Before I can answer, Aaron calls his name. ‘Think about it,’ he says, ‘life is short!’ Then he rushes towards the cabin, equipment in hand.
I stretch out under the hot sun, thinking. Why couldn’t I live in a place like this? I could fly Murphy here . . . he would hate the flight, but hecoulddo it. I couldn’t leave Millie though . . . or my parents . . . I shake the thoughts from my head, I might as well not daydream about the impossible.
I lean back into the platform and relax under the hot sun. If I can’t make this permanent, the least I can do is enjoy the present. I should be taking a nap and getting some rest to better prepare myself to find the butterfly wrasse. I can hear Derek grumbling about reassembling his camera, which apparently has to be cleaned in freshwater after every dive. I don’t know how Natalie doesn’t lose her patience.
‘Did you hear that?’ Pippa whispers as she climbs up onto the platform next to me.
‘Derek?’
She giggles and nods. ‘It’s insane!’ she says. ‘He knows Google has brilliant pictures of the reef, right? Like taken by Nat Geo or whatever? I showed my mum some before we came. I don’t know why he thinks he could take better. He might as well save himself the trouble and print those out.’
I let out a full-on laugh. ‘Pippa,’ I say, still laughing, ‘it’s probably about the “memories”.’
She rolls her eyes at me. ‘He’s giving all of us something to remember, that’s for sure. You know he brought filtered water from the mainland just for the camera bath?’
‘No,’ I gasp.
‘Yep,’ she says. ‘I’d have to off Andrew if he was ever that mad about a toy.’
Pippa and I keep chatting, although it’s mostly her giving opinions of the people on the boat. Aaron: mysterious, she’sdesperateto know how old he is. She bet Andrew he was older than forty-five. I glance back at Aaron. With his eyes obscured by sunglasses, he could be anywhere from twenty to fifty.
Pippa continues with her assessment. Vanessa: a total badass. Miguel, sheloves. Especially for me. ‘The diving instructor,’ she gushes, ‘perfectly cliché!’
I squirm in my seat. ‘He’s too boyish to be my type,’ I demure, ‘and he flirts with everyone.’
Undeterred, Pippa carries on, excited. ‘And I hear you and Hugh are marine biologists! I want to know everything. How many dives have you been on? What was the coolest thing you saw today? Is this your first time here?’
I laugh at her enthusiasm. ‘I’ve never been here before,’ I confess, ‘but Hugh is Australian, so he has a couple times, I think.’
‘Brilliant! I heard that—’
I’m curious to hear what she has to say about Hugh, but Andrew interrupts her in the middle of her sentence, calling from the captain’s room to see if she’ll help him put on sunscreen.
The sun and the gentle rocking of the boat make me sleepy as soon as I’m left in peace. I’m about to drift off when someone else scrambles onto the other side of the platform. Lazily, I squint out of one eye to see who it is. I’m hoping it’s Pippa, but I would even settle for Andrew, who seems like the kind of guy to come out here to take a nap.
But as I open my eye I take in a large, tanned foot, a muscular calf and a bulging thigh. I know it’s Hugh. I turn my head away from him and pretend to be asleep. If Hugh had come out here fifteen minutes ago, I would have been ready to confront him, but now I just want him to go away.
I hear the telltale crinkling of a book being opened and I can’t resist finding out what it is. I try to turn my head back towards Hugh as slowly as possible. I open one eye slowly. The cover is colourful, and I can make outThe Changing Tides of— before I am forced to open one eye fully to read the entire cover.
‘I knew you were awake.’ Hugh snaps his book closed and places it down next to him. My view of the title is obstructed by his torso.
‘Hm,’ I grunt. I don’t know how to approach this situation.
‘So,’ he says. He has sunglasses on, so I can’t tell what colour blue his eyes are, which is my main indicator of his mood. So far, they’ve been dark when he’s angry, grey when he’s confused and light blue when he’s happy. Pretty much the darker they are, the angrier he is. I wonder if I ever thought this much about anyone else’s eyes. I don’t think I have.
‘So?’ I reply.
‘Millie Paxton,’ he says.
I hesitate. I don’t want to lie, so I try to think of something I can say that isn’t confirmation of his statement.
‘Hugh Harris.’
‘Nice to meet you in person.’ He lowers his sunglasses to the bridge of his nose. He’s staring at me so intently that his gaze feels hotter than the South Pacific sun.
‘I wish I could say the same.’
‘I knew you were a typical American girl, but I have to say I’m surprised you follow the stereotype so completely.’
