I ran to up to the ball and kicked, my knee reminding me that I wasn’t an undergraduate anymore and should probably be taking something for my joints. The ball sailed between the two white posts and Jackson and Nick jumped on me to celebrate, followed by Callum, Killian and Seph, plus Elijah Ward who was a salaried partner at Callaghan Green and ex-Oxford too. If my maths was correct, we’d just managed to beat the Oxford Second XI, or perhaps it was the third, but given that we were older and should be less fit, it was something to celebrate.

“Maybe we need to start a team from the firm,” Eli said, clicking the cartilage in his nose. “I forget how much I like playing.”

“You can organise it then,” Jackson said, smacking him on the back. “Well played.”

Eli had scored three tries and I’d been surprised as to how fast he’d been; given he was the same size as me.

“Are you staying with us?” I asked Eli. He’d joined us at the last minute, when other weekend plans had fallen through.

He shook his head. “No, but thanks for the offer. My girlfriend’s down for the weekend. Her train gets in this evening so I need to get back to meet her.”

“Long distance?”

He pulled a face. “Yeah. Not sure if it’s working out. I moved down here and she talked about following, but then she got a promotion and she’s stopped talking about it. Trust me when I say I’d rather be here with you lot downing beers and shots.”

I wiped sweat off my forehead and fussed with my beard. “If you end up being a single man by Monday I’ll take you out for a few beers to celebrate. You’re coming to Jackson’s wedding next weekend, aren’t you?”

I still had a best man’s speech to write. That would be one way of stopping me from thinking constantly about Victoria, and whether or not I was now a single man.

I’d acted like a fucking idiot on Friday. To walk out after just giving her a sarcastic response and not explain why was the stuff of ass-wipes and imbeciles—and if she thought about it, she’d probably realise she’d had a lucky escape.

“I’m there for the whole day. Doubt I’ll be bringing a date,” Eli said and I felt for the guy. I knew he’d been seeing his girlfriend for a few years and any change was hard to deal with, even when the change was probably for the best.

“I’d offer to hook you up with the bridesmaids but they’re mainly my sisters,” I said.

He laughed. “I’ll probably just get shit-faced and fall asleep in a corner after practicing my dad dancing.”

“You’ve got kids?”

He shook his head. “No, but according to my girlfriend, it’s how I look on a dancefloor.” He inhaled deeply. “This is probably going to be for the best.”

“If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re probably right.” I gave him a slap on the back and headed to the showers where my brothers and Killian already were, taking the piss out of Seph for the amount of manscaping he’d been doing.

I eyed him weirdly, trying not to look. “Did you lose control of the clippers?” I asked, pulling off my top that already stunk of sweat before losing the rest of my rugby kit.

“Have you not watched any porn in the past decade?” Seph said.

Killian and Callum hooted crudely.

“Seph, you’re not a porn star,” Jackson said. “And if you’ve appeared in anything, however homemade, that’s somewhere even a mile away from the internet then let me know so I can get a press release ready.”

“It’s okay,” Callum said. “The only action he’s been getting recently has been from his hand.”

Seph looked ready to explode and there was a rugby ball far too close to his hand for him to aim at Callum; I knew Marie would rather her prettiest son stayed that way.

“Right, shut the fuck up the pair of you and finish tarting yourselves up. I’ve got a best man’s speech to write so I need you thinking of how I can embarrass Jackson.”

Jackson’s eyes were now on me, digging in viciously, but Callum and Seph had stopped bickering like two old ladies. My thoughts had moved back to Victoria.

I hadn’t replied to her text because I didn’t have the words. I wanted her to stay, to move into her childhood home with me and make new memories there. I wanted what Jackson and Vanessa had, what my dad and Marie had and Claire and Killian. What even my two fuckwit youngest brothers would probably have if they could ever find people to put up with them.

My dad was waiting for us outside, ready to give us a lift back. There would be a debate about going to a bar afterwards and watching Leicester play Wasps in a proper rugby match, but Killian was continually worried about Claire and the baby coming early, so we’d opted to drain my father’s drinks’ cabinet instead.

