‘Capacious,’ Dan was whispering, and as he whispered this, I looked up from Vivian’s mouth and saw him seeing me, that he had seen what I had seen, the horrible sneer.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, and looked away from Vivian. I got up, telling myself an advantage of these new hangs, group things, was that you could get up and leave whenever you wanted. Rather than go through the house, I walked down the front steps, and sat down in the driveway and looked at the street.

A large gang of possibly-related-looking people walked past on the other side of the street, all of them smiling at the beach town, holidaying, dazzled. One of the younger members of the group noticed me. I smiled and waved. ‘Look, Carl,’ she said. Another person in the group took out their phone, waved back at me and took a picture.

‘Hey!’ I yelled.

The group had stopped wandering. The photo-taking person was smiling an easy smile.

‘You can’t just go around taking photos of people,’ I said. ‘It’s prurient.’

‘Umm,’ a voice said. I looked up towards the deck. Dan had his arms crossed over the railing and was peering down at the driveway. ‘What are you doing?’ he said.

I looked back at the street, but the group was slowly leaving. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I got what I wanted.’

‘Cool. Are you coming back?’ he said.

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ he said. He disappeared again. He reappeared. ‘All good?’ he said.

I nodded.

‘Okay, thanks for clarifying,’ he said.

He drew back, then away again. I realised I was tanked, too much sun, too hungry, and Moscato, too early. Long afternoons in beach houses are fairly made for crushes, drawing deep salts from the muscles and poking at the bruise. I went into the rumpus room, experimented with the hot tub, lifting up the edge of the cover and leaning on the sides, went to the bunk room, didn’t sleep, played with my phone, half-hoping Vivian would come in, hot and sneering, which I supposed I would have to treat like a bad new haircut, a moment to be loyal and encouraging.

The door opened. It was Chris L. ‘Costume change,’ he said.

He slung his luggage onto a different bed, next to a sports bag that had to be Vivian’s; my backpack was still upstairs. He removed his grey tentacly shawl – I saw his lower back – then he quickly swapped it over with a shawl of lemon and brown.

‘Come upstairs,’ he said.

I still felt dizzy. ‘In a second,’ I said.

He shrugged and left. But after a little while, nearly no time at all, I dragged myself upstairs; I heard an R&B playlist pulsing through the floor.

When I got inside, went through the kitchen and into the lounge, Dan and Lachlan were crouched beside the coffee table. They froze.

‘Nothing!’ said Dan.