Chapter 4 Alex
The boathouse was empty when I got there.
Good.
I needed empty. Needed the echo of the space, the bite of autumn air through the bay windows, the mechanical rhythm of the erg chain. I needed to burn off the noise in my head without anyone watching.
Sunday afternoon meant most of the team was recovering. Resting. Being smart about tomorrow's first joint practice.
I wasn't being smart.
I was already mid-workout—twenty minutes into what was supposed to be a forty-five-minute steady-state piece—and I'd come here specifically to make it hurt.
The fan whined. The chain rattled. My breathing found the rhythm: pull, exhale, recover, inhale. Over and over. Controlled. Mechanical. Everything on the outside exactly where it should be.
Inside was a different story.
The monitor glowed in front of me. Split: 1:52. Heart rate: 162. Stroke rate: 22.
Clean numbers. Sustainable pace. Textbook steady state.
My phone sat on the floor beside the erg, screen dark. I'd read Ethan's email this morning. Hadn't answered it yet.
Subject: Joint Program Mixer - Need Your Help
The subject line alone had made my stomach drop.
Alex,
Are you going to handle logistics for the joint crew fundraiser?
Venue coordination with The Riverside Club downtown (contact: Maria Chen, already sent initial inquiry).
Sponsor outreach to local businesses (list attached).
Team coordination between Kingswell and Riverside rosters for setup/breakdown volunteers.
VT Film festival submission is due in two weeks. I can't finish editing and pull this off.
Ethan
I pulled another stroke. Then another. Let the rhythm quiet the memory of opening that email. No greeting. No warmth. Transactional. Like he was emailing a stranger instead of someone who used to be his best friend.
My chest tightened and I pulled harder on the handle.
The memory surfaced before I could stop it: Ethan's room. Being drunk. The way I'd kissed him. The way I'd pushed into him.
The look on his face when I finally stopped.
Split: 1:50.
I was supposed to be holding 1:52. Supposed to be keeping this sustainable.
I pulled harder anyway. It was punishment dressed as preparation.
This wasn't forgiveness. Ethan wasn't asking me because we were friends. He was asking because he was desperate enough to accept help from someone who'd hurt him. Because I owed him more than I could ever repay, and this was the smallest possible start.
The film festival mattered to him. Actually mattered—his passion, his future, the thing he cared about more than anything at Kingswell.
And I'd get to help make it possible.
That felt right. Not in a way that absolved anything. In the way that penance is supposed to feel—earned and insufficient.
Split: 1:46.
My quads were burning now. Heart rate climbing past 170. Lactic acid building in my legs—that familiar fire that meant I was pushing past smart training into something reckless.
Thirty minutes done. Fifteen to go.
My thoughts slipped to Saturday night.
Liam.
The image surfaced before I could stop it: his hands on my head, pulling me closer. The weight of him in my mouth. The taste of him. The sounds he'd made when I took him deeper.
Heat spread through my chest and lower.
Split: 1:43.
I was supposed to be at 1:52.
Tomorrow was the first joint practice—five-thirty in the morning.
I'd see him for the first time since his bed.
Could I control myself around him?
The more honest question: did I even want to?
The questions cycled, relentless, syncing with the stroke rate.
How was I supposed to stand next to him, row near him, exist in the same space without everyone seeing exactly what I was feeling? My blade catches would give me away. The way I moved around him.
Everyone would know.
Split: 1:41.
Dangerous. This was dangerous pace for steady state—the kind of effort that would leave me hollow for tomorrow's practice. The rational part of my brain knew that. The rest of me didn't care.
My form was starting to slip. Back rounding slightly at the catch. Yanking the handle instead of smoothly loading the drive. Technical flaws that Coach Eldridge would have identified in seconds—muscling through instead of maintaining efficiency.
Thirty-five minutes. Ten to go.
Breathing ragged. Heart rate 178. Way too high for this type of piece.
I was tired. Not just physically.
Tired of pretending. Tired of managing my expression, editing every gesture, carrying secrets in my body day after day. The performance of being Alex Harrington—controlled, composed, the golden boy who never cracked—was becoming more exhausting than any erg piece.
How much longer could I sustain this?
The answer settled in my chest like something I'd known for a while: not much longer.
But I didn't know what came after, or how to stop performing without everything collapsing. My father. My team. My place at Kingswell. Everything built on a foundation of carefully maintained fiction.
Split: 1:40.
My form was really breaking down now. Lower back complaining. Shoulders hunching forward. The flywheel spinning too fast for the recovery rate.