“Good game, lads,” Dad asked as we filed out, smelling better than we had done twenty minutes ago. “Where’s Seph?”

“Still doing his hair,” Callum replied, jumping in the front seat. “Like trying to put lipstick on a pig.”

“I told you to fucking stop riling him up,” I said, climbing in behind him. “Jacks, can you take Seph back?”

Jackson nodded, checking something on his phone. Possibly an update from Vanessa of what his balls were up to. I wondered what Victoria was doing to mine.

“All the girls are here,” Dad said, getting in and starting the engine. “Except Victoria. We were expecting her. Don’t tell me she’s seen sense already?” He looked around at me and laughed.

“Don’t, Dad,” Callum said. I wasn’t sure what he knew, only that he and Seph had managed a civil conversation over breakfast this morning and Seph had glanced over several times to check I wasn’t listening.

“Oh well, it had to happen sometime! Don’t worry, son, you’ll meet someone else.”

I felt the same anger burn that I had as a teenager and said nothing, trying to swallow the pain and fury back down.

The tension in the car was poisonous as no one said anything, Callum uncomfortable and not understanding in the slightest what he’d said.

“I’m sorry, Max, it was a joke. I’m sure she’ll be back. Marie saw the way she looked at you the last time she saw you both and thought it wouldn’t be that long before we’d be at your wedding,” my father said, braking far too late at lights and jolting us forward.

“Leave it, Dad,” I said and looked at my phone, at Victoria’s text.

I stared at my phone for five minutes, willing her to text back, but as we pulled up at my parents’ house there was still nothing. I put my phone in my back pocket and headed inside, hoping that Marie was too occupied with the wedding and Claire’s current state of about to give birth to a monster sized baby.

As usual after a rugby game, the drinking started immediately. Vanessa locked Ava, Payton and Claire in a room to fold boxes for the wedding favour—things which I didn’t understand and I don’t think Jackson did either, but neither of us asked for fear we’d receive a lecture on it. Callum fussed over the puppy Marie and my father had decided to get, a rescue mongrel who bounced all over the place before peeing on Seph’s shoes.

“Shots,” Jackson said, carrying a tray of glasses and a bottle of tequila into the room my father had chosen to place a huge TV in and had named his den. I grabbed a glass and knocked it back before Jackson had even put the tray down.

“So this speech,” Seph said, sprawling out across the floor. At twenty-eight, he should’ve stopped growing, but I was convinced he’d still added a couple of inches so far this year. He’d also broadened out, needing to buy a whole new set of suits because the jackets looked like he’d stolen them from a thrift store and the trousers were starting to look indecent. “What sort of things are you including?”

Jackson stayed mute, checking his phone and pretending not to hear.

“The time he woke up in bed with twins?” Killian suggested. “And confessed that all he’d done was sleep.”

I laughed. We’d teased him for weeks after that. “The time he locked himself out stark bollock naked after chasing Amy Smith down the road when she dumped him.”

Jackson groaned. “No one wants to hear about Amy Smith.”

“Wasn’t there a time when you had to climb out of a second storey window and you ended up pulling down the drainpipe because you didn’t want to get caught by the girl’s father?” Callum said. “Or was that Max?”

“That was Max,” Jackson said. “And just bear in mind that when it’s your turn, it’ll be me or Killian giving the speech and there will be plenty of jokes about the losing of virginities, vanilla sex and Ed Sheeran. Plus drainpipes.”

I poured another shot of tequila and downed it. It burned my throat as it went down, the pain a sweet distraction from the agony in my chest.

“Victoria won’t mind. She’s already heard everything and worse,” Seph said as he cleaned the freaking glasses that he didn’t need.

The room went silent, no one knowing what to say.

Seph looked up, almost oblivious to the bomb he’d dropped. “Oh for fuck’s sake. Van and Jackson broke up at one point because he was a dipshit and she overreacted. Max and Vic will get over this.” He looked at me, glasses now in place. “Just tell her you want her to stay. Give her a reason to take the job at King’s.”

