Glowering, Dom pulled out his phone, presumably to call the agent. He pushed some buttons, and then swore under his breath.

  ‘Digital detox,’ Isla said smugly.

  But Dom’s anger quickly evaporated. ‘No problem. Hey, Cole?’

  Isla watched him jog along the hall towards the stairs, infuriated by his fake cheerfulness. When he didn’t come back right away, she decided to check out the bedrooms.

  Felicity and Dom had claimed the west bedroom, closest to the kitchen. One of Dom’s expensive suits was laid out on the bed, and a bag had been left unzipped in the corner. Isla could see some brand-new bushwalking clothes, probably Felicity’s. Isla closed the door.

  Next there was a bathroom, then another door, slightly ajar. Isla could see carpet through the gap.

  She thought she heard a scuffle.

  She knocked. ‘You decent?’

  When no one replied, she pushed the door the rest of the way open. Another bedroom, and it was empty. The sound must have come from upstairs. Oscar’s suitcase was under the bed. Isla’s own bag was on the mattress, open. That was odd—it wasn’t like her husband to start unpacking for her.

  Oscar’s phone was on the bed. She woke up the screen, just to check if he had reception—he was with Vodafone. But there was nothing.

  This bedroom had an exterior door leading to the deck. Isla closed and locked it. When she turned around, she saw Dom hovering in the hall. ‘Sorted,’ he said. ‘Cole’s going to drive to town and bring back some food.’

  He’d sent his oldest friend 130 kilometres away, like a king dispatching a knight on a quest.

  Look at that, Isla thought. Things work out for Dom, yet again.

  DOM

  ‘You’re a maniac!’ laughed Felicity.

  Dom was in his board shorts on the deck, trying to drag the lid off the hot tub. He was also trying not to look as cold as he felt, but the freezing wind made the hairs stand up all over his body. He wasn’t as skinny as he used to be, but he didn’t have nearly enough padding to withstand temperatures like this.

  ‘Are you going to join me?’ he asked, through chattering teeth.

  ‘It’s the middle of winter!’ Felicity said.

  ‘It’s a hot tub.’

  His wife looked at him like he was crazy. He liked that. It made him feel like he was in high school again, impressing a girl by doing something dumb.

  And what a girl. No matter what she wore—right now it was the wool cardigan that had shrunk a little when he used the wrong wash cycle—Felicity was always beautiful. Whenever those cool green eyes landed on him, Dom would do anything to keep them there.

  Finally the lid of the hot tub came off. He dipped a hand into the water. He’d switched it on an hour ago, but it was still tepid.

  ‘How is it?’ Felicity asked doubtfully.

  ‘Divine,’ he pronounced. ‘I packed your bikini and goggles—go change!’

  ‘Who wears goggles in a hot tub?’

  ‘Someone planning to put her head under the water.’

  Felicity smirked. ‘Honey, I think your optimism might be a new source of renewable energy. Scientists could use you to power whole cities.’

  Clementine emerged onto the deck, holding a yoga mat under one arm. Another girl to impress, Dom thought. He’d always suspected she had a bit of a crush on him. It was the way she threw back her head when she laughed at his jokes, showing off her blonde mane. Felicity had noticed this too, but seemed secure enough not to mind.

  ‘I was going to do a workout,’ Clementine said. ‘Would anyone like to …?’ She looked at Dom’s board shorts, then his naked chest. ‘Uh, what’s going on?’

  Felicity jerked a thumb at him. ‘Ask Mr Freeze over here.’

  ‘We’re on holiday, and we paid for a hot tub,’ Dom said. ‘Are you all seriously not going to use it?’

  ‘Wasn’t planning on it,’ Clementine said.

  ‘Dom,’ said Felicity, ‘during the course of your work as a finance bro, have you heard of the sunk cost fallacy?’

  Oscar came out of the house, holding a bottle of sparkling wine and two champagne flutes. ‘Would anyone like a drink?’

  ‘Please,’ Felicity said.

  Clementine declined with a wave. Dom wondered if she was pregnant already.

  He’d been flabbergasted when Cole asked him to help out with the pregnancy. Once he realised Cole wanted his money, not his sperm, he was so relieved and embarrassed that he agreed immediately. He would have paid any amount just to get out of the conversation, like when he met charity door-knockers.

