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“Nice house,” I comment.

“They only moved in a few months ago,” Delilah explains.

She walks further up the driveway, me at her heels. She doesn’t knock on the door, just opens it and steps inside, kicking her shoes off in the hallway.

“We’re in here,” a voice calls.

“You ready for this?” Delilah asks.

I kick off my shoes and nod my agreement, following her down the hallway in the direction of the voices. We pass what looks like an office on the right, a living room on the left, another room with the door closed, and then she leads me into the kitchen.

“How did it go?” Caleb asks. He gives me a small smile and then glances at Felix, who is stirring a saucepan on the hob.

“It went well. Surprisingly quiet, given I half expected a flash mob of people wanting his autograph,” Delilah jokes. I’m surprised she isn’t teasing me about the fainting, but I’m oddly grateful she isn’t.

“Baseball cap is like a cloak of invisibility,” I add. I spot the tense muscles in Felix’s back, convincing me that this truce I’ve struck with Delilah hasn’t necessarily had a ripple effect to him.

Caleb gives another bright smile before stepping towards the hob. He puts his hand on Felix’s back and murmurs something into his ear. There’s a little grumble, and then Felix turns.

“We’re having lamb bhuna. I hope you don’t mind the heat,” he says.

“You still eat meat, don’t you?” Delilah asks from behind me. I turn to her and see she’s biting her lip, looking worried.

“Yeah, I eat meat,” I reply.

“Why don’t you all grab a drink and go talk in the living room while I finish dinner,” Caleb suggests.

I feel the hesitation in the air. It radiates off both Felix and Delilah, and I’m sure they feel it from me as well. We’re all aware that Caleb is probably the peacemaker in this room.

“Let me help with dinner,” Delilah suggests brightly. “I’ll join you two in the living room in a minute.”

“What do you want to drink, Joseph?” Felix asks. He glares at both Delilah and Caleb, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I want to glare at them, too, I’d laugh.

“Water will be fine.”

Felix grabs two glasses from the cupboard, and he takes a long time to fill them with the water from the filter option they appear to have on their fridge. I can tell he’s stalling for time, that he doesn’t want to be alone with me in a room a second longer than he’s being forced to be.

He stalks past Caleb and Delilah, another little glare thrown in their direction, then gestures for me to follow him.

“Be nice,” Delilah whispers once he’s left the room, and I know it’s a warning for me, not him.

I catch up with Felix as he pushes open the door to the living room. It’s nicely decorated, with two large three-seater sofas around a coffee table, a couple of throw blankets draped over the backs, and plump-looking cushions neatly positioned for each seat.

“Look,” Felix states as he puts the glasses of water onto the coffee table. “You don’t like me, and I’m sure you think I don’t like you, but let me start by saying this. My anger towards you is because I was the one who watched Delilah fall to pieces when you walked out of her life. That first time, she barely got out of bed for the first few weeks. I didn’t think it was possible for somebody to cry as much as she did over you. Until you left her the second time, and she showed me it was possible to cry more. She is the person who is always at the top of my list, right up there with Caleb, who I love beyond measure. There is no way in the world I’m going to let you hurt her like that again, nor will I let you hurt Maddie.”

“For a start, I don’t dislike you. More importantly, I have no intention of hurting Delilah again, nor would I ever hurt Maddie,” I reply as I take a seat on the sofa. Felix remains standing.

“You might not have the intention of hurting them, but you have the power to do it, especially with Delilah, and that scares the shit out of me. So, if you’re going to fuck her around, or you’re planning on any sort of revenge for what you feel she did wrong, I’m going to—”

I cut him off. “What I want is to try to build a relationship with Maddie. I’m not going to jeopardise that by starting a fight with Delilah. Anybody can see how much Maddie loves Dee, even if things are currently unsettled. I’m not stupid to cause drama between them.”

“No, don’t do that. Don’t pretend to get along with Delilah just so Maddie talks to you. That’s not fair on either of them,” he warns.

“Can I say anything right, without you taking it the wrong way and thinking I’m the scum of the earth?” I mutter.

“What you can do is apologise to Delilah properly for everything you put her through and stop acting like she wasn’t justified in not running after you to announce she was pregnant. She was eighteen, Joseph. She was dealing with all sorts of fallout between her mother and father once he was back on the scene, as well as finding out she was pregnant. You abandoned her, even if you want to dress it up as being for honourable intentions of protecting your friend.”

“It wasn’t just to protect a friend. I wanted to protect Delilah too. I thought walking away from her was going to be the best thing for her in the long run. When Hannah called me to meet her, she’d found out that I was seeing Delilah. She spun this story about how Delilah would be the one who would be torn to shreds in the press if the news of a teacher’s affair with a student became public. You know how much this country loves an immoral scandal. I didn’t want to see her torn apart by the public, people calling her names, digging up her history and replaying her family life in the papers. I wanted to protect her from that. I didn’t want her to be tarnished, being my student as well as my lover. It felt like an impossible choice, but choosing to carry on my engagement with Hannah meant I could keep Hannah safe from the things she feared, as well as Delilah from the potential repercussions of our relationship. I thought I was the only one losing out.”