‘How’s your head? From the sonic boom that came from your bunk it must be hurting.’

‘It’s fine.’ I brush my fingers over my forehead, gingerly feeling the bump. ‘Oh shoot, I woke you up, didn’t I?’ I decide I don’t care after the words leave my lips, but it’s too late.

‘I was already awake,’ he says, but his eyes crinkle in a way I haven’t seen before. I wonder if that’s his tell that he’s lying. ‘Who’s Sal?’

‘Why do you care?’

‘Hm,’ He sits down on the platform and dips below my line of vision. I peer over the hammock and watch him interlace his fingers behind his head. ‘Well, if I can figure out who Sal is, and really get in your head, then I have a better chance of you never finding the butterfly wrasse.’

I feel tears pooling in my eyes. I know he’s joking, but it doesn’t feel funny to me. Finding the wrasse is all I can do for Millie, and I’m so worried about her.

‘Millie?’ Hugh asks, his voice softer. ‘I was just kidding, I’m not a complete butthead.’

I try to sniffle quietly, but I can’t. I sound like a pig as I rattle air through my nose. ‘I know,’ I whisper.

Hugh reaches a hand up towards the hammock and pats me on the shoulder. ‘Hey, I also came up here to apologise.’

‘For what?’ I sniffle again, refusing to look at him. ‘For shaming me because I forgot my sunscreen? Being a smart ass online and in person? Giving Andrew the idea we were somehow differently qualified and then changing your mind? Purposely distracting me because you don’t want me to succeed? You know what—’ I turn, gathering steam ‘—you know you’re hot and more successful and Australian, and you’re weaponising it.’ I’m so close to tears that my bottom lip trembles.

‘OK.’ Hugh puts his hands up in a surrender gesture. ‘It is way too early for these kinds of accusations. Firstly, you’re not so bad-looking yourself and you have also been a kind of a smart ass, I did change my mind, and . . .’ He pauses and shrugs. ‘I kind of thought that the joking was just . . . our thing?’

I decide to think about Hugh saying I’m not bad-looking later. ‘Being rude and unfriendly is our thing? I would never have been such an ass about sunscreen,’ I point out. ‘And you can’t just say we have different attitudes towards the field, whatever that means, and change your mind.’

‘If I do remember correctly you were a bit of an ass about my seasickness. And I actually helped you find the appropriate sunscreen?’