CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bo
The team house feels like a powder keg after Thursday afternoon's disaster of a practice. Gray storms out first, slamming his car door hard enough that we hear it from the dock. Jackson and Eli disappear together without a word. The rest scatter like shrapnel.
Reese sits on the dock edge, staring at the water. She hasn't moved in ten minutes.
"That's it," I mutter, pulling out my phone.
Tyler glances over from where he's hosing down oars. "What's it?"
"Someone needs to make a decision before this team completely implodes."
I text Zane: Need you to do something. No questions.
His response is immediate: what do you need?
Go to Reese's dorm. Pack her a bag. Clothes for two days, toiletries, whatever. Leave it in my truck.
Three dots appear and disappear several times before: on it
"Where's she going?" Tyler asks, because of course he's been reading over my shoulder.
"Away from here."
"Gray won't—"
"Gray's not in charge right now." The words come out harder than I've said anything to Tyler in three years. "He lost that privilege when he started tearing the team apart."
Tyler's eyebrows rise but he doesn't argue. We both watched Gray nearly come to blows with Jackson again at practice. Watched him bark orders that made no sense, push us through drills we couldn't complete, refuse to acknowledge that we're falling apart.
Two weeks. Torres gave us two weeks to fix this before she recommends suspension. We've burned through two days acting like children.
I walk down the dock to where Reese sits. Her voice is completely shot from trying to cox us through the disaster. She barely managed the last few commands.
"Get up," I tell her.
She looks up, surprised at my tone. "What?"
"You heard me. Get up. We're leaving."
"Bo, I have to—"
"No." I reach down and haul her to her feet. She weighs nothing, this tiny thing who somehow holds eight Alpha rowers together. "You don't have to do anything except come with me."
"Where?"
"Does it matter?"
She studies my face, sees something there that makes her stop arguing. "Let me get my bag."
"Already handled."
"How—" She stops, a ghost of a smile crossing her face. "Zane or Beckett?"
"Zane."
I guide her to my truck with a hand on her lower back. Not asking permission, not giving her space to overthink. Someone needs to take control of this situation, and apparently that someone is me.
"You're different," she observes as I open the passenger door.
"I'm done watching this team destroy itself. And I'm done watching you kill yourself trying to hold us together."
She climbs in without further protest. Progress.
I drive us away from campus in silence, letting her decompress. She's been running on fumes for days. Dark circles under her eyes, shoulders locked with tension, that careful control fraying at the edges. The Thursday afternoon practice was just the final straw.
Twenty minutes out, I pull into a grocery store.
"Stay here," I tell her.
"Bo—"
"Stay."
She blinks at the command but settles back in her seat.
I grab basics. Nothing fancy—bread, eggs, bacon, fruit, coffee. Real food, not the energy bars and coffee she's been surviving on. At the last second, I add a bottle of bourbon. We might need it.
When I get back, she's dozed off against the window. The sight does something to my chest. She trusts me enough to sleep in public. Trusts that I can keep her safe no matter how far away I am.
Ten more minutes down a winding road, and I pull up to the cabin. It's nothing special—just a rental I found on an app as soon as I realized someone needed to intervene. Basic A-frame with a deck overlooking woods. Far enough from campus that no one will think to look for us.
"Reese." I touch her shoulder gently. "We're here."
She jolts awake, immediately alert. She rubs her eyes as she looks around the wooded area. "Where's here?"
"Somewhere that isn't in the middle of whatever is happening back at campus."
She takes in the cabin, the surrounding woods, the complete absence of anything rowing-related. "You planned this."
"Someone had to."
Inside, it's exactly what the photos showed. Simple furniture, stone fireplace, basic kitchen. Clean and quiet.
"Why?" she asks, setting down the bag Zane packed.
"Because you haven't eaten a real meal in three days. Because you've been trying to sleep in a dorm full of Omegas who can sense your distress. Because if we go to that regatta Saturday with the team in this state, we're done."
"Running away won't fix—"
"We're not running." I start unpacking groceries with efficient movements. "We're taking a calculated pause. There's a difference."
She watches me move around the kitchen, something shifting in her expression. "You're giving me orders."
"Someone needs to."
"I don't take orders from—"
I turn and pin her with a look that stops her mid-sentence. "You do tonight."
The air between us shifts. This isn't sweet, protective Bo. This is the enforcer who keeps eight Alpha rowers in line. The one who knows when someone needs to stop thinking and just be.
