“Let’s see, I bought some souvenirs. Took pictures. Interviewed the owner of an art gallery I discovered the other day. His family’s lived in the Galápagos for four generations. He has some great stories. Good material for our blog.” He shoots me a pointed grin.

Pushing his sunglasses into his windswept hair, he glances at Walsh’s milkshake and our phones sitting on the table. “What have you guys been doing? Enjoying a snack?”

“Working,” I grate.

“All work and no play makes Henley a dull girl.”

“Or it makes her your boss.”

He raises an eyebrow. I incline my chin in challenge.

Walsh clears her throat in an apparent effort to cut the tension that’s swelled like a balloon. “Graeme, did you see the sea lions on the boardwalk? So cute.”

“I did. Amazing how they’re not afraid of people. Snorkeling tomorrow is going to be killer. You’re both snorkeling, right?”

Walsh’s phone trills and she picks it up after glancing at the screen. “I am. Henley’s probably not. She hates deep water.”

“Oh yeah?” Graeme raises his eyebrows.

I glare so hard at Walsh that I’m sure laser beams are about to shoot out of my eyeballs, but she doesn’t notice because she’s too absorbed in responding to her latest texts.

“Yeah,” she says without looking up. “I haven’t seen her swim since we were teenagers. Not since—”

I aim a kick at her under the table and miss.

“What?” Graeme presses, looking entirely too eager.

“Since she almost drowned,” she finishes. When Walsh finally looks up, she stiffens at the death glare I’m throwing her way. Yeah, thanks for divulging my personal weakness to the competition, Walsh.

Graeme squints at me. “Did you have a swimming accident or something?”

I wave him away. “Walsh is being dramatic.”

“Dramatic? You weren’t breathing. Dad had to give you CPR.”

Graeme looks between us, elbow resting on the table, chin in hand. All he needs is a bag of popcorn. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Just a minor waterskiing incident.”

“Minor,” she scoffs.

“I was waterskiing without a life jacket, my leg cramped, and I went under,” I explain to Graeme in my best no-big-deal voice.

“Sounds traumatic.”

He has no idea. I still vividly remember the fingers of seaweed imprisoning my foot. The violation of water in my lungs, the crush of darkness. The absolute fear, the panic. I didn’t venture into a large body of water after that for nearly four years, and even now I stick with the shallow end of a swimming pool or frothy ocean surf. Deep water? No, thanks.

“Nah, not really,” I lie. “It was a long time ago.”

“And you took a job working for a cruise line… with boats?”

“Yeah, we were all shocked,” says Walsh.