I’d forgotten about that. ‘I was trying to get you to leave me alone.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ she says. ‘You weren’t.’

‘Oh, sorry, didn’t realize you know every one of my motivations for everything I do.’

‘Not all of them. Just that one. And Ellis likes you. I can tell. Not that there’re people Ellis doesn’t like, really, but … he really likes you. Anyway. Any other weird questions you want to get off your chest?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, actually. What did you mean when you said that you don’t even know me?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘I said I was sorry for lying after I talked to my dad,’ I remember, ‘and you said it’s OK because you don’t even know me.’

‘I think sometimes people expect too much from others. As far as I’m concerned, an easy way not to get hurt is not to expect anything from anyone.’

No one would say that unless they’ve been hurt. Maybe I was wrong about her.

After a moment Peyton rummages in the gap between her bed and the wall and emerges with a bottle of rum.

I raise my eyebrows at her. ‘Didn’t see you put that away when you were unpacking.’

‘I didn’t know what kind of person you were yet. Have you seen yourself? Absolute snitch. Now that I know you’re another heathen masquerading as a quiet little freak, we’re golden.’

‘But rum?’ I say, and take a swig.

‘We’re out at sea, aren’t we?’ She takes a swig in return, then says, her eyes screwed tight and voice gravelly and half-missing, ‘Yo-ho-ho.’

And the welcome throat-burn distracts us, at least for a while, distracts me well enough to concentrate, and I win the next two rounds.

‘I was, uh, wondering,’ Peyton says after, face rosy now, lips wet. ‘Do you, uh, have a boyfriend? Back home?’

I scoff without meaning to – Peyton looks hurt by it so I proceed gently into whatever new frontier of conversation this is. ‘Definitely not.’

She shifts, timid, casting for something. ‘Girlfriend?’

I’ve never been asked this directly. ‘Used to.’