Page 26 of In the Same Boat

It does – but not much.

‘You look like you’ve had a rough day.’

Is he saying I look rough?

‘Well, some of us actually have difficult, tiring jobs, in the dirt,’ I point out.

‘Ooh, all right,’ he says. ‘I was just making conversation.’

‘Don’t,’ I say, sitting down on the floor, lest I muddy the furniture.

There’s no way I’m going up there while the two of them are – oh boy, I can hardly say it – at it.

We fall into a silence that would be peaceful, were I not sharing it with Nico.

I can’t believe he’s here, in my house, sitting on my sofa, eating and drinking from my fridge – and I know, it’s not exactly his doing, but even having his dad upstairs with my mum, in one of my beds, somehow feels like another intrusion on his part.

The floorboards above us creak a few times. It’s a rhythmic creaking, and I’m sure it’s just the old floorboards in this house, but it unsettles me.

‘How long have they been here?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘My dad called me to say he’d had too much to drink and could I pick him up here. He said show myself in. I’ve been here twenty minutes…’

Twenty minutes!

I lean back onto my hands and look at him properly, trying to decide which part of this bothers me the most – my mum, upstairs, acting like a teenager, or this guy, sitting here, on my sofa, the most chilled out I’ve ever seen anyone.

‘This is not okay,’ I tell him.

‘Look,’ he says, and for the first time there is something a little more serious in his tone. ‘I don’t love it either, but they’re adults.’

I snort out a little bemused laugh.

‘They are not acting like it.’

‘Fair enough,’ he agrees with a smile.

I massage my temples for a moment. I should be in the bath, trying to forget the day, not here, on the floor, trying to navigate whatever this is.

‘Do you know how this happened?’ I ask.

‘He called her,’ Nico says.

‘Okay…’

‘And I guess she invited him over.’

‘For a first date?!’

He shrugs.

There is something annoyingly reasonable about his attitude. He’s far too chill about all of this.

I know what you’re thinking: this is what I wanted, but this is not at all what I wanted. I wanted Mum to meet someone, to get a life of her own going again. I didn’t want her to start seeing someone in my house. I’m trying to have fewer people here, so I can enjoy more time to myself, and suddenly I’ve got three people in my house – two of them upstairs.

My gosh, I still cannot believe they are upstairs.

‘I need a bath so bad,’ I blurt.