Pippa and I keep chatting, although it’s mostly her giving opinions of the people on the boat. Aaron: mysterious, she’s desperate to know how old he is. She bet Andrew he was older than forty-five. I glance back at Aaron. With his eyes obscured by sunglasses, he could be anywhere from twenty to fifty.

Pippa continues with her assessment. Vanessa: a total badass. Miguel, she loves. Especially for me. ‘The diving instructor,’ she gushes, ‘perfectly cliché!’

I squirm in my seat. ‘He’s too boyish to be my type,’ I demure, ‘and he flirts with everyone.’

Undeterred, Pippa carries on, excited. ‘And I hear you and Hugh are marine biologists! I want to know everything. How many dives have you been on? What was the coolest thing you saw today? Is this your first time here?’

I laugh at her enthusiasm. ‘I’ve never been here before,’ I confess, ‘but Hugh is Australian, so he has a couple times, I think.’

‘Brilliant! I heard that—’

I’m curious to hear what she has to say about Hugh, but Andrew interrupts her in the middle of her sentence, calling from the captain’s room to see if she’ll help him put on sunscreen.

The sun and the gentle rocking of the boat make me sleepy as soon as I’m left in peace. I’m about to drift off when someone else scrambles onto the other side of the platform. Lazily, I squint out of one eye to see who it is. I’m hoping it’s Pippa, but I would even settle for Andrew, who seems like the kind of guy to come out here to take a nap.

But as I open my eye I take in a large, tanned foot, a muscular calf and a bulging thigh. I know it’s Hugh. I turn my head away from him and pretend to be asleep. If Hugh had come out here fifteen minutes ago, I would have been ready to confront him, but now I just want him to go away.

I hear the telltale crinkling of a book being opened and I can’t resist finding out what it is. I try to turn my head back towards Hugh as slowly as possible. I open one eye slowly. The cover is colourful, and I can make out The Changing Tides of— before I am forced to open one eye fully to read the entire cover.

‘I knew you were awake.’ Hugh snaps his book closed and places it down next to him. My view of the title is obstructed by his torso.

‘Hm,’ I grunt. I don’t know how to approach this situation.