Page 100 of You Float My Boat

‘Yeah, Valentine’s card?’

Oz’s panicked face shot up to Brooks and me. ‘Shit. I didn’t think about that. A card …’

‘The florist will drop a note in,’ piped up Brooks, only to be shot down with a scowl from Oz.

‘I’m not having the florist write my note to Kate,’ he snapped, ‘Ol, I’ll call you back. Okay, I need to find a florist, find a card, and drive it over to Olly.’

It was hard to tell whose eyebrows had shot higher, mine or Brooks’. Oz didn’t notice because he was too busy scrolling through his phone, but the way Brooks was still staring at me made it clear he thought Oz was losing his mind. Or maybe he’d lost it already, seeing as driving two hours across the country to deliver a Valentine’s Day card when we both knew for a fact he had classes this afternoon, not to mention cutting it fine for training this evening was something only a crazy person would attempt.

Instead, Brooks pushed out of the stool and dropped his empty mug in the sink. ‘Those cupcakes were just what I needed. Now if you’ll excuse me, chaps, I have work to do.’

Shifting around Oz to pick up the bag he’d dropped on the floor, he walked out with a backward wave and jogged up the stairs.

Typical.

I flicked on the kettle again and turned around. ‘Mate. Are you sure you want to be driving to Cambridge? It’s a four-hour round trip and that’s with light traffic. You’ll miss your classes. The florist can print the note, it’s not a big deal.’

He didn’t reply, just kept scrolling through his phone, and I wasn’t about to push the point. Instead, I checked the cupcakes, because I was also running on a time limit. But, they’d cooled enough, so I picked the best twenty-one and got to work.

‘That’s not purple frosting, is it Charlie?’ Oz said quietly as he watched me scoop it into the piping bag.

‘It looks purple to me,’ I frowned, ‘Are you colourblind?’

‘Nope,’ he replied, picking up his phone. ‘But that’s violet.’

I stayed silent for long enough that we both knew exactly what he meant.

‘Exactly.’ Oz turned at the door before leaving the kitchen, ‘If you want me to keep up the pretence that this relationship of yours is fake, then I suggest you mind your own business where Kate and I are concerned.’

Fuck.

I was still thinking about Oz’s comment as I rushed over to St Anne’s. Notrushedrushed, because I had a box of perfectly frosted cupcakes in my hands, but I’dbeen walking with enough speed so as not to be drastically late, but not so much that I’d risk violet frosting getting everywhere.

But turns out that the payoff for being careful didn’t pertain to other things.

If I hadn’t been carrying cupcakes, I’d have cycled. But because I was, therefore didn’t, I ended up getting caught in something much worse than a frosting mishap.

Though I told myself if she hadn’t found me now, she would have found me another time. She’d find me wherever I was.

‘Charlie?’

I spun around and braced myself for the panic I knew was about to rush through me, filling my nervous system with a toxic combination of adrenaline and cortisol. I stood there and waited. Waited some more.

Nothing.

It was pure annoyance making my heart pump harder.

I was already running late. I didn’t want to be later.

It dawned on me as Evie got up from the bench she’d been sitting on and closed the ten feet between us, that I hadn’t thought about her at all this week. In fact, I was certain that Evie had barely crossed my mind since I’d walked out of the class last Thursday to find Violet waiting for me. Because the Violet Effect had kicked in and she’d become my sole focus.

Even as Evie stopped in front of me, wrapped up head to toe in her standard black, which I knew she wore so her blue eyes appeared bluer, I felt nothing.

Well, except for the annoyance.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, my tone harsher than I meant it to be. Actually on second thoughts it was exactly the right amount of harsh.

St Anne’s was around the corner, Pembroke – Evie’s college – was twenty minutes in the opposite direction. There was absolutely no reason for her to be here.

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