Page 45 of Oar Than Friends

Brooks glanced along the Cambridge women’s squad huddled together, until he spotted the one I was talking about. ‘Woah! Is that her? Shit, Oz, she’s hot!’

‘She is, but that’s not Kate. There’s a shorter girl behind her with dark brown hair, talking to a tall blonde. That’s her.’

There was no way Kate could hear me seeing as my voice was barely above a whisper, but she clearly sensed our eyes on her with the way her head suddenly shot round to Brooks and me with narrowed eyes.

Even from the distance between us I could see her dimple twitch as her teeth gritted. There might even have been a hint of the snarl Olly swore she’d given him when he’d bumped into her again the other day.

Brooks guffawed loudly, and clapped me on the back. ‘Oh, shit mate. She does not look happy with you! Got some work cut out for you there. But I get it now …’

‘Get what?’

‘Why your knickers have been so twisted.’

I grinned, ‘Tell me about it.’

‘So that other one with the auburn hair, is she single?’

I shrugged. ‘Dunno. I literally know nothing about any of the women’s crew, except Kate. And even then, it’s very minimal. Fuck knows how that rumour started.’

I was still smarting over that; half the Cambridge crew indeed …

‘Presidents, come here please,’ shouted Coach Westcott, gesturing us over to where he was standing with the other Oxford and Cambridge coaches.

Will Norris fell into stride next to me, with a smile showing he was back to his usual cheery self. ‘All right, mate? Fancy seeing you here.’

I chuckled, giving up a heavy eye roll as I did. ‘Bet I can pick up more rubbish than you can.’

‘Yeah? What’s the wager?’

‘Hundred quid.’

‘You’re on.’

None of the coaches seemed to share in the good mood Will and I greeted them with, but as I saw it, we were here because of them. They might think they were punishing us, but they were also punishing themselves, and this episode could certainly have passed without all the unnecessary drama, and standing around in freezing temperatures.

‘Right, Mr Osbourne-Cloud, Mr Norris. As presidents of the respective crews, we are leaving it up to you to lead the plans for today. It’s nearly ten a.m. and we have the next six hours to make a difference before the tide comes in again.’

Norris raised his brows at me as Coach Westcott held out two identical pieces of paper to us. ‘These are the stations along the Tideway where we’ll be working. We’ll split into pairs, and some of you will be cleaning graffiti off the walls, but most of you will be picking up the rubbish on the banks while the tide is low. We’ll base ourselvesnear each of the bridges along the course, and the buses will transport anyone assigned to the further locations. It’s up to you how we split the crews, but it would serve you well to consider that while we might be rivals on the river you all clearly need a reminder of the meaning of comradeship.’

Norris scanned the paper in his hand, then looked at Coach. ‘What are we supposed to use for all this cleaning?’

Westcott nodded over to where a trestle table was being set up with disposable gloves, cleaning equipment, sponges, buckets and big black bags, all of which could work very well in my favour for the plan I’d been hatching for most of the journey here.

‘We should mix the crews,’ I suggested before anything else could be decided.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oxford men with Cambridge women. And vice versa.’

Norris tilted his head slightly, and a couple of faint lines appeared on his forehead, ‘Why?’

I shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. ‘Comradeship. Why else?’

He paused for a second and studied me. ‘You’re up to something.’

I laughed loudly. ‘I swear I’m not. Just want to get to know your team a little better.’

‘You’d better not be, Cloud,’ grumbled Coach Westcott, ‘but as long as you all do your duty, I don’t care how your teams are split up.’

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