"That's not training pace."
A voice cut through my spiral. I looked up.
Derek stood a few feet away, towel slung over his shoulder, expression casual but eyes sharp.
How long had he been watching?
I eased off the stroke rate. Let my breathing settle. "Just prepping for tomorrow."
Derek's gaze flicked to the monitor. The splits. The heart rate. The duration.
His jaw shifted.
"That's punishment pace," he said.
I wiped sweat from my face with my shirt. Didn't respond.
Derek watched me for a moment.
Forty minutes. Five to go. I should finish.
"Your back's rounding and you're yanking the handle instead of loading it," he said.
I pulled another stroke. Tried to correct—lengthen through the spine, smooth application of pressure through the drive. My body knew how to do this, and had done it ten thousand times before.
My mind was somewhere else.
"You know what I said still stands," he said.
I looked at him. His expression was steady. Patient. The same look he'd given me on the bridge that afternoon when he'd told me about his father, about falling apart, about asking for help.
You don't have to be perfect. Just honest.
"Being honest isn't easy," I said.
He smirked. "One step at a time, Harrington. I'm here if you need me."
He squeezed my shoulder and walked toward the locker room.
I finished the last five minutes alone.
By the time I unstrapped and stood, my legs were shaking. Not just from exertion—from the adrenaline crash, the emotional exhaustion, the weight of forty-five minutes spent trying to out-row the feelings that lived inside me.
Final split: 1:46 average. Heart rate max: 182.
Way too fast and way too hard, but I deserved it. I grabbed my water bottle and drained it.
The locker room was empty. Steam from Derek's shower still clung to the air, warm and thick against the cool seeping through the windows.
I stopped in front of the mirror above the sinks.
My reflection stared back—hair damp with sweat, face flushed, Kingswell blue clinging to my shoulders. I pulled the shirt over my head and dropped it on the bench.
The mirror showed what years of rowing had built: lean muscle across my shoulders and back, defined chest, the cut of my obliques disappearing into my waistband. Not bulky. Efficient. A body designed for enduring pain.
I looked good. I knew I looked good.
The irony was suffocating—I'd spent years sculpting something that performed exactly as expected, and the only time it had felt like mine was Saturday night. Liam's hands on this skin. His eyes on my body—not on Alex Harrington, legacy athlete, Kingswell golden boy—but on me. Wanting me.
I stripped off the rest and left my clothes in a smelly heap by the bench.
I walked into the shower room, turned on the water, and stepped under the spray.
Hot water hit my shoulders. Ran down my back, over my chest, my stomach. The heat sank into my muscles, loosening the tension even as my mind stayed wound tight.
I closed my eyes.
Immediately: Liam's face.
The way he'd looked at me in his dorm room—green eyes intense and full of desire. His hands on my ribs, then my hips, gripping like he couldn't get enough. The taste of his dick.
My body responded before I could stop it.
Heat pooling low. Arousal building despite the exhaustion, despite everything.
I braced one hand against the tile. Let my forehead rest against my forearm. The water pounded against my back, almost too hot, streaming down my spine trying to gu me back from my thoughts.
I didn't touch myself.
Just stood there. Feeling it. Acknowledging it.
That was the truth I'd been trying to out-row, out-discipline, out-control for over a year. Maybe longer.
What I felt for Liam—whatever it was—wasn't a phase. Saturday night had proved that. Liam was all I wanted for the last year and I'd been trying to deny it. The way my body had known exactly what it wanted. The relief of finally giving in.
These feelings were part of me and hiding them forever wasn't possible.
I turned off the water. Grabbed my towel and dried off mechanically—legs, torso, hair. Got dressed.
Everything felt heavy.
Walking back to my dorm through the late-afternoon light, my legs ached with every step. A good ache. The kind that meant I'd actually worked instead of just going through the motions.
Tomorrow at the Kingswell boathouse, both teams would mix for the first time—and he would be there.
Excitement rose in my chest at the thought of seeing him again—his green eyes, and the smile he made when he was happy and trying to hide it.
Twenty-four hours until I had to stand next to him, row near him, exist in the same space—and pretend Saturday night hadn't changed everything.
I didn't know if I could do it. Didn't know if the performance would hold, or if it would finally crack open and everyone would see what I'd been hiding.
But Derek's voice settled in my chest: One step at a time.
And somewhere beneath the exhaustion and the fear, a sense that everything was going to change.
Honesty was working on me, whether or not I was ready.