Page 113 of You Float My Boat

But Charlie is Charlie, who I only needed to tell once and he’d get it. A moan here, a gasp there and he’d move heaven and earth to make sure he heard it again.

And he did move heaven and earth.

But hey, like I said. Genius.

The proverbial band-aid had been ripped off so to speak. The lines had been crossed. There was no going back, and it seemed we were definitely making the most of it.

Over the last week, we’d had sex every single day. I’d briefly wondered how we’d found the time, but it turns out two people who’d recently discovered their mutual lust, attraction and feelings for each other are very clever at scheduling when they put their minds to it. Between my college room, the upper stalls of the theatre, and the library – from which I still had carpet burn on my arse – we’d covered quite a bit of ground.

The only place we hadn’t returned to was Charlie’s bedroom. For obvious reasons.

Namely, the fact my brother still thought we were fake dating, but mostly because even I didn’t want to be having sex, with him in the room above us. Therefore, my advice was to hold off telling him until after the Boat Race, to which Charlie had responded, ‘That’s still a month away. I can’t lie for another month, Violet.’ But then I’d dragged him off to the stacks in the library and we didn’t talk about it again.

I was rushing down the street and still deep in thought when a large wheezing lump appeared to my right, careering towards me like a bowling ball. Due to the fact it was still getting dark at 5 p.m., I didn’t see her in time, therefore didn’t move quickly enough to avoid her.

‘There you are,’ Stella puffed, doubling over to rest her hands on her knees, while I righted myself. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

‘Why? I told you I was picking up the dry cleaning.’

‘Dry cleaning. You never go to the dry cleaners.’

‘You do, though. It’s that dress you lent me.’

Stella stood up, a knowing smile breaking across hermouth as her hands crossed behind her head so she could inhale more air. ‘Oh. That dress. The one that broke Charlie’s brain.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Yup.’

‘Poor Charlie,’ she cackled.

‘I’ll pass on your concern,’ I replied, stopping in front of the dry cleaners, with a sigh of relief. It was still open. ‘Why were you looking for me, anyway? And why were you running?’

The little electronic bell rang out as we stepped into the shop, joining the queue of everyone else who’d rushed to get here before closing time. ‘My class finished early, thought we could go for a drink.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I replied, handing my ticket over as we got to the front of the counter. ‘Okay. I don’t have anything else to do.’

‘Gee. Thanks.’ She rolled her eyes.

I nudged her. ‘Shut up, you know what I mean. I’m done with classes, and just handed an essay in. Which means the next one I have to start can wait until tomorrow. Unless you want to practise some lines.’

‘Ugh, no,’ she groaned, her tongue lolling to the side as she threw her head back. ‘Let’s take the night off from work and stay in the pub until closing time.’

I really didn’t have anything else to do. Not that it made a difference; between classes, rehearsals and now seeing Charlie, it had been a while since we’d drunk until the bell rang.

I took the dress, wrapped in clear plastic, and passed it over to Stella. ‘Here, thank you very much. You were right, this dress was perfect.’

‘My work here is done,’ she grinned. ‘You can buy the drinks.’

‘Sounds good.’ I looped my arm through hers and we walked back out into the street. ‘Let’s see if the other girls are around. I don’t think we’ve seen Cecily outside of the theatre since the beginning of term.’

‘She lives for the stage,’ Stella grinned and led the way to the pub.

Less than forty-five minutes later we were ensconced in one of the leather booths at the Feather and Farthing next to a roaring fire, a giant bowl of chips between us along with two large glasses of merlot, the plastic-wrapped dress carefully draped over the empty seat next to her.

Stella leaned back against the leather, the stem of her wine glass spinning between her fingers. ‘Mmm. This is what student life is about.’

‘It is,’ I nodded, dipping a fat chip into the bowl of ketchup.

‘Actually,’ she said, putting her glass down and sliding out of the seat, ‘hang on.’

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