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‘What?’

‘Hank moved in with Nico when things were difficult for him,’ she explains. ‘He didn’t get into the details but he said it was a real lifeline when he needed one.’

Amazing how tweaking a few words in a statement gives it a whole new meaning.

‘Okay, but… work-wise… he’s not exactly climbing the ladder, is he?’ I say, showing her that the house thing doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

‘Well, no, because he’s already at the top,’ she says.

‘Wait, what?!’

I stare at her.

‘Sammie…’

‘His dad said he sells video games,’ I say. ‘And I’ve seen him playing them, he talks about them. That’s his job, right?’

‘I suppose, yes, that’s right,’ she replies. ‘But he does own the company.’

‘What?!’ I practically screech, bagging myself a few dirty looks from our fellow passengers. ‘What company?’

‘I don’t know the name exactly. Something to do with zombies,’ she explains.

‘War Zombies?’ I reply in disbelief.

Oh my gosh, I wore hisWar ZombiesT-shirt, the arse used me as a walking billboard.

‘That’s it. Hank said it like I should know what it was.’

‘Everyone knows whatWar Zombiesis.’

‘Do they?’

‘Yes, Mum. It’s huge,’ I inform her.

I don’t even play it and I knowWar Zombies. Everyone knowsWar Zombies. Some of the guys at work book annual leave when a new one drops. Tom once spent an entire lunch break explaining its multiplayer maps to me using pens. It’s a huge franchise – and all of that is Nico?!

‘And the yacht,’ Mum adds carefully.

I raise my eyes, waiting for her to finish.

‘It’s his.’

Oh, of course it fucking is. So that explains where Hank’s money came from. It was never his; it was Nico’s.

I lean back against the headrest and look straight ahead.

‘I had him all wrong,’ I confess. ‘But… he let me think that way, right?’

‘Hank says he’s embarrassed about it,’ she tells me. ‘And I suppose he wants to make sure people like him for him, not his money, and you did like him before you knew all of this…’

I have spent days mentally filing Nico under good-looking but unserious man-child with possible dependency issues, when it turns out he is a successful business owner who lets his widowed father live with him and use his yacht whenever he wants.

‘I thought he wanted rescuing from his dad,’ I blurt.

‘Maybe he did,’ Mum says softly. ‘Just not in the way you thought.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now, because I’ve blown it,’ I tell her.