Page 84 of In the Same Boat

‘And then?’ I say with a smirk, already knowing the answer.

‘And then, an amount of time passes, and I download it again,’ she confesses with a laugh.

‘I can’t say anything – I do exactly the same thing,’ I reply. ‘I always think it will get better. But don’t they say the biggest waste of time is doing something again and expecting different results?’

She laughs.

‘It’s funny, everyone says that, but in my line of work, we just call that practice.’

‘I have never thought about it like that…’

‘Not that I’m suggesting Matcher will get better,’ she quickly adds.

The cabin lights are off apart from the reading lamp near the bed. As Sammie rolls to face me, there’s just enough light for me to make out her smile.

I think she’s had a good day too, you know. It might be the first time I’ve seen her actually happy, having a nice time, not looking like she’s got too much on her mind to think straight.

She looks comfortable here, even here in bed with me. I feel comfortable too. Like we’ve been sharing a bed for years.

‘Your emergency takeaway strategy was brilliant,’ she tells me. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’ve done that before?’

‘I haven’t, I swear,’ I insist. ‘But I do know where the best takeaways are from here, and I may or may not have got the idea for recovering dinner with a takeaway from an episode ofThe Simpsons.’

She snorts.

‘You’re joking?’

I shake my head.

‘Well, credit toThe Simpsonsthen, because it saved the day.’

She exhales contentedly.

As successful as dinner was, it was sort of a failure too. Our objective, to bring about an end to our time on this holiday, got lost somewhere in the four of us having a good time. Our parents loved their dinner, and they seemed genuinely touched that we had gone to all that trouble.

‘It went a little too well, didn’t it?’ I say.

‘Hmm,’ she replies. ‘Yeah, if anything, they’re enjoying having us around even more, like they think we’re double-dating.’

She playfully shudders at the thought.

‘I thought my dad was going to shake my hand.’

‘Look at my mum,’ she replies, widening her eyes. ‘She was “first grandchild” levels of over the moon.’

I laugh softly.

‘Maybe we’re approaching this wrong,’ she suggests.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Maybe the goal shouldn’t be making them uncomfortable with us together – maybe the goal should be making them uncomfortable generally,’ she says, a grin spreading across her face.

‘And how do we do that?’ I ask curiously.

‘I think the only way for us to get kicked off this holiday is to get kicked off together, we weren’t wrong about that, it’s our approach that was off,’ she explains. ‘We’re not going to get kicked off for seeming loved-up – that’s good behaviour.’

Her grin is catching. I feel one creep across my own face, as I realise what she’s proposing.