“Hey, Sar-bear, how’s it going?” I answered, hoping my playful tone might distract her from tearing me a new one.

“Hi Bryan, I’m good. Been busy with work. Don’t call me that again.”

I chuckled. “Fine. I’ll just call you Sarah the Magnificent then, how does that sound? Though technically, the point of a nickname is to abbreviate rather than to lengthen.”

I heard her exhale on a sigh. “Quit trying to butter me up. It won’t work.”

I mustered my most innocent tone. “What won’t work?”

“Lavishing me with charm. I still want to know how things have been with you. Have you made any progress with that thing we discussed before?”

“Some,” I hedged.

“None, then.”

“No, not none. If thinking about it constitutes progress, then I’ve made lots.”

“Oh Christ, you’re fucking her, aren’t you?”

How the hell did she—?

“I know you, Bryan,” Sarah went on before I could even ask the question. “And I’ve never quite heard that happy-go-lucky tone you’re currently sporting. You’re getting some. It’s obvious.”

“Well, if you must know, I’m not getting any, actually. We decided to slow things down. We’re not having sex. Not anymore.”

“But you were?” Sarah sounded appalled. “Bloody hell, Bryan. Please tell me you at least took her out on a date first.”

Well . . . technically . . .

“Of course I did. What do you take me for?”

“I take you for a rugby-playing horndog; that’s what I take you for.”

“Hey! That’s not fair. I was celibate for two whole years. Cut a fella some slack.”

“Yes, and there was a reason for that. The majority of women you used to sleep with were users. They encouraged your addiction because keeping you shitfaced meant they could run around spending your money. Remember Jennifer? Remember Kylie?”

I grit my teeth. “Yes, I remember them, and you seem to love reminding me, but Eilish is nothing like those two. She’s a good person, Sarah. She . . .”

I was about to say she loves me.

But I didn’t.

Because she hadn’t said the words.

I’d been battling doubt for weeks, ever since I’d admitted the truth and she’d stared at me blankly in return.

My poor decision-making in the past was something that always haunted me. I could distinctly remember thinking the sun shone out of Jennifer’s backside. Kylie’s, too. I could remember thinking they’d never set a foot wrong, similar to how I thought of Eilish.

But, no.

Things were different. She was different. She was honorable. And I was sober now. I was levelheaded enough to know a genuine person when I saw one and Eilish was as authentic as they came.

“So, you said you two have decided to take things slow,” said Sarah. “Was that her decision or yours?”

I thought on that a second, and then answered, “Hers. But mine, too. Well, I agreed with her logic, that is.”

“Of course it was hers,” Sarah mumbled under her breath like I was thick or something.

I grit my teeth but said nothing, not liking her tone. But she was my sponsor. She’d been there for me through dark times. I owed her a listen.

She blew out a breath. “Look, I’m only trying to play devil’s advocate here, but have you ever considered that withholding sex could be her way of stringing you along?”

“Sarah,” I growled, warning in my tone.

“Just hear me out. This is all purely hypothetical. So, she lets you have her, gives you a taste of what you’ve been missing all these years, then pulls the brakes. She knows you’ve had problems with addiction and she’s using it against you, only this time through sex. If she keeps dangling that cherry over your head, she knows you’ll do whatever she wants, including accepting Patrick as yours without a paternity test. Next thing you know, you’re married with a kid that’s not even yours.”

That was a laugh. There was no doubt Patrick was mine. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. He’s the spitting image of me,” I said, at the same time remembering the incident after our first date, when Eilish’s neighbor had mentioned Patrick telling her his mummy was going to get married. I hadn’t had the chance to question him about it, had tried to brush it off as childish folly.

Now I began to doubt myself, just like I always did.

No.

No, no, no.

Sarah didn’t know Eilish like I did. She was seeing all this through a tiny lens. She’d never seen how it was when we were together. She didn’t know how right it felt.

“You’re wrong, Sarah,” I told her flatly. “Eilish would never come up with something so convoluted, something so manipulative. If you ever met her in person, you’d know it’s true.”

There was a long moment of silence on her end of the line, and I thought she was going to argue with me until I was blue in the face. But then all she said was, “Okay.”

Okay? That was it?

“If you trust her then I’ll trust her,” she went on. “You’re a grown-up and I guess there comes a point when every sponsor has to let their sponsee make their own choices. Maybe I’m just being overprotective. Maybe you know better than I do.”

I felt strange. I’d been trying to get her to accept Eilish all this time, and now that she was relenting it felt like she was giving up on me. I didn’t like it, and my confidence wavered.