‘Juliette!’ I exclaimed, throwing myself to the floor and shaking her by her narrow shoulders. She was still wearing the ballgown and the cowboy boots but the moustache had been half wiped away, leaving her with a fairly unflattering five o’clock shadow.

She breathed in and opened her eyes, staring at me like she’d seen a ghost.

‘Oh my god, I thought you were dead,’ I exclaimed, falling back on my heels and pressing both hands against my chest, breathing hard as she lifted her head, blinking at me with foggy confusion.

‘I’m not dead,’ she murmured, blinking slowly. ‘At least I don’t think I am.’

The lighting in the room was soft and low and every surface was padded. My first thought was tiny asylum but make it fashion until I realized the restraints built into the wall probably weren’t meant for someone suffering a mental breakdown. Less red room of pain and more pink room of pleasure, but still.

Sex. Ship.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked, focusing on Juliette and not on the weird bench thing behind her that looked like a pommel horse but almost certainly wasn’t. ‘I can’t believe how much we drank last night. I woke up in the kitchen. Actually, Lenny woke me up in the kitchen, and he was not amused—’

‘I’m fine,’ she replied, cutting me off sharply. She looked up at me, eyebrows drawn together as though she was either trying to work out something very complicated, or she was incredibly constipated. Given how little fibre she ate, it really could have been either. ‘What do you want?’

Someone did not appreciate being woken up when they were suffering.

‘I wanted to make sure you were all right,’ I said, finding my way to my feet and trying not to read too much into her change of tone. ‘And to let you know we’re here. We’ve arrived in Panarea, I mean.’

Juliette continued to stare at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.

‘The original plan was to dock at twelve, but we don’t have to be at the hotel for your soundcheck until five thirty so we can leave a bit later,’ I kept on talking, waiting for her to smile or laugh or stick out her tongue. Literally anything other than the death stare she was giving me would have been better. ‘I figure sooner rather than later is better? Get settled in, make sure you have everything you need—’

‘I need a San Pellegrino,’ she said, shifting her gaze to the wall behind me. ‘An orange one.’

Something had changed. I wasn’t sure what, but something was different. This wasn’t the same woman who had decided I would look incredible with pink hair at two a.m. and given me a piggyback all the way to the ship’s salon to steal the temporary tint to prove it.

I crossed her cabin to the mini fridge by her bed and rifled through the cans. ‘There’s no orange in here,’ I called back. ‘Just lemon.’