I stood up, knocking over Killian’s beer. “What the fuck do you know about the King’s job?”

Seph, at least, had the manners to look half-guilty. “I went to see her yesterday.”

Even Jackson had put his phone down. Twenty seconds later Vanessa appeared with my sisters. Clearly he’d been giving her the head’s up on the episode of Game of Thrones that was unfolding.

“What do you mean you went to see her yesterday?” I demanded. Killian passed me another shot. Probably not one of his better ideas.

Seph shrugged. “You were mad at the world and I figured it was because of her, so I texted her and she told me about the job offer. I went round to the department to speak to her, because, to be honest, I was mad at her for not realising what it would do to you if she moved.” He was now a deeper shade of beet red, embarrassed and worried he’d ruined things. “While I was there Carol mentioned about someone retired from the History Department at King’s and UCL and said the dean over there had mentioned to her about Victoria possibly being interested. That’s how I know.”

I sat back down, still holding the tequila. My hands suddenly became very interesting.

“I think Vic needs you to ask her to stay. She was going on about how you agreed it was just temporary and you weren’t interested in a long term thing,” Seph said, trying to squeeze his six foot four frame into the chair. I remembered him doing the same thing as a ten-year-old when he’d stolen my aftershave and used a load of it in an attempt to impress a girl in his class. He actually fit in the chair then, now he looked like a spider trying to escape a hungry bird.

“I probably shouldn’t say anything because she’s my friend and all that, but she’s a wreck, Max. For someone you call Miss Feisty, she’s not happy and she’s not a pretty crier,” Vanessa said, looking guilty.

I thought Victoria was a pretty crier, not that she’d cried much since we’d been together. I didn’t want her to be upset and now I felt even more like a shit than I did before, but she hadn’t texted me back. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Thanks for telling me,” I said, not wanting to antagonise my future sister-in-law before she married Jackson. Her changing her mind was not an option. “Any other advice? Words of wisdom?” I held my glass up in a toast.

“Fuck yes,” Claire said. I glanced at Killian who shrugged as if absolving himself of all responsibility. “Stop being a stupid dick and sort out whatever trauma you need to deal with in order to function like a normal human being, Maxwell. Because if you don’t you’re going to turn yourself in to Dad before Marie, and you’re not our father. You practically brought me and Callum up until Marie came along, and I seem to remember you wiping dirty butts, prepping bottles, winding the little fuckers till they spewed on you and all the rest when these three were tiny. And still with Seph now when he’s drunk.”

“Cheers to the chief babysitter.” Killian held up a shot glass and drank it quickly.

Claire glared. “Who’s going to drive me to the hospital if I go into labour early?” she said, eyeing him and I hoped their child would inherit Killian’s temperament rather than Claire’s innate evilness.

“Marie’s taken an online midwifery course so you’ll be fine. Besides, you’re three weeks away and if you’re going to be early, it’ll be at your brother’s wedding,” Killian said. “Now shut up and let me get drunk because this might be the last time for a while.”

“It’d better not be at my wedding,” Jackson said. “I don’t want a repeat of my thirteenth birthday where you had to make sure you had all the attention on you.”

“What did she do?” Killian said, looking happy to find some shit on my sister.

Jackson shrugged. “Did a strip tease on the bouncy castle when we kept ignoring her. There’s a film of it somewhere. It was the year Dad bought a video camera. I’m more than happy to dig it out.”

“Fuck you, Jackson!” Claire said, giving him the finger and storming off.

Vanessa sipped her drink mildly, clearly used to my family, just as Victoria had become.

I checked my phone.

This time there were messages.

Part of me wanted to give my man card up completely and ask Seph at the very least what I should respond, but I also knew I had to do this, it had to come from me even if I struggled to find the words.

And that was the problem: I didn’t know how much I could give her.