  He still didn’t understand why Cole wanted a baby. Having children was perhaps the most adult thing you could do, and Dom still thought of them all—himself included—as kids. None of his other friends had reproduced yet—except for Isla, who’d always been a bit of a … well, Dom considered himself too classy to use the word slut, but she certainly hadn’t taken much convincing, back when she was with him. She was bound to get knocked up eventually.

  Oscar filled Felicity’s glass right to the top, then his own. As he handed hers over, he made a cheers motion. Dom’s eyes narrowed.

  Everyone thought Dom was an idiot, and he only had himself to blame. In high school, he’d been too busy playing sport to study, leaving him with shoddy grades in everything except PE. So he had a reputation as a dumb jock, which he leaned into. He would tell funny stories about mistakes he’d made, and he’d pretend to misunderstand things. People were laughing at him, but at least they were laughing, which meant they liked having him around. But as an adult he’d found this reputation hard to shake off. He’d played the fool for so long that he’d been typecast.

  Dom had seen the texts on Felicity’s phone. He’d talked to his neighbour, who had seen a man matching Oscar’s description leaving the house in the middle of the day. He had seen the way Oscar looked at Felicity. And no wonder: she was beautiful. Dom didn’t mind being envied by other men. That was half the point of having cool stuff. But this was different—Oscar thought he could take her, and he thought Dom was a big dumb Neanderthal who wouldn’t see it coming.

  Dom had always been lucky. Sure, he’d made mistakes along the way, like the incident with Isla, but they hadn’t stuck. He’d made some investments that had turned out well. When a senior partner had a stroke after swallowing a prodigious amount of cocaine, Dom found himself promoted beyond his comfort zone, but he’d hit the ground running. He knew his life was better than he deserved, but he wasn’t going to let Oscar steal it—he had a plan.

  He climbed up onto the safety rail around the deck.

  Clementine’s brow creased with worry. ‘Whoa, Dom!’

  ‘What are you doing?!’ Felicity demanded.

  He was pleased to notice he had all her attention now. Oscar had been forgotten.

  Dom wobbled on the rail. The edge of the hot tub was about a metre away; behind him was a five-metre drop to the woodpile and the garden beds. But he wasn’t scared. Being surrounded by his old friends made him feel sixteen again, and invincible. ‘You think I should try a backflip?’

  ‘I think you should climb down, carefully and immediately,’ said Felicity.

  ‘Silence, woman!’ He laughed. His core twitched, keeping him vertical.

  Isla emerged from the house. Now the sun was going down, she’d taken off the aviators and was holding a paperback. She didn’t look as concerned as the others; maybe she had more confidence in his balance.

  The front door slammed. The wind must have blown it shut. Startled by the noise, Dom lost his balance. He leaned too far forward, then over-corrected backward, his arms windmilling.

  Felicity and Clementine edged closer, their arms out, but neither tried to grab him. Perhaps they were worried about accidentally pushing him off the rail.

  He stabilised, his heart racing.

  ‘Honey?’ Felicity said. ‘I really, really think you should come down from there.’

  He smiled and made an elaborate bow. Everyone gasped.

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ he said. ‘Cannonball!’ He leaped forward, hugging his knees.

  Barely clearing the edge of the hot tub, he crashed down into the lukewarm water, which was nowhere near deep enough for diving. His tailbone thumped painfully against the hard plastic floor. His ears filled with the blunt roar of the jets, and the chlorine stung his nose. He burst out and took a breath, blinking water out of his eyes. Everyone was yelling at him, drenched from the splash. Tub water had displaced half the champagne in Oscar and Felicity’s glasses.

  Dom grinned at his dripping friends. ‘Hop in, otherwise you’ll freeze to death!’

  CLEMENTINE

  Clementine was in shavasana, or corpse pose, when she heard the Tarago rumbling back up the hill. Cole had returned from his three-and-a-half-hour grocery run. ‘Namaste,’ she whispered, palms together and touching her thumbs to her forehead. She hadn’t used the yoga mat, which was still damp from Dom’s stunt on the deck, so there was nothing to pack away.

