Seph: I really didn’t.
Payton: Mum also told us that you read Ava’s diary. I think it was the part when she’d lost her V card to Lawson Garrett.
Seph: That was the evidence I needed. That’s also why he had to stop playing rugby that year.
Ava: Was that you? I knew he was injured in a rugby game with a broken collar bone.
Seph: Revenge was sweet. He was a twat and deserved it.
Max: How did you manage that one?
Seph: Practice. I was on the opposing side. A couple of my teammates knew what he’d done and were quite happy to help.
Grant: Good job, son. Well done on not getting caught.
Grant: Your mother looks particularly ravishing tonight.
Max: Please stop. Remember, I was just about old enough when you came back from New York to remember how you looked at each other. I didn’t know what it meant then. I now feel my childhood has been tainted.
Me: There had to be some really strong positives taking on a widow and his four children – one of them was your dad’s talents.
Jackson: And stop right there. I walked in on you once and I was scarred for life.
Seph: I know how that feels.
Me: Well, Jackson, that should’ve taught you about knocking before you entered.
Jackson: I did knock. You were both making too much noise to hear, and I thought you were being murdered.
Me: Bless you. You can afford your own psychotherapy though now. Well done.
Ava: How did you make three more children when you had four of them in the house?
Grant: We bought a big house with a secret room.
Oh shit. This was going to be fun. I prodded him with my toe. He assumed I wanted a foot massage and took hold of it.
“You shouldn’t have said that. You know they loved that room and thought it was theirs.”
He grinned and shook his head, reminding me of the man I’d first met, devastatingly handsome and intelligent, with a sense of humour buried somewhere. I’d dug deep.
“It was our room first.”
“You can take the fallout for this one.” I looked back at my phone.
A few more seconds passed before it vibrated again.
Callum: You are joking, aren’t you, Dad?
Grant: Not in the slightest. We used to take the baby monitor down there after the twins were born and get away from the rest of you disturbing us.
Me: We weren’t gone that long.
I couldn’t resist. Grant dug his fingers into my foot. Hard.
Grant: What are you trying to say?
He was good at typing with one hand. He was good at a few things with one hand, if I was truthful.
