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“Like what?” He shuffled closer.

“I’ve never had a relationship. With anyone. I don’t know how to behave, what is normal. And what I did… Was it too much? Was I overbearing?”

“I thought as much. You’ve never spoken of anyone. But no. Not overbearing. In a way, it was what I needed. A wake-up call. Knowing that…I matter.”

“My son is the most important person in my life.”

“My children are my number one priority.”

We both smiled. Truths. Honesty. Mutual understandings.

“You know,” he said, “you asked me a lot of questions. Personal ones that you felt you needed answers to. But I never asked you any back.”

“What do you want to know?” A sudden pang of fear in my stomach. I didn’t understand half of it myself.

“Why did you drink?”

God. He had to get straight in there, didn’t he?

I swallowed.

“You don’t anymore, but there must have been a reason.”

“There isn’t always a reason,” I started, my cheeks flaming. “At least, not at first. I went to the pub. Sat around. Made friends with the other regulars. It became…a habit.”

“I can understand that.”

“I was young. Then suddenly, I wasn’t that young. And all the things that other men did—they had girlfriends, got married, had families—you know?”

“Yes.”

I had to swallow again. Everyone had issues. Huge ones. Life-changing trauma that caused their paths to implode. I wasn’t like that. My traumas were pathetic, trivial matters. Things I should have got over years ago.

“When you’re young, things become big. Small things blow up in your face, and then you can’t seem to overcome them. And I think that’s what it became for me. Instead of dealing with who I was and my strengths and my limitations, I drank. It was just easier. Numbed out everything. Drinking can become a good, palpable excuse for anything and everything. I couldn’t go out because I was hungover. I couldn’t come to events because I hadother events. I’d promised to meet people down the pub. Had a match to watch. Things like that. And when I wasn’t down the pub drinking, I worked.”

“It happens. I’ve seen it happen to colleagues. Well-educated people in law who can’t get through the week without a constant flow of drinks. Drugs. People cope in different ways.”

“I coped. I was a very well-functioning alcoholic, actually. Never late, never drunk on the job. Very responsible. Not a single DUI, ever. I wasn’t a twat.”

That made him laugh.

“But you were no saint either?”

Now I laughed.

“I have only slept with one woman in my entire life.”

That made him sit back, his mouth gulping air.

“The one you mentioned?”

“One,” I repeated. “Yes. Like I told you. Reuben’s mother. She was a prostitute. It’s taken me many years to be able to even acknowledge that out loud. She was the first one I went to. And the last. And in between those visits, I drained my bank account and lost all my confidence. Because I was not worth anything to her, and she waseverything to me. I was just a child. A stupid, immature child.”

“Stewart.”

“And I couldn’t talk to girls. Not normal girls. I couldn’t find one I even wanted to talk to. I couldn’t find anyone I was attracted to, and it became so normal for me to not be attracted. To not have someone. To not flirt. To just be me, and I hated it. I saw how everyone else behaved and how everyone else found it so easy. They flirted and smiled, and then they were making out, and I was just standing there with an iron rod up my backside. It was easier just to order another pint.”

I slumped back on his leather sofa, an empty teacup in my hand. I was clutching it, nursing it like I had a drink. And I felt small. A fool. A ridiculous specimen of a man who, at the age of fifty-eight, couldn’t even admit that he was… probably…