Chapter 11 Alex
Iwoke up alone.
Liam had left before dawn—slipped out of bed, pulled on his shoes in the dark, kissed my forehead so lightly I might have dreamed it. By the time I opened my eyes, the only evidence he'd been there was the dent in the pillow and the faint smell of him on my sheets.
The photo was still on my phone.
Not the one from the anonymous texter—the other one.
The selfie from the bridge. I checked it before I checked anything else.
First thing every morning now—unlock the screen, stare at two guys grinning on a covered bridge in the middle of nowhere, and remind myself that the version of us in that photo was real.
That it wasn't something I'd invented. That somewhere underneath the texts and the fear and the performance, that day had actually happened.
Nothing new. Not yet.
I got up. Showered. Got dressed. Made the bed. Straightened the desk. Lined up my shoes by the door. The routines that kept me from flying apart.
Practice was at 5:30 and hopefully afterward I'd have time before class to get my reading done. I doubted it.
The boathouse felt different now.
Same building. Same racks of shells and fluorescent lights and Hale's coffee mug on the dock railing. But I was watching everyone differently. Every person who walked through the bay was a question mark. Every phone in someone's hand was a weapon.
Braden arrived at 5:20. Quarter-zip. Crew cut. Bag over his shoulder. He nodded at Collins and started rigging his pair without looking at me. Normal. Routine. The same Braden who'd been here every morning for two weeks.
Was that evidence of guilt or innocence? A guilty person would act normal. An innocent person would also act normal. The information was useless.
I watched him anyway.
Marcus showed up at 5:25. Phone in his hand—scrolling something, smirking at his screen. He caught me looking and raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He shrugged and went to the erg row. Started warming up. The same Marcus who'd apologized to me twelve hours ago at dinner and meant it.
Or seemed to mean it.
I was losing my mind.
Tyler was stretching near the bay door. Evan was taping his hands. Derek was in conversation with Jace about the Charles travel schedule. Remy was on his laptop. The morning routine of twenty-something athletes who had no idea that someone in this building had a photo of me kissing another man.
Liam came through the door at 5:28. Two minutes early instead of his usual ten. He looked tired—dark circles, jaw tight. His eyes found mine for a fraction of a second.
I'm here. We're okay.
I gave him nothing back. The performance.
We rowed.
The session was off. Not bad—not broken.
But the edge was gone. The thing that had made us Charles fast was built on trust, on the connection that lived between our bodies, and now there was static in the signal.
My catches were a fraction late. Liam's drive was a fraction hard.
The timing that had been effortless was now requiring effort, which meant it wasn't the same thing.
Hale noticed. He didn't say anything from the launch—just watched. Made notes. The silence was worse than a correction.
Eldridge was on the bank. I couldn't tell if he was watching us or the pairs boat behind us. Couldn't tell if the phone call last night had been a donor or my father. Couldn't tell anything about anyone anymore.
***
I pushed through the bay door and into the hallway. It was empty and quiet. Just the hum of the overhead lights and the muffled sounds of the team filtering out behind me.
I leaned against the wall. Closed my eyes.
Let out a breath that felt like it had been sitting in my lungs since 5:30 AM.
The cold cinder block wall against the back of my head.
My shoulders dropping. Just one second of not performing.
One second where nobody was watching and I could let the weight of it settle without holding my face together.
My phone buzzed in my bag.
I pulled it out. Unknown number. Same one as last night.
Unknown
Does your father know you're rowing with the scholarship kid after hours too?
The hallway tilted.
I leaned harder against the wall. Read it again. Three times. Four.
Your father. They knew about my father. Knew that Thomas Harrington was the pressure point. And the scholarship kid—deliberate. Designed to reduce Liam to a label. And after hours too—the word too implying they knew about more than just the mixer kiss. The shower? The car? The dorm?
How much did they know?
"Alex."
The sound of my name on his voice soothed me instantly. I looked up. Liam was at the end of the hallway. Gym bag over his shoulder. He'd doubled back—must have seen Eldridge pull me aside and waited.