I continued to drink through the afternoon and into the evening, my anger growing with each beer. Around five, Jackson refused to let me have any more and I noticed Killian had stopped completely, leaving just Callum and Seph—who had turned back into teenagers—and Ava and Payton, who were cooking something up on social media that I was trying to avoid being caught up in.

I knew I had to deal with my past and at the moment, my lack of control with the situation with Victoria was being placed on my father’s desk. The clock struck six and in my half drunken state I decided that there was no time like the present to finally have it out with my old man, who had hidden behind Marie for too long, never giving any sort of apology for how he’d left Mum and us with the constant excuse of work.

I left my siblings and Marie to finish off the remains of the barbeque that we’d had and headed into my father’s study, no longer trying to keep a lid on the monster that was screaming inside me.

My father looked up from his papers, initially unaware that I was in front of his desk, awaiting his attention, just like I had so many years before when my mother had died and I needed to know how to look after my siblings.

“Maxwell,” he said, with a smile. “I’m glad you’re here. How’s things? How’s Victoria? Seph said you’d heard from her.”

“Why the fuck would you care?” I said, my blood now at boiling point and I knew I was about to spew word vomit all over his precious, orderly desk that matched my own in too many ways.

He stood up, eyes narrowed and stretched to his full height. “Why the fuck would I care about what?”

“Victoria. You made an insinuation at Marie’s birthday that she couldn’t manage me. Well, you’ll be glad to know that, as usual, you were right.” The words tasted as bitter as they sounded.

For a moment my father said nothing. His arms were folded across his chest and his glare was piercing, only there was nothing left of me to pierce.

“Hit me with it,” he said, the quietness of his words surprising me. “Give me all you’ve got because whatever argument you’ve been brewing for the past twenty-eight years clearly needs to be said. To be quite frank, Maxwell, I haven’t a fucking clue what you’re on about.”

“You said you weren’t sure whether she could manage me. Well, you were right. She’s got the job in America and she’s thinking about leaving, which is probably just as well given how I’m so fucking much like you I wouldn’t want the guilt of fucking someone up just like you did mum. The fucking workaholic, that’s all you did and you didn’t give a fucking shit that we needed a father, that we needed you. Or even that Mum needed you.” I felt wetness on my cheeks and I didn’t care. “I don’t deserve anyone like Victoria because I’ll probably just fucking wreck her and any children we have. And she wanted that. She said. But I can’t tell her I wanted the same because look what you did to mum, to us.”

And then I was shaking with the sobs and my father’s hands were on my shoulders shaking me.

“Maxwell,” he said, that quiet voice which I never knew he had until Marie came. “You’re not me. When I wasn’t there for Claire and Jackson and Callum, you were. I remember you standing here, asking me for money for diapers and I wondered how the hell I’d buried myself in so much grief I forgot to live myself, that my seven-year-old son was looking after my children. How you can categorise yourself like that I don’t understand.”

“Because I work like you. I’m obsessed by it. I’m driven and I push myself and I forget that other people exist and that must be what Victoria saw.” I felt the rage again, that spark of pure fight that I usually kept embedded in structured arguments and academia.

My father shook his head. “You’re better than me. I had to work harder to be less excellent than you are. You spend time with your siblings and me and your friends and Victoria. I didn’t until Marie. I didn’t understand until then.”

“But Mum. How did you not see? How did you not see she was sad? She was hurting, Dad. I could tell. She was never right with Callum and there were times when she looked at us like we weren’t there. We ran wild that summer. Didn’t you notice?” In my voice I heard the seven-year-old, the skinny boy with grazed knees and sunburnt arms.

“Max.” His voice radiated pain. “I tried. I didn’t do a good job because I was clueless, but I brought in doctors, I asked her to go to hospital. I wanted her to be happy. There are things you don’t know, about us, and how we were and I probably should have told you but I didn’t think it was my place. But if I knew how you tortured yourself, I’d have told you years ago.” He sat down, his expression crippled in distress.

