Claire tips a little wine into her mouth, her black fringe falling to one side. She’s exquisite. Small and strong. When we’d holidayed together in Bali a few years ago, Axel and Claire drew stares everywhere we went. Skin as tight as stretched rubber, hard-edged muscles stencilled just below the surface. After a boozy day poolside, I had let my eyes linger on Axel in the water for just a heartbeat too long, more fascinated than anything else, but Cain had noticed.

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you took a picture,’ he’d said with a tone.

‘No,’ I’d replied quickly. ‘They’re just both so bloody fit.’

He’d raised his eyebrows.

‘Like you,’ I’d added a second too late. ‘All three of you are ripped and here I sit, a doughy profiterole.’

The memory reminds me of the app, Cain in the kitchen earlier. His voice. What are you doing? Had he seen it? I touch my upper lip and find it’s a little damp, not with drink but with sweat. It’s not too late to change my mind. Or is it? I realise they’re all waiting for me to speak again.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I mean maybe we could make a bit of money but it needs a lot of work.’

‘So anyone can book this place at any time?’ Cain asks, changing the subject.

‘Only on the weekends that we make it available,’ Axel says. ‘We get three hundred a night for it.’

‘Three hundred dollars?’ I ask, blinking. Their place is modern and well styled, I guess. More comfortable than a hotel room. ‘You could stay in a penthouse in SkyCity for that.’

‘Not quite, but it means we can have our own holiday down the coast,’ Claire says.

It’s not like you need the money, I think.

‘I’ve been telling Cain you should do something with that lake house for years,’ Axel says.

Cain gives me a look. He knows that the lake house is more than a house to me. It’s there for when we start our own family.

‘How many times have you rented this place out?’ I ask, to continue the conversation and keep me from focusing on the other thoughts in my head, the images of what I’m going to do later.

‘Loads,’ Claire says. ‘We just go away when they’re here. We set our price quite high. We’ve made thousands.’

‘I don’t know if I could do it,’ I say. ‘Anyone could stay. Remember that time someone squatted at the house for months, Cain? The neighbours called us and we had to get the police to go kick them out.’

‘WeStay guests are a bit different to squatters, Lina,’ Axel says and I detect a note of condescension in his voice.

‘Well, you never really know who these people are, right?’