  She jogged downstairs in time to see her husband enter, laden with shopping bags.

  ‘I missed you,’ she said.

  ‘Missed you,’ he said, and kissed her.

  He’d bought enough food for the three-day trip, including milk, bread, eggs, bacon, sauces, plus Clementine’s preferred brands of rolled oats and yoghurt. For tonight, he’d bought a rack of lamb plus enough carrots and potatoes to half-fill the huge oven, and a pavlova for dessert. He’d even found some tea lights.

  Clementine was proud, but she noticed that no one else thanked him for driving all that way. They didn’t offer money towards the shopping, either. She supposed she and Cole could afford it—the gym seemed very profitable lately—but she was annoyed by the rudeness.

  She was starving by the time Cole had cooked everything and was plating up. Dom connected his phone to the giant Bluetooth speaker he’d brought, and strains of soft jazz filled the air. He opened one of the six bottles of red wine that Cole had acquired.

  ‘This is amazing,’ Isla said, resting her book on the arm of the couch as Cole placed the lamb in the centre of the table.

  ‘Like a medieval banquet.’ Felicity glanced at Cole. ‘You’re not fattening us up to eat us, are you?’

  They all laughed, but Clementine felt disappointment creep in. Felicity had reminded her that while this all looked delicious, she couldn’t eat much of it. She casually took a seat next to Dom.

  Clementine’s modelling career had started fast and ended slow. She’d sent some test shots to an agent when she was in high school and got very lucky—she was in a Target catalogue by the end of that year. Soon she was flying around the country, doing shoots for Lorna Jane and Running Bare. She had to turn down work to make room for other work. She thought she could live like this forever.

  After a couple of years her schedule was merely full rather than overflowing, but she didn’t notice right away. Not until she was asked to drive to Sydney for a job, rather than being flown business class with sparkling wine and warm towels. The fee would barely cover the cost of the petrol. She looked for more appealing gigs and discovered there were none. Soon even the unappealing ones grew thin on the ground. As her bank balance shrank, she called her agent, who was sympathetic but not helpful. He had other clients to look after—younger ones. The women shopping for activewear didn’t just want to get fit: they wanted to look youthful. Clementine had been over the hill at twenty-six.

  She avoided carbs, used moisturiser and worked out every day but never in the sun. It didn’t help. The brands got smaller and the jobs less frequent, while her photos shrank in the catalogues. A small activewear company called Moray still hired her once per season, but she knew that wouldn’t last forever.

  Having a baby was supposed to be her way out. She could tell herself the industry wasn’t abandoning her—she was leaving it by choice, to become a mother. But getting pregnant wasn’t as easy as her sex-ed teacher had warned. She was thirty now and still trying—and still dieting. To maximise their chances of conceiving, she had to make sure she got enough potassium, folate and monounsaturated fats, and she had to avoid sugar, red meat, preservatives and anything with a high glycaemic index. She definitely couldn’t sample any of the wine or soft cheeses on the table.

  ‘You okay?’ Cole asked her.

  ‘Fine.’ She stroked his back as he sat down on the other side of her. ‘You always deliver the goods.’

  He smiled. ‘My love.’ He drizzled gravy on her potatoes. It was made from powder, but she didn’t have the heart to stop him.

  ‘Give it a rest!’ Isla was sitting opposite them. ‘We get it—you’re perfect.’

  Clementine could tell she was joking but not joking.

  ‘We’re far from perfect,’ Cole said. ‘Just this morning I brewed a cup of tea and then forgot to drink it.’

  ‘I, too, have a shameful flaw,’ Clementine said. ‘I only floss once per day.’

  Isla scrunched up a napkin and threw it at them. They both laughed.

  ‘I’m kind of a hypochondriac,’ Oscar said, apparently missing the point of the game. ‘Last week I was shaving, and I noticed my face didn’t seem symmetrical. I thought maybe I had a brain tumour. I spent two hours freaking out, before I realised my new haircut was just a bit lopsided.’

  Isla seemed surprised to hear this. Had Oscar not told her? Clementine wondered what kind of husband didn’t tell his wife he was worried about a brain tumour. What was the point of being married, if not to share your secrets?

