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“I’m not a sex addict. I’m a Melanie Black addict.” He grinned at me, then leaned down and nuzzled at my neck.

I giggled and squirmed under him. “Well, they don’t have AA meetings for that.”

Joel wrapped himself around me. “Thank God for that. I never want to beat this addiction!”

The doorbell rang. I leaned away from Joel, but he made no attempt to get up.

“Aren’t you going to answer the door?” I asked. He sat up, shaking his head.

“I think it’s probably for you,” he murmured. I wrinkled my nose at him, but left the room, heading down the stairs and opening the front door.

“Hi, Mel.”

I looked out at Brad and Amanda, opening my mouth, but then shutting it when I realised I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t seen either of them in six weeks. I’d actively avoided them for six weeks.

“Hey Brad … Amanda,” I said shyly as I moved aside to let th em in. Brad looked at me for a long moment as if he was looking at a stranger, but then his eyes softened, and the stiffness went out of his shoulders as he walked inside.

Amanda followed, and I couldn’t help but notice that she wouldn’t look at me, and her hands were shaking.

“Uh, do you want to …” I began, but I wasn’t sure how to go on.

“Go sit out on the patio, Mel,” Joel’s voice echoed from above. I looked up, finding him leaning over the loft railing, smiling tenderly down at me. “I’ll make some drinks and bring them out in a little while.”

Seated, and thankful for the distraction of the harbour glowing in the late afternoon light, I tapped my fingers on the table.

“How have you been?” I asked, chancing a glance at Brad.

He shrugged. “Good. For a while there I wasn’t sure if you cared anymore.”

I hung my head, ashamed. “It’s not like that, Brad. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to speak to me now that Joel and I …” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t need to.

“He loves you,” Brad murmured.

I smiled despite the little tug of sadness I felt for Brad. “I know.”

“Smellie, you’re happy. That makes me happy.”

I turned to him then. “Sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” I said. Brad smiled, then nudged me with his shoulder, jerking his head towards Amanda. She sat slumped with her head bowed, hands in her lap.

“Mandy-Moo,” I said. She flinched but didn’t look up.

“Nothing that happened was your fault, you know that, don’t you?” I asked, turning my chair and reaching out to untangle her hands from her lap, winding my fingers through hers.

“Yes … no … I don’t know. I just feel so guilty.” She sniffed and I realised that she was crying. I moved my chair even closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she shook.

“He had us all completely fooled,” Brad added, sounding like he had been saying this to her for weeks. Another flash of guilt burned through me. I should have been the one to tell her. My radio silence would have seemed like an accusation to her.

“Brad’s right. I can’t remember how many times I thought, ‘oh, this Thomas guy, he’s perfect for Amanda, and he seems so steady and sensible and so infatuated with her’. ”

“I’m seeing a psychologist about it all,” she confessed, as if there was something wrong with that.

I squeezed her shoulders. “Well, you’re more sensible than me. I’ve just been distracting myself from the unresolved trauma by throwing myself at Joel!”

Amanda giggled wetly. Brad shook his head, looking mildly ill.

Mental note – don’t mention sexy-times with Joel in front of your best friend who is in love with you.

“Have you all kissed and made up?” Joel asked, and I looked up to see him walking out with a tray of cocktails. I smiled gratefully. Alcohol would definitely help.

“Thanks, mate,” Brad said as he accepted one of the drinks. He even gave Joel a small smile as he took a sip. Progress!

After a Sandra Herbert home-cooked meal and multiple drinks, things were decidedly less frosty between all of us. Amanda was actually laughing at something Joel said, and the haunted look in her eyes wasn’t quite as obvious.

“He is obsessed with you,” Brad murmured in my ear. I turned to him questioningly. Joel and I had barely touched each other all night.

Brad half-smiled. “The way he looks at you … I feel like we’re all about to go up in flames.”

My heart thrummed and I glanced at Joel. He was looking at me, and suddenly I did feel like I was about to spontaneously combust.

“You know what, Mel?” Brad muttered next to my ear, as Joel and I continued to stare at each other. “You didn’t make a mistake this time.” Brad stood up. “And our Uber is approaching, Amanda. Time for us to go.”

I stood too, heading over to Amanda and grabbing her hand. We walked to the front door like that.

“Want to get brunch tomorrow?” I asked as I opened the door for her.

She nodded with a small smile. “Yeah, that would be great, Mel.”

I kissed her cheek, before turning to Brad and wrapping my arms around his waist. He squeezed me briefly, before holding me away from him. “Don’t be a stranger again, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay, I promise.”

Joel and I watched as their Uber turned out of the driveway. Once it was gone, I spun, flinging myself into his arms.

“What’s gotten into you?” he growled in my ear. I smiled and planted a kiss on his collarbone.

“I’m just happy, that’s all,” I replied, snuggling closer to him. ‘Thanks for making me talk to them.”

“Stink, they’re your best friends. It was agony knowing that I … that maybe you weren’t talking to them because of me.”

I rubbed my nose against the hollow in his throat. “You are perfect, Joel Herbert.”

He chuckled, his lips in my hair. The evening air was cool, but Joel was warm, and it felt so nice to be in his arms.

“Hey,” I said, leaning back so I could see into his eyes.

He grinned down at me. “Yes?”

“Something’s been bugging me.”

“What’s that, Stinky?” Joel asked. I didn’t even flinch when he called me Stinky anymore. I actually kind of liked it. To be honest though – I’d kind of liked it all along.

“What were you doing for those few hours when you left Julie’s house the night you found out about Shaun?” I asked.

Joel’s grin slipped, but only slightly. “Well, I was wandering around the streets of Melbourne, worrying about your ankle, worrying that if I seemed like I was worrying about it too much, you’d realise that it was about more than just your career … that it was about how much I fucking loved you.”

