Chapter 1 Alex #2
"Listen up!" His voice carried through the open bay.
"Moore, Harrington—you're on the water in fifteen.
Quads and the eight too. Rest of you are on ergs with Coach Eldridge until I call for the singles rotation.
Three weeks to the Charles. I don't care what jersey you're wearing.
I care about your splits and your commitment.
Earn it. Every morning. Every stroke." He took a sip of coffee. "Gear up."
The bay erupted into motion. Shells coming off racks, oars being sorted, rowers hitting the ergs.
I moved to the racks. Liam was already there, on the other side of our double. We gripped the hull and lifted—unison, no discussion needed. Our bodies knew. They'd always known.
As the shell settled on our shoulders and we started toward the dock, Liam's head tilted slightly toward mine. His voice barely a breath.
"Sorry. You okay?"
Two words. Quiet enough that the guys three feet behind us wouldn't hear. But I felt them in my whole chest—warm, spreading, the knot between my ribs loosening.
He cared. Under the performance and the cold voice and the wall he'd built for Braden, he cared enough to check.
"Yeah, I'm okay." I said, just as quiet.
Outside, the mist was rising. The river stretched dark and glass-smooth. Dawn turning the sky purple and gold where it met the tree line.
We set the double in the water. Liam held it steady while I locked in my oar. I held it steady while he locked in his. The boat rocked on the current. Our breath made clouds in the cold air.
"Ready?" I said.
He looked at me. Standing on the dock in the half-light with the river behind him and mist curling at his feet and his jaw set and his eyes holding everything he couldn't say.
"I've never been more ready for anything."
We got in the boat and pushed off. The blades bit the water. The boat glided forward and the world narrowed to the rhythm—catch, drive, release, recovery. His oar finding the water at the exact same moment as mine. His exhale matching my inhale.
And I understood what the next three weeks were going to cost.
Not the secret. I'd been keeping secrets my whole life. The weight of one more was familiar, almost comfortable.
The cost was this: having Liam two feet in front of me, our bodies speaking the language we'd invented at Brackett Lake, and pretending the conversation meant nothing.
The cost was the dock. The moment we stepped off the water and back into the world, and the space between us had to fill with silence and performance and the careful architecture of a lie.
Hale's megaphone crackled from the coaching launch behind us.
"Harrington! Rating's at twenty-four. Build to twenty-eight by the bridge. Moore, watch your catch—you're rushing the last quarter inch."
Liam adjusted. The boat settled. Our rhythm locked.
The river carried us forward. Indifferent to everything except the work.
We rowed for ninety minutes. Hale ran us through race-pace pieces, technical drills, starts and sprint finishes until my quads screamed and my lungs burned and my hands were raw on the oar handles.
He was relentless from the coaching launch—corrections barked through the megaphone and praise that came in single words.
Good. Better. Start again.
Liam was electric. Every correction Hale gave, he absorbed instantly—his body learning in real time, adjusting, adapting. The boat sang when we were in sync. And we were in sync more than we weren't.
When we finally docked, my arms were shaking. Liam stepped out first and held the shell steady while I climbed onto the dock. Our hands brushed on the gunwale. Neither of us pulled away fast enough.
"Same time tomorrow," Hale called from the launch, already turning toward the boathouse. "And eat something. Both of you look like you're running on caffeine."
We carried the double back to the racks in silence. Wiped it down. Hung it. The routine of boat care—methodical, physical, something to do with our hands that wasn't touching each other.
The bay was loud now. Both teams filtering back inside, the post-practice energy mixing with the smell of sweat and river water. Braden was at the trestles with Collins. Tyler was stretching near the erg row. Derek had already disappeared upstairs.
Liam was three feet away from me, wiping down his oar handle. His forearms still flushed from the row. His t-shirt damp at the collar, clinging to his shoulders.
I wanted to touch him. The want was so specific it hurt—not even sexual, just my hand on his chest, the space between his shoulder blades, the place I'd pressed my forehead on his chest last night while we caught our breath.
Just to say I'm here. That was real. We're real.
Liam looked up and caught my eye, just for a moment. It was all I needed. Small recognition of what we were. Then he hung his rag and headed to the toward the locker room. I followed. Ten paces behind. The distance we'd agreed to maintain.
The Kingswell locker rooms were mostly empty—just a few guys finishing up at the far end, the hiss of showers running, steam drifting over the tiled walls. Liam dropped his bag on a bench and pulled his shirt over his head.
I looked away. Had to. Because the sight of his chest and abs—the line of his obliques, the bruise on his hip from where the gunwale had caught him on a rough turn—would make my hands shake.
I pulled off my sweat and river soaked shirt and dropped it on the bench.
We were alone. Almost. One guy from the quad boat at the far lockers, back turned, earbuds in. The showers running loud enough to cover anything said at normal volume.
Liam sat on the bench. Elbows on his knees. Head down.
"That was good," he said, not looking at me. "Out there. The rowing."
"Yeah. It was." I sat on the bench next to him, a few feet of space between us.
Silence. The showers hissing. Someone's locker clanging shut at the far end.
"Hale watched us the whole session. Every stroke. He knows something's different about the way we row."
"Don't worry about it. He knows what he can do and different doesn't mean what he thinks it means."
"It means exactly what he thinks it means. We row like that because—"
I stopped.
Liam looked up. His eyes were dark.
"Because what?" He asked with a smirk.
The guy at the far end zipped his bag and walked out. The door swung shut.
Now, we were alone. The air between us changed. Thickened. Every sound sharper—the drip of a faucet, the hum of the ventilation, our breathing.
I could close this distance easily. Put my arm around his bare body, lean in, and kiss him.
Liam's eyes dropped to my mouth. Just for a second.
"Don't," he said. To me or to himself, I couldn't tell.
"I wasn't going to."
"You were thinking about it."
"I'm always thinking about it."
Something shifted in his expression, like my words hit him the way his hit me and made my chest warm.
The locker room door banged open. Braden's voice, mid-sentence to Collins: "—said the pairs heat is stacked this year, but if we—"
He stopped when he saw us. His eyes moved from Liam to me. Back again. That calculating look.
"Cozy," he said.
"Fuck off, Lockwood," Liam said.
Braden smiled. "Relax, Moore. Just getting my stuff."
He moved to the lockers. Collins followed. The moment—whatever it had almost been—evaporated like the steam.
Liam stood, quickly changed and didn't look at me.
"Tomorrow," he said. Loud enough for Braden to hear. "Try to keep up, Harrington."
"In your dreams, Moore."
He walked out.
I sat there on the bench. Locker room quiet except for Braden rustling through his things and the showers still running for nobody.
My phone buzzed in my bag. I pulled it out.
Ethan
Heard about the Charles. Look at you, big shot.
Then, a second later.
Ethan
And racing with your guy. <3
Something loosened in my chest. The one person in my life that knew the true me, the text felt like relief. The fact that Ethan was texting me at all, after everything, still felt like more than I deserved.
I pocketed the phone.
Three weeks. Every morning. Every stroke.
The hardest part wouldn't be the training.
The hardest part would be standing three feet from him in a room full of people and pretending we weren't a thing.