Page 130 of You Float My Boat

He walked down the ramp, his arms held wide open while he tunelessly sang,‘We are the Champions’at thetop of his lungs, followed by Oz, Bitters and two more from the crew whose names I couldn’t remember.

‘’Ello ’ello ’ello, what’s goin’ on ’ere then, ladies and gents?’ he smirked, before throwing his arm around me. I promptly threw it off before he could pull me into a headlock or worse, kiss my cheek.

It didn’t seem to deter him, however.

‘’Ello, Stelly Belly,’ he tried again, though he wisely didn’t touch her.

He stepped back, and just stood there with Oz, Bitters and the other two. It didn’t take long for them to notice the tension running through the three of us; Stella and me standing with our arms crossed, and the clench of Charlie’s jaw. Five sets of eyes widened as realization dawned that we were in some kind of stand-off.

The humour on my brother’s face was quickly replaced by confusion, and a little concern.

‘Seriously, what’s going on?’

‘Nothing,’ I snapped, my eyes still fixed on Charlie though he was no longer looking at me. He’d shuffled back and was looking at his feet.

It hadn’t bothered me up to this very second that he was yet to tell my brother about us, but right then as he shrank away it became clear that he had very little intention of doing so, even after our conversation this morning. I’d been blind to the fact that the boys lived together, trained together. He had had plenty of chances, and if he was serious about the two of us, then he would have said something already.

If he was serious about the two of us, he would havegiven me some consideration before agreeing to go on a date with his ex-girlfriend. I’d even have settled for him telling me about their run-in as soon as it had happened, but he hadn’t done that either.

It hadn’t occurred to him, because he hadn’t thought about me at all.

Either way you looked at it, it was fucked up.

‘Nothing is going on at all,’ I repeated, as I tried to swallow down the hot ball of tears creeping up my throat. ‘In fact, Stella and I were leaving. We just came to offer our congratulations.’

‘Yeah. Congratulations boys. So glad you don’t have to go through the ordeal of losing. Even if some of you deserve to.’ It was clear the snarl in her parting comment was only aimed at one person.

‘What?’

It didn’t surprise me that my brother’s face showed nothing but confusion. It did surprise me, however, that Charlie was yet to look at me, though given Stella was now trying to incinerate him with her stare it was unlikely he would.

‘See you around,’ she said, linking her arm with mine.

Before the two of us had even fully left the boathouse, the comments started up.

‘God, my sister is so weird.’

‘Mate, please let me ask her on a date? I beg you.’

‘Violet … Violet, come back!’ called the only voice I’d wanted to hear, but it was the one I was ignoring the most. ‘For fuck’s sake, Violet …’

At least I made it around the corner before I burst into tears.

22. Charlie:

(Shakespeare was an idiot. Nothing’s fair in love or war …)

‘What the fuck did I just walk in on?’ Brooks asked, all of us staring at Violet’s rapidly retreating back. Or maybe it was just me staring.

Anything else he said was drowned out by the ringing in my ears.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How could I have done this? How could I have been so stupid.

‘Charlie?’

I turned to find Brooks glaring at me, Bitters looking confused, Oz leaning against the railings and staring at his feet, while Fellows and Joshi were both on their phones doing their best to look like they weren’t the slightest bit interested in what was going on in front of them. They were.

Based on the direction she’d headed, I had about thirty seconds to make a decision before she reached the path, and I wouldn’t know which fork she’d taken. I only needed five. I stood in front of Brooks.

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