Page 3 of Oar Than Friends

Joshi zipped up the oar bag and carried the precious cargo over to Frank, who placed it on the floor of the large dinghy we’d brought with us, and stepped in to take his position. Bitters and Drake followed, with Fellows close behind. I waited until Brooks and Charlie were safely at the bottom of the ladder, then pulled the navy envelope addressed to Will Norris, Cambridge University Boat Club President, from my inside breast pocket.

The soft click of the ladder retracting told me it was time. I stuck the letter to the pale-blue boat club doors, and grinned into the darkness picturing Will’s face when he saw it.

‘Oz, hurry up.’

I jogged to the boat, turning just before I stepped inside so I could snap a picture of our victory.

‘Everyone here? Bitters, Charlie, Drake, Joshi, Brooks, Fellows, Frank?’ Each of the guys raised their hand as I called them. ‘Right, let’s go.’

We picked up the dinghy oars and powered the eight of us through the dark Cam waters. We’d rowed together so long we moved on instinct, balancing out the boat to make us as streamlined as possible, and soon we’d travelled around the bend in the river so the club house was no longer in sight. I felt the collective sigh of relief from each of us, colliding with the buzz of adrenaline still coursing through my body.

Charlie clung onto his ladder from where he was sitting behind Brooks, ‘They’re going to be sick we got there first. Knobheads.’

I smirked, ‘Yeah. They are. But we’re going for the double this year, boys.’

There were seven quiet scoffs of agreement.

The double; an additional challenge I’d set myself as this year’s president.

So named, because the season was considered a double if the winning crew still maintained possession of the opposition’s mascot by the Boat Race. And not that I was counting – okay, I was – but in two hundred years, it had only been achieved thirty-four times, and not since 2017 when Duke Harper, an American PhD student, led Oxford to triumph.

Additionally, after the devastating loss of last year, I was more determined than ever to bring home a win. Asfar as I was concerned, we would not be losing either under any circumstances, which was why I’d had the boys training for the heist all month long.

A third, slightly more selfish reason was that after experiencing the worst summer in the history of summers, I needed to get back to the normality of student life and figure out how to put off the inevitability of my future without my father murdering me in my bed.

Another minute of silent rowing and I hit the intercom for the final, most crucial element of this evening’s achievements: alerting Pete Sackville-Marsh, our coxswain/getaway driver, that we were on the approach to where he was currently sitting in our plain black mini-bus, under the bridge, ready to whisk us back to Oxford. Or whisk the eight of them away.

I had other plans.

‘Marshy, we’re three minutes out.’

‘Copy,’ came his response.

I grabbed my phone and shot off a text to my best friend.

Oz:

See you for beers in twenty minutes.

Olly:

Let yourself in, slight change of plans. Just about to enjoy some quality time with a lady I met earlier this evening. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.

I rolled my eyes, slipping my phone back into my pocket, unsure why I’d expected him to respond any differently. It was more of a surprise he’d responded at all. Oliver Greenwood was a ladies’ man, through and through. He had been since the year we turned thirteen, and Eton held its first school social with Cheltenham Ladies College,and fifty per cent of the girls had promptly fallen in love with him. Unfortunately for them, he’d only had eyes for Victoria Medley, a girl two years above us.

They’d spent the school year writing letters to each other and meeting up during the holidays; that was until he met someone else while visiting his eldest sister who was on a gap year travelling through Europe. And so began his journey into becoming the certified heartbreaker he is today.

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