‘You’re welcome,’ he mouthed back. They smiled at each other.

‘Here it is!’ said Barry triumphantly, recovering the gravy boat from the back of a cupboard. He looked at Cameron and then at Ros. ‘What did I miss?’

‘Something smells good,’ said Cameron, taking two strides to stand next to Ros.

‘It’s just chicken.’

‘My favourite,’ he said.

Barry opened the bottle of wine as Ros got out three glasses.

‘Did you drive here, Cameron?’ asked Barry.

‘I cycled over so I’ll only have one small glass please.’

‘Very wise. That’s not a local accent. North somewhere, is it?’

‘Midlands. I’m from Derbyshire.’

‘What brings you to Southampton?’ asked Barry, pouring the wine.

‘University,’ said Cameron.

‘And you settled here.’ Barry handed out the glasses of wine.

‘It’s a lovely part of the world,’ said Cameron.

‘Cheers to that,’ said Barry and they all raised their glasses.

Ros had to admit she was impressed with how Cameron had handled the initial grilling. He’d answered everything confidently and whilst he may have withheld some facts, he hadn’t out-and-out lied to her father, who so far was smiling. Gazza trotted in and went to have a sniff around Cameron’s feet. He pawed at his leg until he gave him a fuss.

‘I have to say I’ve not known Gazza react to someone like that. He usually does a lot more barking and is quite standoffish. But he certainly likes you.’

‘Gazza likes everyone, Dad,’ said Ros, realising that the dog had met Cameron the previous day and already associated him with getting a lot of fuss.

‘Not when they come to the door. He’s fine when he’s out meeting new people but when they come here he’s quite territorial. Remember that charity collector a couple of weeks ago? I think the poor bloke thought Gazza here was going to savage him.’ Barry laughed at the memory. He watched Cameron scratch the dog behind his ears. ‘He’s a good judge of character is Gazza.’ He nodded at Ros before taking a sip of wine, making Ros feel like they’d cleared the first hurdle.

***

Ros served up while the men discussed the weather, a safe topic she was comfortable to not be included in. ‘These must be the legendary Yorkshire puddings I’ve heard all about,’ said Cameron, pointing at his plate. ‘Impressive.’

‘Thanks,’ said Barry, looking proud. ‘The secret’s in the amount of warm water I add. Also, not too much mixture and an extra hot oven.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ said Cameron and they all started to eat. At last Ros felt she could relax a little.

Barry took a pause to drink some wine. ‘You know you’re a bit of a surprise,’ he said to Cameron.

‘Am I?’

‘Ros only mentioned you yesterday. How long have you two been dating? You do still call it dating, don’t you?’

Ros was instantly uncomfortable. Had they covered this? She was pretty sure they hadn’t. ‘Err . . .’ Too short an amount of time would make it weird that she’d brought him home. Too long would look like she’d been hiding him.

Barry was waiting for a response. Cameron stepped in. ‘We met just before Christmas and started seeing each other in early January.’

‘Not long then,’ said Barry.

‘Long enough,’ said Cameron, giving Ros a lingering look that made her concentrate on cutting up a piece of carrot that didn’t need cutting.

‘How did you meet?’ asked Barry before loading up his fork.

Ros could take this one. ‘In a cocktail bar in town.’

‘We had a new wine that we were trying to upsell and I persuaded her to try it,’ said Cameron.

‘You work there?’ asked Barry.

‘Yes,’ said Cameron.

Ros’s stomach felt like it had turned to ice. ‘Only part-time,’ she said whilst trying to signal to Cameron with her eyes that he’d made a major blooper. This was not the fake career they had agreed for him.

‘What do you do the rest of the time?’ asked Barry, focusing on Cameron.

‘Computers,’ said Ros quickly.

‘Computer science,’ said Cameron. ‘I’m studying it at university.’

Ros would have banged her head on the table had she not had a gravy-filled plate in front of her.

‘You’re a student?’ Barry looked confused.

Cameron chuckled. ‘I know I look a bit older than most. I’m a mature student. I missed uni the first time around. No one in my family went to university so getting a job was the normal thing to do. But however hard I worked I just couldn’t seem to progress. I found it was a stumbling block in a number of things. People looked down on me. So I decided to retrain as a computer engineer.’

‘Right,’ said Barry. Ros was holding her breath. ‘Well, good on you for wanting to better yourself.’

‘Thank you,’ said Cameron with a wink at Ros, who was growing increasingly uncomfortable with his maverick approach of telling the truth.

‘But I’m guessing that means Ros here pays when you go out.’

‘Sometimes,’ said Cameron. ‘But we don’t go anywhere expensive. Yesterday we went to the park.’

‘Hmm.’ Barry didn’t look convinced. ‘Are you living in student digs?’

‘A house in Portswood. There’s six of us sharing.’

‘Ros’s penthouse flat must make a nice change then.’

‘Dad!’ said Ros. ‘That’s really unfair. He’s only been to my apartment once.’ At least that was true. ‘Cameron will likely get an excellent job when he graduates and until then what does it matter who pays for stuff? And it’s not a penthouse just because it’s on the top floor.’