Page 82 of Oar Than Friends

‘Because it fucking sucks,’ he snapped, walking off again. ‘Suddenly your mind isn’t your own. You completely lose the ability to think for yourself. Someone else is controlling your every waking hour. There’s a reason I’ve decided to stay single for the rest of my life.’

I held my mouth in a straight line and refrained fromtelling himagainhow ridiculous he was. ‘Charles, you’re twenty-one. It’s not that bad.’

His shoulders lifted; the pity on his face said he knew better. ‘Just wait.’

I was still frowning at the back of his head when we arrived at the Blue Oar, and pushed through the heavy wooden doors to find the place heaving with revellers. By the looks of some they’d been in here a while, especially the guy with Christmas tinsel wrapped around his head, swaying in the corner.

‘Christ, why’s it so busy? It’s Tuesday lunchtime.’

‘It’s the last Tuesday lunchtime before term ends. Half the people in here have already finished. The other half are probably first years.’

It took a good five minutes of pushing through the throng of students, the ones wanting to say hello, ask how training was going or to wish us luck, as well as the person who thought I was someone else, before we found Brooks sitting at our table building a tower out of cardboard coasters.

‘Nice jumper. Where’s mine?’

He looked down at his blue cable-knit jumper decorated with little rowers wearing Santa hats. Brooks’ Granny knitted them for him every year, and since we’d been living together the past few years, she’d knitted them for Charlie and me too. We wore them with pride, even if we did look like idiots.

‘They arrived this morning. Yours are at home.’

I dropped my backpack on one of the empty seats, then sat down in another and stretched out. ‘Nice tower.’

I picked up a coaster to add to the top, only for it to besnatched away by Brooks who didn’t want his structure destroyed. Whatever, it was going to topple soon, especially as it was still wobbling from the last one he’d added.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Oz is falling in love with his American.’

‘Oh congrats, mate. Good for you.’ He grinned, and the next coaster was deftly placed on the top. ‘Is this you officially off the market?’

I thought about it. Could you be officially off something you’d never been on? I wasn’t interested in anyone else, so if that made me off the market, then so be it.

My chest puffed a little, ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘Great.’ He picked up another coaster. ‘Now can we decide about this party? Because last year there was so much shit to clean up the next morning, and I’m not sure I want to do that again. Plus we’re cutting it fine, we’ve nearly run out of weekends before Christmas.’

‘I’ll vote for the party if I can bring Kate.’

Charlie had just stood up on his way to the bar, but paused. Brooks stopped building his coaster tower. I didn’t miss them briefly glance at each other, then at me.

‘Oz, mate, you can’t invite her. People will wonder what she’s doing there.’

My neck craned back so quickly I heard it crack. ‘What? Since when do I give a shit what people think? Of course I can.’

‘No, Arthur, you can’t. Why won’t you get it into your head? It’ll get back to Coach and he won’t be happy. And I thought you said Kate was worried about being kicked off the Cambridge crew. You know how badly this will look on her. She can’t be seen dating one of us.’

I could feel my shoulders squaring off from the way they were both staring at me intensely, challenging me to argue, but instead I huffed out a breath. I’d been trying to ignore the little voice in the back of my head – her voice telling me we needed to keep things secret, and the sneaking around would be going on for a while, because as much as I didn’t want to hide, we’d been staying under the radar enough that the press hadn’t caught wind of it, and that was the best thing ever. Nor had there been any rumblings about me dating recently, and having silence on that subject was like Christmas had come early. But having spent the last six weeks seeing her on a weekly, if not twice weekly, basis I was also aware that the holidays were starting, and I wouldn’t see her for at least a month as she’d be back in America. After that, training would become more intense than it had been already, and if I was lucky, I might scrape a day with her in January before winter training camp.

‘Fine. Count me out of the party then. I’m going to the bar.’ My chair screeched loudly along the floor as I pushed it back, and I took off before either of them could stop me.

Miraculously, I managed to find the only quiet spot at the bar and ordered three pints. I’d left class breathing in fresh air and feeling I could run ten miles without breaking a sweat, and now my body was coursing with a kind of nervous energy I didn’t like. While I took Kate’s concerns seriously, hearing the boys voice them too made it feel all too real. They were right. Shewasworried.

I’d never been happy about my life being dictated, and yet it seemed I couldn’t escape it. I was finally in arelationship with an incredible, perfect girl – one I was certainly falling in love with – and I had to fucking hide it.

I rubbed my throbbing temples; the Boat Race was in four months. That’s all we needed to get through, then I’d be graduating, and no one would care. Three months of sneaking around. I could manage that for something I had no intention of ever giving up.

Handing over the cash, I arrived back at the table to find Brooks scowling at Charlie with his arms crossed firmly over his chest; even when I put the pints down, neither of them paid me the slightest bit of attention.

Weird.

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