I had never seen my father cry. Only once, when Ava was poorly with a viral infection that could’ve been fatal, had he been close to it. Yet now he sat there broken.

The door shifted open and Marie appeared carrying a tray loaded with tea and a bottle of whisky.

“I couldn’t wait outside any longer; I heard you shouting. I remind you that you’re both lawyers and arguments that are planned and considered are far more productive, but sometimes a good old shit throwing competition is necessary too.” She went straight for the whisky and I noticed she had a third glass for herself. “Maxwell, what you’re saying about yourself is complete fucking bollocks. One, I knew how you looked after everyone before I arrived including making your father eat because you gave me clear instructions on exactly how everyone was to be fed and clothed and cleaned, so never doubt what sort of father you would make. Two, you had me and I was a fucking awesome stepmother so you learned from the best. Three, there’s always a bigger picture and there are family secrets that you don’t know and learning about them now is probably not the right time. You don’t need to know them because, really, they serve no purpose. Four, and finally, what your father meant about Victoria is that she had her own issues to deal with before she could ‘manage’ you—which is a shit way of describing it, Grant. Does every expression you possess have to be to do with law or business?”

She glared at him and slapped him around the head gently. He caught her hand and held it against his cheek in an act so tender I felt a third-wheel simply watching.

And then I remembered a long dead vision of a man who was there in the afternoons, when Mum’s door was shut and we played outside like the wild things we had become. It hadn’t registered until now, because the main event of that summer was her death, not what came before it, other than she was sad. “She was having an affair, wasn’t she?” I said quietly, calmly. “You knew.”

My father nodded. “For some time. He ended it. She was going to leave me for him, but he ended it before she could.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

I stumbled to the chair near the window and half collapsed. Marie passed me a tumbler of whisky which I downed, the golden liquid burning my throat and reminding me that I existed and that this wasn’t a dream.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What I said was what I thought as a teenager. I’ve never managed to process the bigger picture. I’m still not sure I can.”

For a moment my father said nothing, looking at the glass in his hand. “Maxwell, you were in a position that no child should be in and I didn’t help. I can only apologise. But don’t punish yourself for the mistakes others made. You made none. You looked after her as best you could and you looked after everyone else as well. I’ve never had a moment when I wasn’t proud of you.”

“Really?” I said, surprised as he’d never stopped pushing me to be the best I could.

“Except when you wrapped my car around that tree and wrote it off. The tree didn’t murder you, but I almost did.”

And then I laughed and he joined in, the noise dispelling the tension. I walked over to him, my legs still like overcooked spaghetti and opened my arms, stepping into his embrace and for the first time my father hugged me and the world was made better.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, just the two of us, with Marie coming in every so often to check the arguing hadn’t started again. We talked about Mum and how young they were when they got married: Dad was still a student and Mum had never lived away from home before. They had me as soon as Dad started his training contract and he was focused on making a name for himself and not just relying on the fact it was his family’s firm—something I understood too well.

“We started a family too soon,” he said over coffee and the left-over ribs. “But your Mum was bored and wanted children young. We didn’t think things through and if I’m honest, I resented your mum for that because I didn’t have a clue what to do with you all and I wanted to focus on being a provider first. I don’t regret having you now. I’ll love your mum forever for giving me the four of you. I’m not sure I’ll love Marie forever for giving me Seph though.”

I laughed, knowing he was joking. “We never talked before.”

My dad shook his head. “No, because neither of us are good with feelings and shit like that. Give it a few months and you’ll probably want to shout again, but I’d rather you do that than bottle it up. That’s not healthy. Marie taught you that.”

“About what Mum did…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“The others…”

“Don’t need to know. They have her on a pedestal. Leave her there.”

“I think they should know the whole story because it will change what they think of you,” I said. “And it’s you who’s here.”

