. Giving him a posh-ish accent but no dad and no money. Landing him here, because you had to defend your mum when someone hurt her, no matter who he was. She’d been so drunk. So drunk and so stupid, like a twenty-year-old, a girl half her age. If a girl at his school acted like that they’d call her a slut. But it was his mum. And look what had happened.

If only he hadn’t gone to the garage, left her drunk with the men. Laughing, shouting almost, remembering their oh-so-fun time at Oxford. His phone had lit up with a text from Cassie as he climbed the stairs to Mike’s stupid office. This one time, at Oxford, we stayed up past eleven o’clock!

He’d smiled and texted back. LOL. So you gonna do it or what?

She replied with a shrugging emoji.

Mate, don’t, he’d texted back. You’ll regret it, honest.

Cassie was a terrible liar. She always had been, even when they were little and her mum was on the warpath asking who’d eaten all the bourbons. So when she said she was going to bed, Jake knew exactly what she meant. He went into Mike’s ‘den’. His mum’s wheelie case was on the floor, her clothes spilling out of it, and the cover on the sofa bed already messed up. When they’d arrived, his mum had said something about wanting to change and sent him up to Cassie’s room, but then she’d taken ages, almost an hour.

He could see the light in Cassie’s window as he sent another message. Are u going to c him?

She didn’t reply for a while but he knew she would. In the meantime he concentrated on what a twat Mike was, with his boring DVDs and his drinks cabinet shaped like a jukebox and the red leather armchair, like a gentleman’s study. When he was little his mum had pushed him to spend time with Mike – boys’ day out! – thinking he needed a male role model or something like that, but Jake had made it clear he didn’t like football or golf or any other stupid male bonding activities, so it had stopped.

None of your business. Cassie had texted back, after a while.

Don’t do it.