Page 102 of You Float My Boat

I didn’t bother looking behind me as I walked/jogged down the path still trying to be as careful as possible. I knew well enough that Evie would stay on her spot until I was out of sight.

Thankfully I made it, though given Violet was locking the door to her room, I onlyjustmade it. Any thoughtsI was having about strangling Evie vanished the second Violet spotted me. Her face lit up with so much happiness I forgot why I’d been running late entirely.

‘Hey, what are you doing here? Don’t you have class?’ She smiled against my lips, a smile sweeter than anything in this box.

Wrapping my spare arm around her waist, I said, ‘Yeah, I do. But I wanted to drop these off first, because I won’t get to see you before tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ she frowned, right before her eyes opened as they focused on the box still carefully gripped in my other hand.

‘Is that for me?’

‘Yup.’

Stepping back, she took the box and eased off the cardboard lid.

Her gasp was enough to let me know I’d done a good job. Mary Berry eat your heart out.

She peered down, her hand flying to her mouth as she read the words. One pink-iced biscuit letter had been placed on each of the twenty-one chocolate chip cupcakes, heaving with violet frosting.

WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?

17. Violet:

(Bone: verb. Slang. To have sex)

‘We should have cupcakes for breakfast more often,’ Stella declared, staring longingly at the cupcake in her hand like she wanted to get a room with it.

To be fair, they werethatgood.

I looked up at the darkening skies and reached for my umbrella, ‘You better eat that quickly, it looks like it’s about to chuck it down. And that cupcake deserves more than to be rained on.’

‘You’re right,’ she replied, sinking her teeth into the frosting, then stopped walking. ‘God, it’s good.’

She was still licking her lips as I tugged her jacket, ‘Come on, we don’t have time to stop and appreciate cupcakes. We need to meet Charlie and also …’ I looked up again, ‘rain.’

It was definitely going to rain.

‘Wait!’ She took another bite. ‘Now we can walk. Seriously, these are really good. There’d better be more left.’

There were more, but notthatmany. Yes, I’d shared.

I wouldn’t have, but no one in their right mind could eat twenty-one full-sized cupcakes without being sick. No matter how much they wanted to.

And I did want to. I’d tried. The T, B and one of the Ls had all been eaten before yesterday was out.But thinking of my poor dentist, I decided sharing them while they were still fresh was the best answer, because it would have been criminal not to. A couple of girls on my floor in St Anne’s were the recipients of the W, A, E, N and the rest of the Ls. I’d taken a few more to my English and the Romantic Period tutorial first thing this morning – something I thought was wholly appropriate, given it was Valentine’s Day and what was more romantic than sharing a batch of fresh Valentine’s cupcakes made especially for you? Nothing.

But the question mark I’d saved for Stella, and the little shortbread symbol was the first thing to have been demolished. She bit into it like it was the head on a gingerbread man. My V was still sitting on top of my dresser, resting against the mirror. The cupcake underneath it, however, was digesting nicely in my tummy.

And the sugar rush? Yeah, that was pretty good too.

‘No one’s ever baked cupcakes for me,’ she grumbled, taking another bite that resulted in a blob of frosting wedging into her nose. ‘These are so good too. And chocolate chip. Your favourite. And they have violet frosting.’

‘I know.’ I could barely contain the smile; to be honest I didn’t want to. I hadn’t been able to for a few weeks now.

A boy I liked had asked me to be his Valentine on cupcakes he’d made in my favourite flavour.

It didn’t get better than that. It was the type of thing Taylor would write a song about.

‘I think I might cry from the cuteness,’ she wailed. ‘Or maybe throw up.’

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