Henry sat up straight, pinched his thumb and forefinger together and zipped his lips. ‘Promise.’

He nudged her shoulder with his. ‘Drink up, you’re lagging behind in both wine and storytelling. Your eighteenth, you were with …’

‘The girls,’ she said, genuinely terrified that she might now forever mentally and utterly accidentally refer to them as the awesome foursome. Light danced in Henry’s eyes as if he knew. ‘V wasn’t yet eighteen, so there was no chance of us getting into the pub, so we stole Mr Michaels’ boat and came to the beach.’

‘In January?!’ Henry demanded, shivering dramatically as if in punctuation.

‘Yup,’ she replied, choosing not to ask how he’d known or remembered when her birthday was. ‘It was bloody freezing. We started a fire and … I felt bad because Blake had given me a bottle of the Reserve as a present, but I’d already “borrowed” a bottle of white from the kitchen.’

‘You stole from my father?’ Henry exclaimed in mock outrage. ‘So you’ve been a thief for a long time, then?’

‘I … I don’t know what to say about that. Honestly, I’d planned to pay him back.’ But Henry just waved away her assurances. ‘Oh God, we got so drunk that Malie nearly fell into the water pushing the boat back off the beach. There wasn’t a jetty there at that point.’

‘I was going to ask about that. It’s quite a hardcore set-up down there with the jetty and the wooden boardwalk across it.’

Lily couldn’t help but smile. ‘Blake had that put in about six months ago. It’s a real pain for Zoe to have to switch between a beach-friendly wheelchair and the one she normally uses, so he found a way to make the place Zoe-friendly, as he liked to put it.’

‘I’m really pleased he did that. What does she think of it?’

‘She hasn’t seen it yet.’

‘Then why did he …’ He sighed at the look he must have seen on her face. The desperate, hopeful, pleading look she knew she wore. ‘What is it?’

‘Blake knew that I was … hoping … pretty please with a cherry on top …’

‘Out with it.’

‘I really wanted … tohaveV’shenpartyonthebeach,’ she rushed out in one breath. One word.

‘Oh, for the love of all things holy.’ He groaned.

‘Please, Henry, please? It would be perfect. And we wouldn’t make any noise. You won’t even know we’re there. I promise.’

‘You’re going to be the death of me, Lily Atwell.’