My father looked at me in his considered way. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they should know the full story. Especially Callum. Especially Callum,” he repeated it and I understood why. Callum blamed himself. None of the rest of us ever had; in fact, we’d loved him more because of what happened. “But not yet. Not while Claire’s so pregnant or Jackson’s wedding is approaching. Please give it a few months for everything to be calm again. Then if you think you want me to tell them, then I will. I don’t want to force you to keep secrets from them. That’s not fair.”

I stood up, needing my bed and sleep and some headspace in which I could digest everything that had been said. “Thanks, Dad.”

He stood too. “Maxwell,” he said. “About Victoria.”

“Yes?”

“Phone her now. Tell her everything now, or tomorrow. Don’t bottle it up, Maxwell. That’s what Marie taught me,” he said. “And now I’m going to find her and say thank you.”

I must’ve looked concerned at how he was going to do that.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it suitable for families,” he said with a smirk that reminded me of Ava. “Until we get upstairs.”

“Goodnight,” I said, leaving him laughing hard.

I didn’t phone Victoria before I went to sleep. Processing what I’d learned was going to take some time and I needed to understand it before I could explain it, but I did text her. I needed to respond to her when she’d asked how much more I wanted.

For the first time in nearly forty-eight hours my heart rate subsided to something less than that of a hundred metre sprinter and I fell asleep easily, thinking of my mum and my dad and the past, but also of the now and the future. I felt hope.

Victoria was standing outside her apartment when I got there, looking at her front door like she was about to kick it in. “There’s someone inside,” she said. “I’ve been here about ten minutes and there’s definitely someone inside.”

I was surprised she hadn’t gone storming in. The fact she was still outside, waiting for me, suggested that she was weirded out at the very least. She’d also not lost her shit; which Claire would’ve done on a huge scale. “How do you know?”

“I’ve seen shadows, movement. And only one lock’s on. Someone’s gone in with keys.”

“Okay. I’m calling the police.” Before she could tell me not to I was on the phone, putting the call through. And then I called Killian, who was already home having taken back a very cross and tired Claire. My sister hadn’t slept, had bad indigestion and was probably about to murder one of us.

Luckily we didn’t have to wait very long until two community support officers arrived, both looking serious and slightly dubious because there was no sign of a forced entry.

“Is there anyone who might want to enter your property for some reason?” one of them asked.

I glanced at Victoria, knowing fucking too well who would want to be in there, going through her underwear and smelling her sheets.

“Possibly,” she said, looking at me. “Peter Coffey. He’s a student where I work.”

She explained what had happened. I filled in the bits she deliberately skipped.

“Okay,” the officer said. “Do you have your keys?”

Victoria handed them over. “You’ve my permission to enter. If it is Peter Coffey, he doesn’t have permission.”

They both entered, leaving us at the door watching. I wanted to barge past them and yank the bastard out myself and then use him to practice my right hook; however, my level of self-control was currently at ‘good’, so I let the police do their job.

Less than five minutes later, Peter Coffey was brought out in handcuffs, which were the main accessory to the jumper that he was wearing which was one of Victoria’s and a pair of pyjama bottoms, which again, I recognised as being hers. I didn’t want to think about what he had on underneath, but I expected we would be going shopping very soon.

“Is this the man who’s been following you and sending you unwanted gifts?” one of the officers said.

Victoria nodded. “That’s Peter Coffey.”

“Have you been away from home for a few days?”

“A few nights.”

“It seems like he’s moved himself in, and he’s added to the art work on your walls. We’re going to take him down to the station and we’ll need you to come down to make a statement.” A police van pulled up and two more officers stepped out, taking hold of Peter.

“But you wanted me to live with you, Victoria,” he shouted as he was dragged into the back of the van. “You wanted to be with me!”

She turned round to look at me. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t know if I want to go in there. Shit, he’ll have touched all my stuff.”

I pulled her into my chest and she clung to me and I clung back, needing to feel her against me after Friday, after thinking that we were finished. After we found out that Peter Coffey was in her house.

“We need to go in and look. Get an idea of what he’s done because you’ll need to explain to someone what he’s changed or taken.” I said, still holding her and not wanting to let go.

