Page 13 of You Float My Boat

‘Actually, mate … can I talk to you about something?’

‘Sure, what?’ I think he mumbled, though his head was too far inside the fridge to decipher properly.

I should have known better. It was pointless trying to talk to Oz about anything unless he’d been fed. He was also the most inept person I’d ever met in a kitchen. He could barely butter bread. My biggest achievement in recent years had been teaching him how to successfully make our morning porridge before training, especially because it meant I got to spend an extra fifteen minutes in bed.

The rucksack was dropped back on the table. Gentlyshoving him out of the way, I grabbed the remains of a chicken I’d roasted for dinner yesterday, along with salad and tomatoes.

‘Get the bread. I’ll make you a sandwich.’

He grinned wide and slapped me on the back. ‘You turned up just in time, Charles. I’d starve without you.’

Oz removed two slices of the sourdough I’d bought this morning, placed them on the wooden cutting board, sat down at the kitchen island and waited. I’d made him enough food that he knew the drill by now. Both of them did.

We’d known each other long enough that living together was far more domesticated than it should be for three guys in their early twenties, but each of us had very specific roles.

I cooked, shopped and organized the day-to-day running of the house; Brooks managed our diary – which included everyone’s whereabouts, bins and recycling; Oz managed the bills and finances.

It had been this way since we moved in together during first year. Our street was quiet, with mostly families, therefore very few parties took place keeping us awake all night like they had at Trinity College. Parents and rowers seem to follow the same early-to-bed, early-to-rise agenda.

The other reason we’d moved out of halls was Evie.

After she’d gone off with Dave Chamberlain, I’d bumped into her/them far too much for my liking. The final straw had occurred one Saturday morning: Oz and I happened to be on our way back from a jog, and spotted Evie and Dave near to Trinity, where neither ofthem had any reason to be, in an embrace that looked like they were trying to survive on carbon dioxide alone.

After Oz had calmed me down, he called a meeting between the three of us and announced he was taking an investment opportunity, and we promptly went house hunting.

A month later, we moved into number 5 Tolkien Lane.

It had already been modernized, and the best thing about the house was the kitchen – the people who’d lived here before obviously liked to cook. As did I.

I’d been brought up in a family who knew the value of good food. My parents own a restaurant group, the jewel in the crown of which is Petal – a three-Michelin-star establishment my dad runs just outside London, with views of the River Thames. While I’d never wanted to become a chef, my siblings and I grew up watching and learning. If you wanted a meal in our house, you earned it by chopping vegetables or making a marinade.

By the time I was twelve I could debone a chicken and fillet a fish.

I spend time in the kitchen the way other people do yoga. I can lose myself for hours on the perfect Sunday roast; and our house is usually full after a long weekend of hard training when everyone comes back here to be fed.

I spooned out a dollop of mayonnaise onto the bread and pushed it towards Oz to spread.

‘Do you want tomatoes?’

He nodded, ‘Yes please.’

‘How’s Kate?’ I asked, slicing one up as thinly as Icould, while simultaneously trying to buy myself some time and figure out how to broach the subject of Violet.

While Oz was supportive of the whole ‘Operation Get Rid of Evie’, I couldn’t see him thinking that making out with Violet was a good idea. EvenIdidn’t think it was a good idea.

It wasn’t.

‘She’s good, though I haven’t seen her since New Year. I feel like I’m getting withdrawal. Spending all that time together at Christmas was amazing, but now I don’t know when I’ll see her again. Even though that river cleaning was a stupid pain in the arse, at least it meant I got to see her. Training is already getting more intense.’

I nodded, ‘Yeah, I know. This term is going to be a lot.’

‘I can’t wait until the race is over so we can stop hiding,’ he grumbled, tipping the bag of crisps into his mouth until the last shreds fell in, then going back to the bread he was preparing.

Oz’s girlfriend Kate was studying medicine at Cambridge. He’d met her at the beginning of the school year, on a visit to the city for reasons we probably shouldn’t mention. He’d been smitten at first sight, while she didn’t want anything to do with him as a member of the rival boat club crew because, as he’d learned later, Kate was a member of the Cambridge women’s boat club. His perseverance had paid off, however, and he and Kate soon became as inseparable as a couple could be 200 miles apart. Even though we weren’t going to be racing directly against her, they’d been keeping theirrelationship a secret, more for Kate’s sake than Oz’s. Oz would shout about it from the rooftops given half a chance.

‘Only two and a half months left,’ I smiled in an attempt to pull him back out of the mood he’d suddenly dropped into.

‘It feels so far away.’ He pushed the sourdough over to me, ‘That reminds me, Coach called and we have to get to the boathouse by four.’

---