Page 128 of Oar Than Friends

‘Oz, where are you going?’

I swapped out my jeans for a pair of long running skins, followed by shorts. ‘The gym. Have you seen my t-shirt?’

Brooks tipped the end of his protein shaker and hit the bottom where a big clump of chocolate had stuck, until it fell in his mouth. ‘Didn’t you already go after water training earlier?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we can wait until later, when we have scheduled land training.’

‘I’m going now, too. I did legs this morning, I’ll do back and shoulders this afternoon.’ I shrugged one of said shoulders, and looked around my room again. ‘Have either of you seen my t-shirt?’

Charlie stood up, stepping in front of me with crossed arms and a deep scowl. ‘Oz, all you’ve done is train and eat for the past month.’

I stopped looking for the t-shirt I wanted to wear; awhite one with the Wizard of Oz embroidered on the left breast, standing on his Yellow Brick Road.

I’d been walking through Oxford with Kate, trying to find the pie shop she’d heard about. As we’d ventured down one of the narrow cobbled streets, she’d spotted the shirt in the window of a weird little bric-a-brac charity shop. By the time I figured out what she’d been laughing so hard at, I’d already been dragged inside where she promptly removed it from the headless mannequin and handed it over to the cashier.

She paid £3, folded it up into her bag, and took it back to Cambridge with her. A week later I arrived home to a parcel containing the shirt, freshly washed.

It became the most precious thing I owned, and the one thing that made me feel close to her.

Except now I couldn’t fucking find it.

I glanced over at Brooks, then back at Charlie. From his tone it was clear he wasn’t happy, and from the way he was looking at me, I could surmise I was the reason, though I had no idea why.

‘That’s what we’re supposed to do, Charles. Train.’

He slowly but firmly shook his head, ‘Not at the rate you’re going. You’ll collapse. You’re doing double the training than everyone else.’

‘We have a race to win at the end of the month, if you haven’t forgotten.’ I opened up another drawer, but the t-shirt wasn’t in there either. ‘Where is my fucking shirt?’

Charlie’s hand stopped me from opening the next drawer. ‘We will win, Oz, but you need to chill out. You’re not going to do us any good with fatigued muscles. Have a KitKat and go take a fucking nap, will you?’

I was beginning to find Charlie very annoying, and my patience was becoming so thin it was nearly see-through.

‘I don’t need to take a nap.’

Brooks got up from the rocking chair and stopped Charlie from arguing back, ‘Oz, mate, you’re exhausted.’

‘Who are you, my mother?’ I snapped, marching over to my closet to see if my t-shirt was in there. It wasn’t.

‘No, I’m fucking not. We’re your best friends and we’re worried about you.’

‘I’m fine. I just want to find my t-shirt so I can go to the gym.’

‘Your shirt’s in the fucking wash!’ Charlie erupted, slamming the closet door so hard it nearly took the tips of my fingers off. ‘You’ve barely taken it off for a month, so I’ve washed it because it was disgusting. I should have burned it, instead.’

My head snapped round to where he was standing with flaring nostrils. I was about to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing, but found myself taken aback by the expression on his face. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so angry; Charlie’s mood usually limited itself to staying anywhere north of annoyed, and rarely did he descend into anything resembling a temper.

‘You want to punch me, Osbourne? Is that what’s about to happen? Because I will put you back on your arse if you try.’

Charlie was a big guy, a rower, with dense, powerful muscles, just like me, and to any outsider he would certainly come across as intimidating. But I’d known Charlie half my life and had never once seen him punch anything, or anyone. He wouldn’t even kill a spider. I was almosttempted to be the first victim, but as my eyes flicked over to Brooks, whose eyes were also wide, I couldn’t hold in my laugh, and at the same time his own burst out loudly.

And just like that, the exhaustion they’d been banging on about overwhelmed me and I slumped back against the closet door and slid to the floor.

‘I’m not going to punch you, dickhead,’ I told him, resting my elbows on my knees, ‘and thank you for washing my shirt. Kate gave it to me.’

‘Yeah, no shit,’ he grumbled, sitting on my bed again. ‘I’m sorry, mate. I know breaking up sucks balls. I totally get it, I’ve been there, remember? But running yourself into the ground isn’t going to help anyone.’

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