Page 61 of Oar Than Friends

‘We’re here,’ she added, stretching her arms over her head.

Only this time I didn’t groan with the irritation that I’d been ordered to spend my Saturday cleaning up the river. No, quite the opposite. This morning, I was excited, and I had been since the text message I’d received from Oz before I’d even woken up.

Oz:

Can’t wait to see you later x

I pulled up my sleeve to see if the excitement I was tingling with was visible to anyone else, but no. Just me then. Probably for the best.

I’d managed to tamp down the smile I’d been wearing all through my shower, my getting dressed and my eating breakfast, though I knew it was creeping back up.

Hannah’s head peered through the seat divide. ‘Do you reckon we’ll be in the same pairs as we were last week?’

My head snapped up to hers, ‘What? You think they’ll change them?’

‘Dunno.’ She shrugged, not noticing my momentary panic, though Imogen did.

She leaned in. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure Captain Perfect will fix it so you’re together.’

I responded with a sly side-eye and a reminder, ‘It’s President Perfect, if you want to be correct about it. But I thought we weren’t going to call him that.’

‘I agreed no such thing. What I did agree to was putting him on probation, so he can prove his worthiness.’

‘Hmm.’

If I’d learned anything this week, it was Oz’s true worthiness. Not that I had any intention of sharing with the two girls next to me both checking their watches while simultaneously staring out of the window waiting for the Oxford crew to appear any minute. Oz would reveal his worthiness in his own time, while Imogen and Hannah would have to get used to the fact Oz and I were friends. Or more than friends, hopefully, because it had become clear to me that after the first night of our FaceTime, ninety per cent of me definitely wanted to be more than friends.

Much more.

The other ten – the ten which said I could get expelled from Cambridge if they took away my scholarship – I was trying to ignore as best I could.

It had only been five days ago, and yet it was possible we’d crammed the entire seven weeks since we’d first met into every conversation, every text, every exchange. I wasn’t even sure how I’d found the time, but Imogen had been correct, I’d found it where I could. Once it dawned on me I’d never bump into him on campus, I didn’t lookfor him. I didn’t lose focus worrying about fitting him into my schedule, or seeing him every day, because I couldn’t. The pressure drifted off in a little puff of fresh Cambridge air.

We were both in the same position. Both training, both studying.

And so it might have been only five days, but it proved to me that perhaps the hurdle of dating wasn’t such a hurdle after all, even though we weren’t officially dating. If we were, today might constitute the first date, because today we were going to see each other for the first time being on the exact same page.

The page that said we were going to kiss.

Except cleaning the river was not the most romantic of situations for that to happen.

‘Okay, everyone off the bus,’ called Coach Stephens as he peered in through the doors at the front. ‘The dark blues have arrived.’

I jumped up, glancing out of the window to see if Oz was there, but the bus was still pulling to a stop.

‘Here,’ Hannah thrust a bottle of hand sanitizer at me as I stepped ahead of her and shuffled down the seat aisles. ‘Use this before you put your gloves on. It was gross last week.’

I rubbed my palms together after she’d squeezed a dollop on, the cool gel sending a shudder through me. Today might have been brilliant sunshine, but the air was rivalling the frigid east-coast temperatures and had me pulling my hood up my neck, and the rim of my beanie down past my ears as I stepped off the bus.

The assistant coaches were already passing out thethick black trash bags and blue protective gloves, along with the rest of the cleaning equipment we’d had. Looking around, I still couldn’t see Oz. Two of the guys I’d noticed him standing with at the heist meeting were over by the bus, with a couple more huddled in a circle nearer to the boathouse, but he was nowhere to be seen.

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