Page 18 of You Float My Boat

‘Anyway, I know you have tons to do. I won’t keep you too long.’ My hand moved to the notebook.

‘What’s that?’

‘I started to write out some rules …’ I began before the notebook was snatched up, and Violet flicked through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

‘There’s only one rule.’ Her forehead creased deeply, ‘No kissing? But Charlie … we did already.’

My mouth held in a firm line. ‘Yeah, I know. But I think maybe we shouldn’t.’

‘Oh –’

‘Just because I don’t think Brooks would be too happy,’ I blurted before I could change my mind, especially given the look on Violet’s face, which kind of resembled disappointment. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Because no one was more disappointed than me. ‘You’re his little sister.’

Violet rolled her eyes.

‘My brother needs to get over himself. No kissing isn’t exactly realistic,’ she replied, grabbing the pen and scribbling something on the page, though from the angle I couldn’t see what she’d written. ‘Okay, next rule. What have you been thinking about?’

I wasnotgoing to answer that question.

Instead, I went with, ‘How often we see each other?’

She took a deep breath. ‘If we’re talking realistically, we should probably do at least one more than just the class with Evie in it, and you ought to come and meet me at mine too otherwise it’s a little weird. If I was your actual girlfriend I wouldn’t be happy always meeting you if you didn’t come to meet me.’ Her eyes briefly flicked to mine, ‘And we need to be seen together outside of that too, like for coffee or something. What else can you think of?’

‘Um …’ my eyes widened, ‘what about coming to my races? That’s a girlfriend thing to do, right?’

She nodded, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh. ‘Yeah, that’s a girlfriend thing to do. When are they?’

‘Saturdays.’

‘Ah,’ she winced, ‘we’ll definitely have rehearsals on Saturdays, but I’ll try and make it when I can.’

‘That’s okay,’ I replied, hoping to keep the disappointment from my voice at losing a fleeting vision of having Violet cheer me on from the riverbank.

Another point was recorded in the notebook.

‘I could meet you after training sometimes.’

My heartbeat kicked up again. ‘That sounds good.’

‘Now what about touching?’

‘Touching?’

‘Yeah. We talked about it last week. Touching in public. We’re going to be seen out and about, so if we’re together we should be holding hands or something.’

She tapped the pen against her plump bottom lip, and it took all my energy to force my gaze away.

‘Holding hands is good,’ I managed eventually, ‘and that back pocket thing you did.’

Her eyes shot up, capturing my gaze so intently that I had to grip my fist around my glass to stop myself from pulling her into me and kissing her until we needed to come up for air.

What was wrong with me?

‘Yeah, I can do that again,’ she answered finally.

Down it went in the notepad.

‘Next one. Instagram.’

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