Page 121 of Loving Wild

Ava carefully lifts the lid off the box, which we chose especially because it looks like a jewellery box. Inside is the cheapest, ugliest watch we could find.

It’s only there for an instant, but I don’t miss the ‘what the fuck am I looking at’moment flash across my daughter’s face.

“Oh wow, it’s a watch,” she says, and because I’ve raised a polite kid, she paints a big smile on her face.

“That’s fucking ugly,” Zac says.

“Wow, not often I agree with you, but yeah. That’s ugly,” Dani agrees with Zac.

Everyone else remains silent as Ava holds up the pink, purple, brown, and tangerine encrusted watch.

Everyone is looking at the watch. Me and Lauren are looking at Ava. Ava looks from the watch back to the box. And that’s when she sees them.

Her brows pull down into a frown, and her mouth drops open before she smiles and looks up at me, then at Ren and shakes her head.

Fuck me, all this being in love crap has turned me into a straight-up pussy because when my daughter’s eyes fill with tears, I feel my nose start to tingle.

Ava throws her head back and laughs, tossing the watch over her shoulder at the same time.

“Steady on, kid, it’s not that ugly,” Zac says as Ava stands and launches herself at me.

I wrap my arms around her as Lauren moves in for a group hug.

“Oh, my god, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she says over and over again.

Charlie, Cooper’s eldest boy, is looking inside the box. “Really? One Direction tickets, is that it?”

“Oh, my god, is there one for me?” Dani shrieks as she jumps up and looks inside the box. “There are four tickets, please tell me one of them is for me.”

“Four?” Ava questions as she pulls out of my arms.

“You, whoever you want to bring with you, and one for me and Lauren, because you’re not going on your own, and I’m not going to a One Direction concert without Lauren for back up, but, if Dani wants to go with Lauren, I’m good with that too,” I tell her.

“You can come, Dan,” Ava looks over her shoulder and tells my sister, who instantly pulls up ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ on her phone and starts dancing to it.

“Harry Styles is mine,” Dani points at Lauren and says.

Lauren shakes her head. “I’ll fight ya for him, and we both know who’ll win,” she says with a shrug.

“He’s a child,” I protest.

“Babe,” is all she says as she waves her hand up and down in front of me.

“You coming with me, Soph?” Ava shouts to her friend who’s now dancing with Dani.

“Fu . . . Hell yeah,” Sophie shouts back over the song that’s blasting through the overhead speakers.

After another kiss and cuddle from my kid, she does the rounds and thanks everyone for her presents and cards.

“I think she’s happy,” Ren says from beside me as we watch her. “It’s good to have friends and family in high places.”

“It was your idea,” I tell her. She shrugs.

When both of us tried and failed to buy tickets online, it was Lauren who suggested I reach out to my cousin Cam, who’s in another UK band, Young and Wild. We don’t speak often, and I felt like a bit of a wanker for reaching out, but when I explained Ava was about to become a teenager, he did what he could and had four tickets couriered straight to our door.

“Right,” my dad stands up and shouts over the music. Who’s coming out on the boat? Rain’s forecast for later this arvo, and the wind’s supposed to get up. So, if you want the skis out, and the wakeboards or doughnuts on the back of the boat, we need to move our arses and get out on the lake this morning.”

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