Page 25 of Oar Than Friends

5. Arthur

(I don’t even own a silk bathrobe)

I glanced up from my book as the door to my bedroom burst open.

Charlie was standing there, two cups of tea in his hands, having barged the door open with his foot. He placed the cups on my desk and pulled a packet of Jaffa Cakes from his pocket with all the enthusiasm of a magician conjuring a rabbit from his hat. At which point Brooks appeared from his room next door, because you could never have any kind of chocolate open if you didn’t want him sniffing it down with his bloodhound-like ability.

‘What’s going on? Did you make one for me?’ He gazed longingly at the steaming mugs.

‘Yes, it’s in the kitchen. I called you.’

Brooks tapped the large noise-cancelling headphones wrapped around his neck, ‘Didn’t hear.’ He snatched up a Jaffa Cake, stuffed it in his mouth and ran downstairs to fetch his tea, only to return less than a minute later. ‘Well?’

I rested my book on my chest, open at the page I’d been reading over and over because my mind was busy wandering too much to absorb the words. ‘Well what?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘You’ll have to ask Charles that. I was reading in peace when he burst forth.’ I shuffled up my bed to lean against the headboard, holding my hand out for the Jaffa Cakes.

‘Something’s wrong, and I want to know what,’ Charlie shrugged in response.

‘Nothing’s wrong, but thanks for the concern. And this,’ I reached for my mug, ‘I was getting thirsty.’

Unfortunately for me, Charlie was surprisingly astute for a physics student – the reason Brooks and I let him be the unofficial mother hen of our house. Plus, he was the only one of us who could legitimately cook outside of our morning bowls of porridge, which is why we forgave him for spending the first three hours of every day as a mute. Or however long it usually took for him to properly wake up.

‘Bollocks,’ he pressed on. ‘You’ve barely spoken since the race, and we won by three lengths. You powered us through it.’

I stuffed another Jaffa Cake into my mouth whole, Brooks and Charlie watching as I chewed slowly.

‘Are you complaining we won?’

‘Of course I’m not. We would have won anyway, not by that much, but we would have won. You, however, don’t seem to have been happy about it at all. That’s my first clue.’

‘Your first?’ My brows raised.

‘Yep. Second, your Saturday night plans got cancelled, and third …’ he nodded to the book now open on my lap, ‘I’ve come in here to find you readingAeschylus,and you always say he’s far too tragic and insufferable to spend any time on even if it is part of the syllabus.’

A wry smile curled my lip. I’d have laughed if I was in the laughing mood; he wasn’t wrong aboutAeschylus, but I hadn’t been in a laughing mood since Saturday,approximately one hour before we annihilated Cambridge in our first race of the season. Since then, my mood had been firmly residing in the black.

‘Don’t forget he nearly killed us in training this morning. In fact, I should probably check on Joshi, you might haveactuallykilled him. He was wheezing for a good ten minutes after we got back to the boathouse. And I don’t think Marshy was setting the pace,’ added Brooks, backhanding Charlie on the arm.

I grinned at them, the grin of an evil mastermind that didn’t quite reach the eyes. Training had been punishing this morning, but I wouldn’t hear complaints, not when it meant we would win the race come March.

‘How very Miss Marple of you both.’

‘Fourth …’

I held my hand up. ‘All right! I get it.’

‘What’s going on?’

My eyes flicked between the two of them; Charlie in my rocking chair and Brooks now sitting at my desk making himself comfortable, which meant unless I told them what was truly wrong they’d be here forever. And while I didn’t particularly want to go back to my reading of one of the more tragic Greek playwrights in existence, my current brand of misery wasn’t looking for company.

What’s going on?

Whatwasgoing on?

I couldn’t easily answer that question as I wasn’t entirely sure. I’d spent the past two days trying to unpick my interaction with Kate Astley because, without admitting I’d been desperately overthinking it, the entire situation had bothered me much more than I’d ever thought possible. Ialso knew that while it didn’t have anything directly to do with my father, his fingerprints would be found somewhere under close examination.

---