“I know,” she said. “I know. And I know he’ll have gone through clothes, what’s there, and probably slept in my bed. I can deal with all that. It’s what he’ll have done with my grandfather’s things. I can’t replace those.”

“Possibly nothing,” I said. “Because they’re not your things, they’re not personal objects like your clothes. Let’s go in and see.”

It was clear that Coffey had made himself at home in the last few days. A collection of mugs was on the side table in the front room, one of her throws was crumpled on the sofa, dipping into a pizza box. The weirdest things were the photos: Victoria had a few pictures of her, her parents and her grandparents as well as a couple of Jacob. Coffey had added Photoshopped pictures of him and Victoria to the shelves and a couple of him by himself, one in a tacky heart shaped frame that was so not Victoria.

In her bedroom there was evidence of Coffey having slept in her bed, the blankets tossed back and a couple of dubious stains on the sheets. Clothes were neatly folded, both his and hers, and on her pillow was a selection of cheap lace panties and bras. I felt bile rise in my throat and was glad I’d stopped drinking when I had. It gave me time to sober up and avoid the thick head I would’ve otherwise had—and the vomit that would no doubt spewed everywhere.

“I think it’s safe to say I won’t be staying here again,” she said, remarkably composed, using her phone to take photos. “I also don’t think he’s bothered with my books or knick-knacks. I’ll get them out today and back into storage.”

“Just bring them to mine. I’ll drive my car round after we’ve been to the police station and you can load it up,” I said. There wasn’t that much other stuff, and unless she’d been round to mine to pack her belongings, she had plenty of clothes and bits there already.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Max.”

It was evening before we sat down in my lounge with two large glasses of malbec, music playing quietly. Victoria sat with her legs folded under her, wearing a fitted T-shirt, baggy pyjama bottoms and no bra. The last bit was important because I had to try my goddamn hardest to not stare at her tits which were still as perfect as ever; I didn’t think I’d ever get bored with them.

The sex we’d had on Thursday had been different and things had shifted again. She’d given me what I’d needed and she’d taken whatever I’d given her. When she’d told me about the missed pill I knew that it upped the chances of her being pregnant by me, but those chances were still small. I still had my worries, one evening with my dad wasn’t going to change those, but I felt braver and more like me, not some reincarnation of Grant Callaghan.

“Where do we start?” she said, sipping the wine.

“Twenty-eight years ago?”

Her doe eyes widened and I began the story, leaving nothing out. The words came easier than I thought and when I stumbled, she asked questions, never afraid of any answer that might come out.

“So you’re going to tell your siblings?” she said, pouring from the second bottle that we’d opened.

“At some point. Not yet. I need to talk to Dad again when I’m calmer. Yesterday was heightened and not the right time for the conversation really. I shouldn’t have stormed in the way I did,” I said, not quite sure of how to even start untangling my feelings about my parents. Victoria was the focus right now: I needed to get my present and future right first.

Victoria shrugged. “I’m not sure. You’ve bottled everything up for so long, it needed something major to pop the cork so it could fizz out. If you were calm, I doubt you’d have instigated the conversation.”

“You’re right.”

“So where does this leave us?”

I topped up my own glass. “I don’t want this to be temporary. I want more. I want to ask you to stay, but I also know that if the best opportunity for you is to work at Johns Hopkins, then you need to take that and we’d find some way to make it work long distance.”

“Long distance would be hard. And expensive,” she said. “But I could put a limit on how long I’d be out there so we’d know it wasn’t forever.” She stared at her hands and I noticed she didn’t seem as enthused about the idea of going to America. “I have the interview at King’s on Tuesday. I need a job, well, I need a job for my sanity and it’s what I’ve always wanted to do so I’ll weigh up the pros and cons.”

We looked at each other, the only light that from the buildings outside. My apartment was on the third floor so I needed little privacy, the glass being privacy glass so leaving the curtains open was always an option.

“Is me wanting you to stay a factor?” I said, needing to know even though I sounded like a complete wuss.

