Page 116 of Oar Than Friends

‘Yeah, he didn’t seem that cut up about it.’

‘Still, I would not want to be on her bad side. She’s certainly been making our lives hard enough and we didn’t even do anything. What else did he say?’

‘Nothing really.’ I shrugged and picked up the blow dryer, shutting it off almost immediately when Hannah started waving her hands around, and pointing to my cell.

‘Hello, Kate’s phone,’ she answered, ‘and who may I say is calling?’

She passed it to me with a shrug, holding her hand over the speaker. ‘Professor Hull? Weird.’

Imogen bolted upright. ‘What? Why would she be calling?’

‘She? That’s not a female voice,’ frowned Hannah.

I looked at the screen as I took it, but it was a private number. And no one ever called me, except the two girls in front of me, Oz and now Phoebe. Plus my mom, and it was too early for her to be awake.

‘Hello?’

‘Is this Kate Astley?’ said a voice that wasn’t Professor Hull’s. Hannah was correct, it was a man. A man whose tone immediately froze my bones.

‘Who is this?’

‘I’m calling about your boyfriend, Arthur Osbourne-Cloud, and how you feel about racing against him in thisyear’s Boat Race. He’s president of Oxford, and you’re cox for the Cambridge men’s. It’ll be quite the rivalry this year. Do you think you’re going to beat him?’

‘Who is this?’ I repeated.

‘How did you meet?’

‘Who is this?’

‘Is it true you’ve been training together? Swapping tips in bed, have you?’

I hit call end and my cell thudded as it dropped to the floor.

‘Asters, why’s Professor Hull calling you?’ asked Imogen again, now sitting upright. ‘What did she want?’

‘I told you, that wasn’t a woman on the phone, unless she’s got a deep voice,’ repeated Hannah. ‘Kate … who was that?’

But I was still staring at my cell by my feet, and trying to figure out what had just happened.

‘Kate? Are you okay?’

‘Kate, who was on the phone?’

I looked up at the girls, then back down at the cell like it might suddenly grow tentacles and attack me. ‘I … I don’t know.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Um …’ I stepped away from the offending hardware, ‘he was asking about Oz and how I felt about racing against him.’

I glanced up again to find Imogen and Hannah staring at me with their mouths open.

‘What the fuck?’ spat Imogen.

I wrapped my arms tightly around myself; it was a poorattempt to stem the chill seeping under my skin and leaving a cascade of goosebumps. ‘Who would call to ask that? He asked if we’d been swapping training tips in bed.’

‘Ew. What? That’s gross.’

Hannah picked the cell off the floor. ‘It was a private number. We can’t call it back.’

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