Page 11 of You Float My Boat

I snatched the documents from the printer and held them side-by-side.

Was this a stupid idea? It was probably a stupid idea.

No. It wasdefinitelya stupid idea.

I was supposed to have an IQ of 150 but figuring a way to get out of the situation I’d gotten myself into was beyond me. Shit-uation more like.

Perhaps I should get the keys to a JCB; it would be a far quicker way to reach the bottom of the giant hole I was digging.

Fucking Evie. This was all her fault.

As I saw it, my problem was three-fold.

If Evie hadn’t been in the pub last week, I’d have never kissed Violet.

If I’d never kissed Violet, I’d still be in the realm of theory versus living the reality.

If I’d never kissed Violet then I wouldn’t now be running on a combination of caffeine and Jaffa Cakes, and no sleep. I’d be able to think clearly, and I wouldn’t have survived a week with an incessant guilt churning in my gut.

Guilt. That’s what it was.

Guilt I’d kissed my best friend’s sister.

Guilt I still hadn’t told him about it.

Guilt that it would never have happened if I’d come up with a different plan in the first place.

But that wasn’t the worst bit.

The worst bit? The really most heinously dreadful guilt-inducing part of kissing Violet Brooks – IthinkI liked it.

No, not think. I did definitely like kissing Violet Brooks.

I’d sworn off women after first year, when Evie cheated on me a second time with David Chamberlain. Since then, I’d had a handful of barely memorable, mostly drunken hook-ups, nothing worth repeating or talking about. I’d rarely thought about them again.

But Violet?

I’d thought about it –her– way too fucking much. For mine or anyone else’s liking. Not that anyone else knew yet. I hadn’tcompletelylost my mind.

It had occurred to me that perhaps I’d only been thinking about kissing Violet because it was months since I’d kissed anyone. Therefore, common sense would suggest it was likely the novelty of kissing someone again which was causing my brain to go into overdrive. But I couldn’t be sure and didn’t know how to prove it without going around campus and kissing three to six other girls – like some snogging focus group.

Except, that kind of behaviour would not only raise several questions I didn’t want to answer but most certainly get back to Evie.

I was stuck with only my Violet kiss to draw conclusions from.

Violet’s mouth on my mouth.

I’d once overheard my sister talking to her friend about some model and her pillowy lips. And I thought,‘What the fuck does that mean? How can lips be like pillows? Stupid way to describe them,’then promptly forgot all about it. But last Wednesday in the Blue Oar, at approximately three p.m., I’d learned exactly what pillowy lips were. Soft and plump, fitting so perfectly into mine I could feel myself sink into them.

Yeah, pillowy was a perfect description.

My body had been on autopilot as it let her take the lead.

I could almost still taste the berries and wine coating her warm, silky tongue as it slid along mine; the delicate moan vibrating up her throat, the violet tips of her honey-coloured strands sliding through my fingers …

Arggh!

See … anytime I think about kissing her I drift off. It’s been fucking impossible to get anything done.

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