She laughed. “Yes. I don’t want this to be temporary either. I found a letter from my grandad. It was more about wanting me to be happy rather than pursuing some of the things he talked about. I think when we discussed me working at a college in America he was trying to expand my horizons and make me think that anything was possible.”

“You’ve been offered a post there, Vic, it is possible. It just depends on what will make you happiest.”

She put her glass down and came over to me, straddling my lap. “Are you okay with me staying with you until I know what I’m doing? I can’t go back to my apartment.”

“More than okay. I’d feel better with you being here too,” I said, my hands going to her ass and moving her closer. I was only wearing sweatpants and a vest and her closeness and the shape of her tits through her top and the way I could see her nipples through the fabric was enough to make me hard. My sweatpants did nothing to hide it.

“What if you’re pregnant?” I said, my voice almost too quiet to be heard.

She lifted her hand to my face and cupped my cheek, her thumb toying with my beard. “Then I’ll be turning Johns Hopkins down regardless and you’ll be a wonderful dad.”

“What if you’re not?”

“Then I make my decision after I hear back from King’s and at some point in the future we’ll choose when we have kids and you’ll still be a wonderful dad. How’s that for an agreement?”

I pushed her top over her head, exposing her tits, her nipples hard and begging to be touched. “Our babies are the only people ever allowed to even look at these other than me,” I said, although even I’d admit to it coming out more like a growl. “Unless I let someone else see them.” I liked the power of the ownership and of the shared intimacy. She had a wild side that brought out mine and made me fearless—possibly stupid too.

The tips of her nipples puckered even more and I felt my balls tighten. My hand went into her hair and pulled it back, making her chest rise. “Stand up and take your clothes off.”

She did, pushing the bottoms and her underwear down and stepping out naked. I lost my sweatpants, my erection jutting out hard and impatient to get inside of her. Stepping behind her, I put my hands on her hips and guided her over to the large floor to ceiling window. A neighbour on the same level or the one above would be able to see us, not clearly, but certainly the shapes of us. “Put your hands on the window and press your tits to the glass. Keep your hips back.”

She moaned as the coldness stung her nipples. I kept one hand on her hips and moved my other round to the front, using a knee to encourage her to spread her legs. My fingers landed on her clit that was already slick with her want and I started to work it, two fingers going round in circles; medium pressure was the surest way to make her come quickly. I pressed my cock against her back, wanting her to know how hard I was for her, how she made me.

“Is anyone watching, feisty girl? Is anyone seeing how I own this body?”

She canted her hips back further, hands positioned, tits still against the glass. “There’s someone on the balcony, over there,” she gasped out, unable to point. I looked about and saw him, standing, no lights on behind him and I couldn’t tell if he was watching us or not. Probably not as we were too far away, but the idea of having her and showing the world she was mine was heady.

“Do you like him watching you like this? All spread out for me and about to come. Seeing your tits pressed against the glass and my fingers on your clit, in your pussy?” I slipped one finger inside briefly and elicited an almost agonised moan from her lips.

“Yes,” she said. “I like him watching you do this to me.”

“Are you going to like him watching you take my cock and seeing you come all over it?”

Her response was to break apart on my fingers, my other hand holding her up, her tits away from the window and bouncing with each pulse of her pussy.

I didn’t give her time to recover, putting her hands back on the window and guiding my cock straight into her slick centre, filling her with one thrust that made her slam against the glass. Her legs were spread wide and I could see our voyeur watching us still, his hand in his trousers. This was stupid after what had happened with Peter Coffey and part of my brain was telling me that. But he wouldn’t be able to make out our faces or identify us and the idea of being watched as I took her, as I claimed her as mine was enough for me to ignore that sensible part of my head.

“Are you going to come on my cock, feisty girl?”

“Fuck me harder.”

I did as she asked pressing her into the glass and hearing her cry out loudly. Her pussy began to contract and squeeze around me and I bit the side of her neck as I came myself, deep into her, making her mine.

And me hers.