  ‘Does a tumour show on your face?’ Felicity wondered.

  ‘Poe had one,’ Isla said. ‘If you look at him when he was young, compared to—’

  ‘Po from Kung Fu Panda?’ Oscar interrupted.

  Isla sighed. ‘Poe from Boston.’

  This struck Clementine as cruel. If Isla had said Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar might have clicked. As it was, he was stuck pretending.

  ‘Oh, of course.’ He nodded vigorously.

  ‘Anyway, his face got more and more saggy on one side,’ Isla said. ‘Years after his death, someone exhumed him and found the tumour in his skull. His stories got really twisted as he got older—I always wondered if it was the tumour coming up with the ideas, rather than him.’

  ‘They found the tumour years later? It didn’t rot?’ Felicity sounded fascinated.

  ‘This lamb is delicious, Cole,’ Clementine said, trying to redirect the discussion.

  There were hmms of agreement all around.

  ‘How’s the gym going, Cole?’ Dom asked. He’d taken a spot at the head of the table, like a king.

  Cole looked inexplicably wary. ‘Fine.’

  Dom beamed. ‘That’s the spirit!’

  ‘He’s being modest,’ Clementine said. ‘We’re raking it in, for once.’

  Not long ago Clementine had been waiting in line at her local cafe and had checked her bank balance on her phone. It had been ten thousand dollars larger than she expected—her husband had presumably given himself a well-deserved bonus. And yet, he still acted like the gym was struggling, constantly opening an app to see how often members visited, and how his Google ads were performing.

  Now Cole was cringing, but she wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Did you always want to run your own business?’ Felicity was asking.

  Cole’s eyebrows went up. ‘Me? No!’

  ‘He was going to be a vet.’ Clementine put her hand over her husband’s. ‘He’s always been good with animals.’

  ‘Weird,’ Felicity said, as though they’d said Cole played the accordion, or collected egg timers. ‘What changed?’

  ‘I spent a lot of time at that gym,’ he said. ‘So I was the first to hear about it when the owner decided to sell up and move to Port Douglas. The business seemed profitable, and I had ideas to make it even better—I thought I did, anyway.’ He gulped his wine. ‘The profits were going to put me through the veterinary medicine course. But running the business didn’t leave much time for study, and …’

  When Cole trailed off, Felicity turned to Clementine. ‘How about you? Did you always plan to be a fitness model?’

  Clementine smiled. ‘I wanted to be an athlete. I was the fastest in my event at Warrigal High, then the fastest again in the regionals, but when I got to the state level, I came dead last.’

  ‘You looked great doing it, though,’ Cole said.

  She smiled ruefully. ‘Well, that’s what one of the photographers thought. She offered to take some test shots that I could send to modelling agencies. Now I work for Moray. Well, sometimes.’

  Felicity’s eyes widened. ‘I love Moray!’ She lifted her shirt to reveal her sports bra, as though that was a normal thing to do.

  Dom rolled his eyes. ‘Put ’em away, babe.’

  ‘I can probably get you some free matching undies,’ Clementine offered. ‘Just let me know your size.’

  She had meant later, in private, but Felicity said immediately, ‘Size twelve.’

  ‘Okay, great. I’ll ask as soon as we get back home. I don’t …’ Clementine was reluctant to reveal this, but the tea lights gave the table the feel of a confessional. ‘I don’t know how much longer the modelling work will last.’

  ‘Because you’re trying to get pregnant?’

  A shocked silence spread around the table.

  Felicity looked around. ‘Ooh, I know that sound. That’s the sound of me crossing a line.’

  Clementine forced a smile, but her heart rate had spiked. ‘It’s okay—it was just a remarkably good guess.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t really a—’ Felicity looked to Dom, who raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, it just makes sense. You guys have been together how long?’

  ‘Thirteen years,’ Cole said uncomfortably.

  ‘You’re going to make great parents.’ Isla reached across the table and squeezed Clementine’s hand. She’d been saying things like this for months, never seeming to doubt that it would someday be the truth.

  ‘Yeah,’ Oscar said, less enthusiastically.

  ‘Thirteen years?’ Felicity was aghast. ‘So you’ve been together since you were …’