"Shower," I tell her. "There's probably hot water. Then food. Then sleep."
"Bo—"
"That wasn't a request, Callahan."
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and I see the exact second she decides to let go. The rigid control she's been maintaining cracks, and underneath is exhaustion so profound it breaks me open right alongside her.
"Fine," she says, but it's not her usual deflection. It's surrender.
While she showers, I start on food. Nothing complicated—eggs scrambled with cheese, floppy bacon cooked just enough to render the fat like she orders at The Griddle, toast with real butter. The kinds of things that remind a body it's alive.
She emerges in sleep shorts and one of the guys’ Sable Ridge hoodies, probably Zane’s judging by the scent, hair damp and curling around her shoulders. Without the cox box, without the rigid posture, she looks impossibly young.
"Eat," I tell her, pushing a plate across the counter.
She takes a bite and makes a sound that goes straight to my groin. "Oh god, actual food."
"When did you last eat something that wasn't from a vending machine?"
She has to think about it. "Tuesday?"
"Christ, Reese."
"I've been—"
"Busy. I know." I lean against the counter, watching her demolish the eggs. "That stops now."
"You can't just—"
"I can and I am." I pour bourbon into two glasses, sliding one toward her. "Drink."
She takes a sip and coughs. "That's strong."
"Good. You need to stop thinking for five minutes."
"I can't stop thinking. The team—"
"Will survive one night without you." I move around the counter, taking the stool next to her. "You know what your problem is?"
"Please, enlighten me."
"You think you have to fix everything yourself. Like if you just find the right words, the right commands, you can make us whole again."
Her jaw tightens. "It's my job."
"Your job is to cox. Not to manage Gray's control issues or Jackson's trauma or Eli's identity crisis."
"Someone has to—"
"No," I cut her off. "Someone doesn't. We're grown men, Reese. We can handle our own shit."
"You're doing a great job of it," she says, but there's no real bite to it.
"Fair point." I refill her glass. "But that's why we're here. Tomorrow, we'll go back and deal with it. Tonight, you're off duty."
She stares at the amber liquid in her glass. "I don't know how to be off duty."
"I'll teach you."
Something in my tone makes her look up. The air between us thickens again, charged with possibilities we've only explored once before, during her heat when biology made the decisions for us.
"That's not why you brought me here," she says, but it's not quite a statement.
"Isn't it?"
I stand, moving into her space but not touching. Not yet. "You need to let go, Reese. Stop carrying the weight of eight Alphas on those tiny shoulders."
"I'm not tiny," she protests automatically.
"You're five-two and maybe a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. You're tiny." I brush a damp curl back from her face. "And you're exhausted."
The touch breaks something in her. Her face crumples, and suddenly she's crying. Not pretty tears, but the ugly kind that come from holding too much for too long.
I pull her against my chest, and she collapses into me. Her whole body shakes with the force of it, weeks of pressure and fear and responsibility pouring out in great, gulping sobs.
"I've got you," I murmur into her hair. "Let it out."
She cries until she's empty, until her body won't hold her upright anymore. I carry her to the couch, settle her in my lap, and let her hide her face in my neck while the storm passes.
When she finally quiets, she's limp against me, wrung out.
"Better?" I ask.
"Embarrassed," she mumbles against my skin.
"Don't be." I stroke her back in long, soothing lines. "You've been holding us together by sheer force of will. Something had to give."
She pulls back to look at me, eyes red and puffy but clearer than they've been in days. "This is the second time you've seen me fall apart."
"Won't be the last."
She reaches up, traces my jaw with careful fingers. "You're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone easier to handle."
I catch her hand, press it flat against my chest where my heart hammers. "I've been going easy on you."
"And now?"
"Now I'm done with easy."
I kiss her, and it's nothing like our first time. That was heat and rut, biology driving us toward relief. This is deliberate. Calculated. I know exactly what I'm doing as I claim her mouth, swallow her gasp, teach her what it means to truly let go.
She melts into me, all that rigid control dissolving under steady pressure. When I bite her lower lip, she whimpers. When I fist my hand in her hair, she moans.
"Bedroom," I tell her, not asking.
She nods, beyond words.
I carry her because I can, because she needs to feel how easily I can move her, protect her, care for her. The bedroom is simple, just a queen bed, a dresser, and a nightstand, but it's enough.
I set her down and step back. "Strip."