Page 88 of Oar Than Friends

‘Pie? I knew I was going to like you. Thank you, my dear, this is very thoughtful.’ His mom took them like she’d been handed a chest of treasure, smiling again, except this time I noticed a little redness ringing her eyes, ‘Now, come on. You must all be famished. Phoebe, go and find your brothers please; they won’t be far seeing as they’ve been complaining about being hungry since breakfast finished.’

Phoebe flung her arm around her mother’s shoulder, and sweetly kissed her cheek. She then threw her head back and bellowed the boys’ names, something I’d bet my life savings on wasn’t what her mother wanted. The three of us winced, before collapsing into a fit of giggles, especially when Daphne attempted to cover Phoebe’s mouth with a hand slap but she jumped out of the way before she could.

From the way her smile stretched across her face as she watched her mother laugh, it was clear that had been her goal. Because no one likes seeing their mom cry.

Oz wrapped his hand around mine and we followed in the direction everyone had gone. His head tilted as we locked eyes. ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’

I lifted one shoulder in a shrug as Phoebe’s words came back to me, ‘No reason. Have you really never brought anyone here?’

‘The boys.’

‘No one else?’

He shook his head, ‘No, I’ve never met anyone I wanted to bring here. Until you.’

‘Oh,’ I smiled at him as my chest squeezed, thinking about the words he’d left unsaid.

It wasn’t the first time I’d thought Oz and I were similar, even though I was currently standing in a home bigger than most palaces. Our bank accounts might be different, but even from this brief glimpse into his wider world I could see his life wasn’t as gilded as people assumed, that we were much more similar than even I’d thought. His brother might not have died, but he was living with the same grief and anger I did. He didn’t just have his mom to protect, he’d taken on the role of protecting his siblings too. No one had come here because he’d never trusted anyone to come here.

The trust he’d put in me wrapped around me better than his sweater still under my pillow.

17. Arthur

(Dead or asleep?)

‘Happy Christmas Eve.’

I’d whispered it, but still figured it was loud enough to create some kind of stirring movement. It didn’t.

As a person whose internal alarm clock went off at five thirty a.m. every day whether they wanted it to or not, it was incredibly annoying to be lying next to someone who slept like the dead. If she wasn’t visibly breathing, I’d have checked her pulse. Especially when I wanted that someone to be awake, so I could take full advantage of the first morning we’d had waking up together, with the sole aim of staying in bed most of the day.

I’d tried to go back to sleep but it had been an impossible task, especially when my body was on full alert with the knowledge that its other half was naked and snoring softly less than a foot away. She’d become a magnet for my dick, and it wanted attention.

Instead, I’d picked up a book, but found my eyes wandering over to her every thirty seconds until I became wholly distracted by the way her long hair fanned across the pillow, how her lips parted with every slow exhale and her thick lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she dreamed. If I was an artist I’d have grabbed a pencil and drawn her, because I’d never seen anything so perfect.

After collecting her from Downing, and bringing herhome, I’d fully expected her to cry off for the afternoon to study, but instead we all curled up with one of Phoebe’s movies and ate popcorn. We’d walked the dogs around the estate, played Scrabble – I’d won; played Uno – Kate had won; played poker and no one had won because we’d then sat down for dinner and returned to find Hector’s cat had jumped on the cards after being chased through the house by one of the dogs, and they’d scattered all over the floor. So, then we played Monopoly until I was on the verge of yawning and dragged us off to bed to the cries of protest from Phoebe who’d decided Kate was her new best friend.

It fell on deaf ears. After three weeks apart, I’d had plans for Kate before we fell asleep, so I should probably take part responsibility for why she hadn’t yet woken up. Yesterday had been a long day, and I hadn’t wanted it to end.

It had been a whole day of firsts, and I planned to make manymanymore before we had to go back to the realities of uni and the distance.

Dropping a kiss on her shoulder, I eased out of bed and padded along the floor to the bathroom to brush my teeth, pulling on my pyjama pants and a hoodie as I did. I also added a pair of thick woollen socks, because this house was old and the stone tiles on the ground floor in the middle of December were no joke. Taking a final look over my shoulder to check she was still asleep, I opened the door and made my way downstairs.

The Christmas tree lights around the house and the entrance hall had all been switched on, and the music playing softly down the corridors made it clear Phoebe wasyet to wake up. In fact, I’d be surprised if anyone was awake yet beyond the housekeepers, given it was only seven thirty. I followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen to find Biscuit and Cheese, the two fox-red Labradors, barely glancing up from their basket, and my youngest brother, Alexander, over by the kitchen sink trying to shove something into it.

‘What are you doing?’ He’d been making so much noise, he didn’t notice me behind him until I peered around his shoulder, ‘Al?’

‘Jesus, fuck, Artie,’ he snapped.

I glanced down to find half of a newspaper screwed up in his hand, the other half of which was sticking out of the kitchen sink waste disposal from where he’d been shoving it like evidence he needed to destroy.

‘You can’t put paper down there, you idiot. You break it and James will be on the warpath.’ I tugged out the remains and removed the newspaper from his hand, and opened it.

It became clear why exactly he was trying to reduce it to the pulp it once was.

Even though it was incredibly mangled, my dad’s eyes could be recognized anywhere because they were the same as mine; the same as all of ours. From the looks of it, and half of his bare chest, he was on a beach. I hadn’t even known he was going away, though that was everything to do with the calls I’d refused to answer.

‘Where is this?’

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