Page 125 of You Float My Boat

‘You want me to be your boyfriend?’

My shoulder jerked up again, even though there hadto be a thousand worms squirming in my belly. It was only what I’d wanted for the past five years.

‘Yeah, ifyouwant.’

Charlie shook his head, a smirk curving the side of his lip. ‘I want. A real one, that your entire family knows about. But … would you rather I was a rugby player?’

Sucking in the side of my mouth, my head crooked as I looked at him. ‘Nah. I’ll keep you as a rower. It’s okay. Hmm, my boyfriend’s a rower …’ I drummed my fingers against my cheek, ‘yeah, I like the sound of it.’

‘Well, thank fuck for that.’ He smacked a kiss to my lips, except he didn’t pull away like I expected him to.

Instead, it deepened. His big hands held tight onto my face as he became more insistent. Needy almost. And by the time he pulled away, if I hadn’t already been sitting in bed, I’d have needed something to cushion my fall because there’s no way my legs would have held me up. ‘I’m so glad I found you, Violet. You’ve no idea. I can’t believe you were under my nose the whole time.’

When I glanced up, there was an expression I couldn’t read swimming behind his big green eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, never better.’

He turned and winked, right before he closed the door behind him. The second I heard the click of the latch I fell back against the pillows with a smile you could have seen from space, before falling back to sleep. I was so tired it didn’t dawn on me until later that he never calledmehis girlfriend.

‘God, where have all these people come from? I swear there aren’t this many students at Oxford. Why is it so busy?’ Stella grumbled.

‘It’s the final weekend before Easter and everyone’s stayed instead of going home, plus it’s sunny.’

Sunny was putting it mildly. According to the weatherman this morning, the southern parts of England would experience one of those freak early heatwaves with temperatures expected to reach 30 degrees. Therefore, in true British fashion the pub doors had been flung open and beer tents had been erected along the banks of the river. While I was all for the warmer weather, it did mean I couldn’t wear Charlie’s jumper unless I wanted to die from heat exhaustion. So, I’d tied it around my waist, but I could already feel the sweat pooling at my back where it was resting.

I’d predicted it would be busy, but I hadn’t guessed it would bethisbusy and I kind of wished I’d dragged Stella out a little earlier. Even with my post-sex nap I’d been fully awake and raring to go by nine a.m., but Stella had insisted we eat breakfast at the table instead of on the go, so by the time we finally left to walk down to the river we’d found ourselves among the crowds of Oxford students who’d had exactly the same idea.

We were walking among a sea of navy flags, carried by an army of pastel-shorts-wearing guys; a rainbow of pinks, yellows, pale blues and greens because the first sunny day meant the summer wardrobe had been raided.

‘Okay, we need a plan for where we’re going to watch. I say we go to the finish line.’

‘You don’t think it’ll be too busy?’

‘It will, but last year they set up a drinks tent so it’ll be easier for us to drink and watch.’

‘What about if I go to the riverbank and secure our spot, and you go to the bar?’

‘Good idea.’ She grabbed my arm and pulled me quickly past a group of approximately twenty guys, until I was almost jogging alongside her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘We’re not getting to the bar after them,’ she hissed, ‘we’ll be waiting all day.’

Her plan seemed to work because there was only a very small queue by the time we made it, deciding to abandon our original plan of splitting up, small enough that I waited with her as she ordered, and we took our drinks to an open space beside the Isis, between two of the college boathouses.

Across the banks, on the other side of the river, University of Bath supporters were out in full force, distinguishable by their royal blue and yellow colours.

‘Can’t believe this is the first race we’ve managed to get to.’

‘I know. I’m sure someone intervened to get Cecily to let us have this weekend off.’

‘Leo did,’ muttered Stella, and looked away.

I waited to see if she had anything else to add to her announcement, like he was the biggest pain in the arse she’d ever met, how annoying he’d been in rehearsals the other day, or French, or life in general. But now I came to think about it, I hadn’t heard her complain about Leo for a while.

‘Anyway,’ she continued before I could think any more of it, ‘what’s the run of the day?’

I turned around, looking for the notice board which usually listed the times of the races, ‘I’m not sure. It’ll get announced soon.’

Oxford had four main crewed eights – the men’s and women’s Blue Boats were the number one boats for each club followed by Isis and Osiris, the men’s and women’s second boats.

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