Page 149 of You Float My Boat

To be honest, I think I was faring pretty damn well considering how my nerves were bouncing quicker than Drake’s yo-yo. One minute I could picture her waiting by the dry dock for me, the next I had visions of sprinting all over London until I found her, dropping to my knees as I begged for a do-over.

The only saving grace of destroying my phone was that I couldn’t obsessively check it to see if she’d messaged, and torment myself if she hadn’t. The only thingI had done was put in a request to Brooks that he let Violet know, and given him a meal of his choosing in return.

Across from me Oz was twisting his hands together. I pulled off the headphones and rested them around my neck.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked, shifting over to sit next to him.

He nodded, slowly. ‘Yeah. Are you?’

‘I think so.’

‘We never did get those badges made, did we?’

I shook my head, my eyes flicking up to the giant clock on the wall, ‘We still have some time.’

At least that raised a smile. ‘Only the next hour to get through before we can start fixing all the shit that’s gone wrong lately.’

‘Yeah. I hope so, mate. I really do,’ I said, scratching through my stubble. I really needed to have a shave, I planned to be kissing Violet all night long and I didn’t want to damage her skin. ‘How are you feeling about racing against Kate?’

‘I dunno. I keep thinking about it, and I just don’t know.’ He dropped his head with a shake, and a heavy sigh that I felt in my chest. ‘Part of me hopes she sprints off the start because then I don’t have to see her while I’m racing. But the other part has never been more desperate to win a race than this one. But winning means I’m beating her.’

His eyes flicked to the side, his lips curved in a wry smile that I understood well. He was screwed either way. I felt his anguish, and I most definitely didn’t envyhim. It would be like me on stage in a competing theatre on Violet’s opening night.

Not that it would ever happen.

I nudged into his shoulder, ‘I don’t know Kate very well, but she doesn’t strike me as the kind of girl who’d be very happy if you didn’t try your absolute hardest to beat her.’ I huffed out a quiet chuckle. I knew Violet would likely skin me alive if I let her win by default because she was my girlfriend, and Kate seemed to be cut from the same cloth.

‘No. She definitely isn’t,’ he chuckled.

‘Then it doesn’t matter how you feel. You need to try your hardest to win. Set the stroke you made us all keep up with for weeks, no one will beat us then. We might all die, but we’ll die winners.’

I didn’t add that we had to win. I had to win this race for Violet. Ineededto win this race for Violet. If we won, everything would be okay.

All heads turned to us as Oz let out a roar of laughter, though as nothing interesting seemed to be happening everyone quickly turned back to what they were doing.

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

‘It’s okay. I get it now.’

‘And I get why you swore off love for so long,’ he shot back.

I huffed out a dry chuckle. ‘Didn’t really work though, did it?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head, his eyes glancing up to mine, and his tone quietened, ‘I hope Violet’s waiting.’

I smiled, ‘Me too. And if she’s not then I’m going to find her. I’m not losing her.’

‘Yeah. I know how you feel.’ He knocked his knee against mine.

‘Don’t worry, like Shakespeare said, all’s well that ends well.’

He side-eyed me, ‘Mate, I don’t think that means what you think it means.’

‘It means it’ll all be fine in the end.’

He shook his head, ‘No, it doesn’t –’

‘What? Yes it does.’ I held my hand up before he could say otherwise, and this entire conversation could veer further away from the point I was trying to make than it already had, and I was not in the mood for an English lesson. ‘Whatever, if Shakespeare’s characters can have a happy ending, then so can we.’

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