‘Not at all,’ says Miles, his eyes lighting up. ‘I’ve always wanted to try it. Can we hire boards locally?’

‘Joel says there’s a little shack in town where you can as I don’t have a board. They hire wetsuits too.’

‘Good job we bought our swimming gear after all,’ says Miles, turning to me.

‘Hmm.’ The last thing I want to do is go out on the water with Joel. ‘But didn’t you book us into that spa on the way home?’

‘I was going to, but the website kept crashing. I meant to phone them. Lucky I didn’t, huh?’ He pats me on the leg and I smile back, defeated. Looks like we’re going paddle boarding.

‘What have I missed? Is it time to go home yet?’ asks Soph, sitting back down.

‘What happened to sleep when you’re dead?’ says Douglas.

‘I learnt that sleep is the elixir of life.’

‘You can’t bail out now.’ Douglas looks round at us for someone to agree with him, but we all know the night’s coming to an end. ‘Fine. But if you’re all going to be lightweights tonight then we should do this again, and make a whole weekend of it, so that none of us have any excuse.’

‘I’d definitely be up for that,’ says Soph before she claps her hands. ‘We could go to Hartland’s for old times’ sake.’

Douglas bangs the table, startling Brett whose eyes had started to close. ‘Genius idea. Let’s do it over the summer.’

‘Edie?’ asks Soph.

‘I’m not sure.’

I’m trying not to catch Joel’s eye. Because I know it’ll be difficult to spend a whole weekend with him, there of all places too.

‘Come on, it’d be great,’ says Soph, giving me one of those looks that I know all too well from when we were eighteen. It was one that had me dancing on bars alongside her. ‘Promise me you’ll think about it.’

‘OK.’

‘Is that an OK to you coming?’ She reaches her hand across the table and squeezes mine.

‘It’s an “I’ll think about it”.’

She squeezes my hand again in excitement, as if I’ve already said yes. It’s not that I haven’t had fun tonight, being reunited with them all. But a whole weekend? And one at Hartland’s, which is so full of memories. I’m not sure that any number of past emails could coax me into thinking that’s a good idea.

Chapter 13