Page 4 of You Float My Boat

‘Oh, what’s that?’

‘We try to answer the complexities of the universe.’

‘Good luck with that.’

‘Thank you.’ I grinned back, picking up my pint.

‘How are we going to do this then?’ She waved her hand between the two of us.

I scratched along my jaw. I’d been so fixated onhaving Violet be my fake girlfriend that I hadn’t actually taken any time to considerhowshe’d be my fake girlfriend.

‘Um … well, I guess you’ll have to meet me after class.’

‘Yes, obviously. And …?’

‘And what?’

‘What else?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Charlie, if we’re in a relationship, it’s going to consist of more than me meeting you after class. What about hand-holding? Kissing? Touching? If we’re going to do it, we have to do it properly.’

I coughed up the air which stuck in my throat. ‘Kissing?’

Violet leaned forward, her fingers laced together and propped under her chin. ‘Yes, Charlie, kissing. You need to be convincing. We’re not courting in a Jane Austen novel.’

Shit.

None of this had occurred to me. Kissing or touching of any kind. I assumed that Evie would see us together and that would be enough. Maybe I needed to think this through more. I’d assured Brooks that nothing would happen between Violet and me, yet kissing didn’t quite fall into that category. Maybe I could stipulate I meant no tongues.

No tongues would be acceptable. I hoped.

‘Okay,’ Violet slapped her palms on the table and pushed herself to standing, ‘while you think on that, I’m going to the loo.’

The entire time we’d been talking, the Blue Oar’s navy doors had been opening every couple of minutes as new patrons came in from the cold. Every time a small gust of wind had blown past causing the flames to crackle and spit in annoyance. I’d stopped getting distracted by it after Violet had sat down and I’d been sucked into her orbit.

I was still thinking about how I’d explain kissing her to Brooks when another burst of air flurried past me. The temperature dropped immediately, much more than any other gust before it.

I glanced at the offender. My heart stopped dead. My stomach curled in on itself.

Offender was too kind a word.

Evie Waters.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she had a tracker on me. But I secured my phone enough to know that wasn’t possible. She had always had a sixth sense for where I was going to be.

Like a bad smell following me wherever I went.

No, it was worse than that. It was like being summoned by a demon.

She’d once been the most beautiful girl I’d ever met. She still was.

Aside from a handful of times when I’d seen her outside my tutorials or walking my way in the library, and done a swift about-turn and sprinted through the stacks, I hadn’t seen her in 562 days. But nothing had changed.

Her hair was so dark and shiny I’d once joked I could see my reflection in it. Straighter than an arrow, fallingin a sharp line to her even sharper jaw, there was not a hair out of place. Even the snow falling outside didn’t appear to have touched her.

I wish I didn’t know she woke up like that, each strand falling perfectly where it was supposed to be, like it daren’t do otherwise. Or the way her cheeks were always the same shade of pink as her lips, her ice blue eyes as cold as her heart and her eyelashes as black and thick as her soul. There had been a time when she’d only have to bat them at me and I’d fall over myself to do her bidding.