Derek is lugging around his camera again. Andrew is practically shaking with excitement. Miguel is keeping his distance from Hugh, who managed to rouse himself from sleep and put on his stinger suit in time for Vanessa’s briefing about the reef. When he climbed onto deck, Aaron clapped him on the back, congratulating him for ‘sticking out a rough go last night’.

Pippa had glued herself to my side as soon as she woke up, waiting until we were drinking coffee alone on the deck to ask me if I had told Hugh.

‘Did you see him last night?’ I asked her. ‘How was I supposed to tell him that while he was half delirious?’

‘I didn’t know if you told him when you two were off on your own!’ she retorted.

‘We were . . . busy.’

‘Ooo!’ Pippa hooted. ‘I want all of those details. And tell him today! Then invite him on the waterfall tour with us. It’ll be so fun. But I don’t want any drama.’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Deal?’

‘Deal.’

Hugh and I sit down to strap in and perform our buddy checks next to Andrew and Pippa, who are chatting excitedly about the last items on their list they want to see – Andrew wants to see a glow worm, and Pippa wants to see an octopus since she missed one on our night dive.

We strap into our BCDs and perform our buddy checks. Yesterday feels like a lifetime ago, but every time Hugh touches me, I feel like I’m back in that moment, our lips inches apart, his breath tickling my cheeks. We make eye contact. His eyes are a peaceful blue today, a mix between aqua and the turquoise of the sky, like the deeper parts of the ocean.

‘You guys seem like you’re getting excited,’ Pippa says innocently. I can hear her trying to hide the laughter in her voice.

‘Yep,’ I say, casting my eyes down at the floor of the boat and trying to hide the flush in my cheeks.

‘Millie’s gonna find that fish she’s been looking for,’ Pippa says, ‘I can feel it.’

I groan.

When we hit the railing for our last entry, Hugh slips in backwards. I take a deep breath, staring at the ocean waves roiling beneath the boat, and follow, entering the same way Hugh did, head first.

My nerves only grow as we begin our descent. We go hand-over-hand down the mooring line and congregate at the bottom. There is a buzz of energy around our group this morning. A school of sweetlips fish lazily swim by us. Their mouths and tails are bright yellow, their bodies black and white striped. They are striking, and we all stop to stare. Vanessa taps her carabiner on her oxygen tank and forces us to move along.

‘A lot to cover today,’ she had told us on deck. ‘No dawdling.’