He sat down at the table, barely meeting my eyes as he passed me the beer. I noticed his cheeks had reddened. What if he liked her too? What if Elizabeth was the girl he’d been talking about?

‘Who’s Elizabeth?’ asked Scott, flicking the ring pull of his new can.

‘She’s the cow that we live with.’

‘Edie, I’ve never heard you talk like that before,’ said Soph.

‘Well, it’s the truth.’

‘I know, I’m just surprised to hear you say it.’

I noticed that Joel was turning his beer can slowly on the table and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

‘She’s the one that you said always shouts if you wake her up?’ asked Scott.

‘That’s the one.’ Soph launched into a story about Elizabeth and how we’d woken her the other night when she had a luminous face pack on, but I couldn’t pay attention I was too busy thinking what an awful couple Joel and Elizabeth would make. Even if Elizabeth wasn’t a total bitch, they’d have nothing in common. She wouldn’t even set foot on the beach because she hated sand.

Scott started to stroke my shoulder and I tried to ground myself in the moment. Why was I getting so worked up about Joel? I was with Scott and I was happy that he had finally come to visit me.

‘It was scarier than the night we watched The Exorcist, wasn’t it, Edie?’ said Soph, laughing at the end of the story.

‘You watched The Exorcist?’ Scott turned to me, looking confused.

‘Joel made me.’

‘Because it’s a classic. You can’t go through life having not seen it.’

‘I got my revenge by making him watch How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.’

‘Which was far more scary,’ said Joel, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

‘Well, it would be for Mr Scared of Commitment,’ I said.

‘Um-hmm,’ said Soph and we high-fived each other.

Joel shook his head.

‘We should be heading back,’ said Soph, finishing her beer. ‘Have a good night tonight. Where are you off to?’

‘We’re heading into town to get dinner. I guess we should get ready.’

‘It was nice to meet you all,’ said Scott, standing up. It sounded forced and I wasn’t convinced he meant it.

We said our goodbyes and we started to walk away.

‘I’ve worked it out,’ he said after a while. I’d picked the scenic route to walk back, wanting to show off as much of the site to him as possible. We were almost at the beach where Joel and I had snuck off to do starfishes in the water.

‘Worked what out?’

‘What’s different about you.’

A family passed us, weighed down with inflatables, towels and beach bags, trying to wrangle their sandy children along.

‘What? My legs have got more toned?’

‘No, it’s not that.’