‘No.’ He laughed almost bitterly. ‘I never visited him for long enough. But I’m sure he’ll be good to his word about getting me a job in Barbados with him after my course.’

My heart sunk at his words. I knew that he was going to do a maritime engineering course and that he wanted to travel but it hadn’t hit me until then that he’d be going so far away.

‘Would you go?’

‘Maybe,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I guess it depends what happens.’

My heart started to beat a little faster, all the while he didn’t stop looking at me.

Soph giggled loudly and broke the spell that the two of us were under. I turned and watched as she got to her feet and led the guitarist away, back towards the accommodation.

‘And then there were four,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘I’m not sure I really want to be left with them.’

Joel wrinkled his nose as we risked a glance at Douglas and Molly and wished we hadn’t.

‘We should have gone to the pub with everyone else,’ I said, finishing my bottle. I peered into the cooler box, which was now empty. ‘Shall we call it a night?’

‘I guess an early night wouldn’t hurt.’

We stood up from the logs and started to walk away. I was taking a shortcut across the grass when Joel grabbed hold of my shoulder.

‘Careful, that’ll still be wet.’

I looked down where I was about to step. It was the concrete foundation for the new firepit.

‘Thanks, I should really look where I’m going. Though, could you imagine if I’d had stepped in it and left a footprint? Lionel would have been furious.’ I stepped back, making sure that I was far away so no more accidents could happen.

‘It would have been kind of funny, though,’ said Joel, beginning to laugh. ‘No one would have known who was behind it; well, apart from us two.’

‘It would become this cool mystery about who the footprint belonged to.’

‘I bet Elizabeth would start some kind of manhunt to find out. She’d have us all putting our feet in it one by one.’

‘And then she’d get to me.’

‘And everyone around would be shouting, “It fits, it fits”.’

‘Pretty sure you’re just quoting Cinderella now,’ I said, pretending to roll my eyes at Joel’s smirk. ‘But if the footprint led me to my prince …’

Joel held my gaze and I wondered if I was giving away with my eyes that I thought I might have already found him.

‘You know, maybe we should do it. It could be fun,’ he said, looking down at the concrete.

Joel bent down and flexed his fingers.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, staying put. ‘We could get into trouble.’