‘That’s beside the point,’ Millie says sternly, swiping her phone back out of my hands. ‘He is undermining me in front of everyone. And touting his university degree like I don’t have the same degree!’

‘You’re right,’ I agree, although it takes a herculean effort for me to shake off my wounded pride.

‘Not only did he call me Millicent, which he knows is not my name — we’ve been in the same Zoom meeting before — but he’s wrong! Coral bleaching isn’t the biggest threat to marine wildlife — pollution is!’

‘He’s completely undermining you.’ I bob my head in agreement with her. ‘Which is a shame, considering you have equivalent degrees and the exact same job title.’

‘I know!’ Millie yelps, startling my dog, Murphy, who lazily raises his shaggy head off the couch and opens a big brown eye at Millie. ‘Sorry, Murph,’ she says, scratching him behind the ears. She settles back into her seat.

‘He also didn’t need to say he has a degree from a top marine biology programme,’ I snort. ‘What does he think you have? A certificate from www.makemeabiologist.com?’

Millie laughs and then starts typing furiously. ‘How about – when I find this fish you can kiss my wrasse,’ she mumbles under her breath, her fingers jabbing at her phone.

‘Millie!’ I cry, grabbing the phone out of her hands before she spontaneously presses ‘send’. ‘You can’t say that! Isn’t this something you wrote for work?’

‘Fine.’ Millie huffs. She crosses her arms across her chest. ‘You do it then. You’re better at this kind of stuff.’

I raise an eyebrow at her. ‘What kind of stuff?’

‘The boring stuff,’ she answers automatically. She flushes red when she sees the dismayed look on my face. ‘You’re better at being a professional. And you’re better at grammar,’ she corrects sheepishly.

‘Usually,’ I mutter under my breath, still smarting at Hugh’s comment about the comma. But Millie is right. I am a self-proclaimed grammar snob. And I happen to be excellent at being boring. I sigh and type out a draft of a respectably passive-aggressive comment.

@HughHarris Just because the butterfly wrasse has not been spotted does not mean it is extinct. I’m not sure what you learned while at university, but I think we can both agree we should not engage in inaccurately creating quotable statistics with no proof to back them up.

Millie reads it, nodding viciously, and gives the OK to send. I feel a wave of pride. Take that, Hugh Harris! I think as I press play on The Bachelor. We both turn our attention to my small TV, where we have been dutifully watching for the past five seasons. Tonight was the first night ever that we almost cancelled even though both of us were in town. I felt weird watching a reality show while we waited for Millie’s results, but she insisted.