I looked up at him in disbelief. “But … you’d literally just found out that you have a half-brother! Didn’t you have better things to be thinking about than me and my stupid ankle?”

Joel lifted a hand to my face and rubbed his thumb across my cheekbone. “Mel, it’s been a very long time since I’ve gone even a minute without thinking about you.”

I held up a hand. “Hang on! You were in love with me back in January ? This wasn’t just a recent development?”

Joel chuckled at me. “Melanie Black, I’ve been in love with you since you were eighteen.”

I gaped at him. He laughed. “Dad saw how I felt about you straight away, and he forbade me from making a move.

And you were still with Grant … So I settled for teasing you instead – like a stupid kid in the schoolyard who pulls a girls hair when he likes her.

You have no idea how relieved I was when you split up with him.

“But then I started to worry that I had ruined any chance I might have had with you because I’d spent all those years teasing you.”

I frowned. “I honestly never had a clue that you felt that way about me. I mean, I’ve known for a while that you wanted my body, but I figured that was just because you’re a sex fiend.”

Joel snickered under his breath and reached down to squeeze my butt. I felt the pulse deep inside me that I hoped I would always feel when he touched me like that.

“Mel, I did always want your body. But I wanted everything else that came with it as well.”

“You hid your true feelings very easily,” I grouched.

“It might have seemed that way to you, but every time you left a room I was in it was all I could do to keep myself from running after you and grabbing hold and never letting go. It’s been even harder since Dad died because I knew that his disapproval wasn’t stopping me anymore.”

I looked up into his stunningly blue eyes. “Well, why didn’t you make a move earlier? ”

He smiled beautifully at me. “I told you – I thought that I’d spent so many years teasing you that you actually believed I was an idiot who only thought with his dick and lived just to make your life Hell. I was terrified to reveal how I felt in case you laughed at me.”

If my heart wasn’t already liquid for him, the vulnerability in his voice would have melted it.

“To be fair I did think that for a while. But then you started to show me that there was more to you than the sex-crazed Adonis. You had me very confused there for a while. Don’t get me wrong though, the sex-crazed Adonis is a lot of fun too.

” I reached my hands up and put them on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart through his shirt.

He laughed breathlessly. “I know you like that part of me, Mel. That part of me likes you too, so much.”

I rocked myself against him, feeling the part we were talking about bulging against my hip.

He took a shaky breath. “Don’t start something unless you’re prepared to finish it, Melanie Black. I don’t have the sort of self-control around you that I should have.”

I grinned, liking the fact that I could make him feel the way he’d been making me feel all year.

“You had plenty of self-control over the last five years,” I reminded him, moulding myself even closer to his body.

He trailed his fingers up and down my arms. “Yes, and now that it’s no longer necessary, it’s just disappeared altogether.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” I whispered, tilting my head up towards his. He smiled a stunning smile – not the one that I’d seen him use on other women. A special one that was just for me.

He pressed his warm lips to mine.

“Joel’s making a baby with Mel!” Shaun’s little voice cackled from the doorway. I broke away from Joel with a giggle, and he pressed his forehead against mine, moving one hand up to stroke my face.

“Sorry!” Julie hissed behind him, and I looked up to see her scooping a pyjama clad Shaun into her arms.

“Who told you that’s how babies get made, Shaun?” Joel asked .

“Kim at school. And she said that before people make babies like that, they have to get married first.”

“Damned Catholic preschool,” Joel muttered jokingly in my ear. I grinned.

“Joel’s got to marry Mel now!” Shaun crowed, squirming in his mother’s arms.

“Sure Shaun, we’ll get married. You can be my best man!”

I gaped at Joel, not sure if he was joking or not.

He laughed at the look of shock on my face. “One step at a time, Mel. Maybe we should move in together first.”

I chewed on my lip for a moment. “Well, we pretty much live together now,” I replied.

Joel grinned. “Yeah, well … I have an investment property in Bondi. I’ve had it for years, but my tenant has just given their notice and I thought that maybe we could move in there.

Just you, me and Connor. Mum’s asked Julie if she’d like to make their stay here with her more permanent.

” Julie’s lease had expired around the time I got out of hospital, and with the rental market the way it was, Sandra had offered for them to stay for a while.

It worked great for my rehab, and Sandra seemed to love having both Shaun and Julie around, even knowing the truth about Shaun.

I felt the slow smile spreading on my face, but I was trying not to get too ahead of myself. “But Joel, we’ve only been together six weeks. Don’t you think we should … wait a bit? I mean this is a massive commitment for a man who was a terminal bachelor until six weeks ago.”

“Well, if you want to count it like that, we’ve been ‘together’ since Wimbledon. And we’ve been unofficially dating since the French Open really.”

I eyed him sharply and he smirked. “Just because you’re clueless and don’t see what’s happening in front of your nose, doesn’t mean it’s not real. And besides, I’ve been waiting for you for five years – I think that’s long enough, don’t you?”

A smile burst onto my face in full force. “Just think, Joel – we’ll be able to ‘make babies’ in every room. The lounge room, the kitchen bench, the washing mach– ”

My words were cut short by Joel’s urgent mouth on mine, by his excited groan.

Thank you, God, I thought as Joel’s tongue slipped into my mouth. I asked you for a man who would love me for me, who would care about me, and all along you must have been pulling your hair out wondering why I hadn’t just taken what was waiting in front of my face.

Joel’s hand reached around my waist, pulling me tighter against him and distracting me from my silent prayer. I only really had one thing left to say to the Man upstairs, so I thought it quickly before Joel could distract me any further.

God, you definitely got it right this time! Thanks.

AMEN.