Page 20 of Oar Than Friends

‘Okay, goodie for me then.’ She rubbed her hands together, and let out a gleeful little squeak. ‘I’m so glad I get to be the one.’

I stood there staring up at her. Imogen was better than any guidebook or course manual – she knew everything, and everyone. I’d already been given the low-down on where to go out, where not to go out, which colleges to avoid, who was sleeping with whom, where the hottest guys were, the best studying spots on campus, and short cuts to the train station allowing a precious extra five minutes in bed – and from the way her eyes were now wide with amusement, I knew she was about to deliver another bombshell of information.

‘Well, A.O.-C. is …’ she glanced away as she searched for the words and I waited silently and patiently for the rest of her sentence, ‘he’s … well … he’s absolutely gorgeous. But …’ she paused again for dramatic effect, while I soaked in her accent and how she pronounced it gorrr-jus, ‘a total arse. Total, complete arse. Ruthless. The worst type of arrogant, he will stop at nothing to win, terrible temper. I heard last year when they lost that he smashed up his oars and made their cox cry. Only ended up back on the crew because his parents donated a bucketload of money.’

My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t imagine my parents ever doing that even if they had the cash. ‘What?’

At that moment a flash of blonde caught the corner of my eye before Imogen and I were swept up in a giant hug.

‘Hey, girls, what are you talking about?’ asked Hannah when she let us go but stayed in between us, and looped her arms through ours. We began walking again, thankfully a little slower.

‘I’m filling our American friend in on A.O.-C.’

Hannah’s eyes widened like Imogen’s had. ‘Oh! Did you see him in the paper today?’

I peered over to the two of them, now thoroughly confused. ‘The paper? Like the newspaper?’

‘Yes, basically his parents are going through a messy divorce, and it’s been in the papers all summer.’

‘Oh, that’s sad. But why do the papers care?’

‘I hadn’t got to that bit yet,’ Imogen began again, unlinking her arm from Hannah so we could fit through a narrow path between two cobbled streets we were now walking down. ‘His family is very well known. His grandfather was Prime Minister, his father is a politician, and his mother is part of the Drakos shipping dynasty … you know, that type of thing. He’s practically royalty, so naturally people are interested, especially because he’s a totally gorgeous, total fuckboy, who couldn’t give a shit about anything but himself.’

‘Drakos?’ I interrupted as a memory jogged in my brain, ‘Wow. I’ve seen them when I’ve been out on my dad’s boat. They’ve got huge container ships.’

Hannah nodded. ‘Yes, they’re one of the biggest. Worth billions.’

‘Anyway,’ Imogen continued, almost bursting at the seams to get the rest of her story out, ‘his father’s the worst. Corrupt politician, always in the papers for something controversial, and this summer he was caught having an affair with his parliamentary secretary – which surprised no one – but he was using an official government car to take them to a hotel or something so it made the news more than it should have done. There’s an investigation, though I’m loose on the details. I haven’t paid that much attention. The point is A.O.-C.’s apple hasn’t fallen far from his father’s tree.’

‘Oh,’ I replied, because there wasn’t anything else to say and my head was spinning slightly from all the new information.

‘In his defence, he’s actually a decent rower. He’s even got an Olympic medal. He was one of the youngest members on the GB team.’

‘He probably wears it to bed,’ Hannah snorted, so loudly it caused a passing group of girls to cackle just as loudly.

‘Is he really that bad?’

‘Yes, ask any of the girls. Apparently he slept with half the Cambridge crew last year, probably after he went through all the girls at Oxford,’ Imogen continued.

‘Really?’

‘Yep. Someone said they saw him on campus last Sunday too, and we didn’t even have a race then.’ Hannah nodded gravely, then gasped loudly. ‘Bet that’s when he was stealing the oars!’

Imogen’s head flicked round, clearly a piece of information she hadn’t known, ‘No way! Who saw him?’

‘I heard two of the second years talking about it when I went to get a coffee.’

‘Killed two birds with one stone. Gross.’

I was kind of glad I wasn’t standing between them, it would have felt like bouncing around a pinball machine from the speed they were talking, ‘Why does everyone sleep with him if he’s so awful?’

Imogen nudged me with a wink, ‘Wait until you see him, then you’ll understand. Just remember Mary Heston will try and have you thrown out of Cambridge. She’s already cracking the whip this year, she’s desperate for us to win,’ she added. ‘I heard one of the second years had to break up with her boyfriend because Mary said he’d become a distraction. So hypocritical seeing as Mary’s dating Will Norris, the men’s president.’

I’d only seen Mary twice, the second time she was screaming at one of the guys on the squad, so I could imagine her cracking the whip, and I had no intention of getting on her bad side and losing my scholarship, or being screamed at.

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Oh! My eldest sister, Rosie, was telling me about it. One of her best friends from school graduated from Oxford last year, and he was well known around campus.’

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