His eyes went to my face and his expression changed immediately. He knew something was wrong. He could read it on me the way he read the water—instinctively, without needing to be told.
He walked toward me. Checked behind him—nobody in the hallway. He stopped a foot away, just a little too close for public.
"What happened?"
I turned the phone toward him and let him read the screen.
I watched his face change. The color draining. His jaw locking. The vein in his neck that showed when he was about to do something he'd regret.
"Scholarship kid," he said. The words sitting in his mouth like something rotten.
"Liam—"
"They mentioned your father." His eyes came up from the phone. Dark. Furious. "This person knows about your father. This isn't some random asshole with a camera."
"I know."
"It's Braden. It has to be—"
"We don't know that yet."
"Who else knows about your father? Who else would use that—"
Footsteps at the far end of the hallway. Tyler's voice echoing off the walls—something about breakfast, calling to someone behind him.
Liam stepped back. The distance returning and his face closing.
"Tonight," I said. Quiet. "Noah. Like we said."
His jaw was working. I could see the fight in him—every instinct telling him to move, to find Braden, to put his fist through something. But he held it.
"I'll talk to him," he said.
Tyler rounded the corner. "Yo, Moore—you coming to the dining hall or what?"
"Yeah, coming."
He walked away with Tyler without looking back. His shoulders rigid, and his fists clenched at his sides where Tyler couldn't see.
I stood in the hallway with my phone in my hand and the second text glowing on the screen.
Does your father know you're rowing with the scholarship kid after hours too?
Someone was pulling strings. And they were getting better at it.
I pocketed the phone. Walked out of the boathouse and back to Kingswell with my hands shaking. The autumn air was quickly turning to the cold, harsh bite of winter.
***
Ethan's dorm was on the third floor of Langford, two hallways over from mine. I knocked harder than I meant to.
He opened the door in a hoodie and sweatpants, laptop balanced on one arm, earbuds hanging around his neck. Mid-edit on something—the timeline of his documentary visible on the screen.
"You look terrible," he said.
"Can I come in?"
He stepped back. I walked in and sat on the edge of his bed. He closed the laptop and set it aside the turned his desk chair around to face me. The last time I'd been in his dorm, I was drunk. I was worried he'd feel uncomfortable with me being in his space but he seemed okay.
"Talk," he said.
"Someone's been texting me. Anonymous number. They have—they know things. About me and Liam."
Ethan's expression didn't change. "What kind of things?"
"They sent a photo. From the mixer when we kissed."
"What the fuck? When did this start?"
"Last night. After the team dinner. Then another one this morning." I pulled out my phone. Showed him the texts. "The second one mentions my father."
Ethan read them. His face was still. Processing. Then he handed the phone back. "Who have you told?"
"Liam. We're going to talk to Noah, Liam's roommate—see if he can trace the number."
"That's smart." He was quiet for a moment. "Alex, can I ask you something?"
"Yeah."
"Who benefits from you being scared?"
The question landed strangely.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean—whoever this is, they're not outing you. They could. They have a photo. But they're not. They're sending it to you. Privately. With messages designed to rattle you." He leaned forward. "That's not someone trying to expose you. That's someone trying to control you."
"Braden," I said.
"Maybe. He's got motive. The Lockwood thing. If you're scared and distracted, you row worse. Maybe his boat moves up."
"Exactly."
"But—" Ethan held up a hand. "That's the obvious answer. And the obvious answer isn't always the right one."
He picked up his coffee from the desk and took a sip.
I turned the question over. Braden gained a competitive advantage. My father gained—no. My father didn't know. Unless Eldridge had told him. Unless the phone call last night—
"You're spiraling," Ethan said. He could see it on my face.
"I know."
"You need to eat something. And sleep. And row tomorrow like nothing happened." He looked at me. "Can you do that?"
"I don't know."
"Then fake it. You're good at faking it." He said it without malice. A fact. "Get through the Charles. Then deal with this."
"And if they send something else?"
"Then you deal with that too. But not today." He opened his laptop. Pulled his timeline back up. "Stay here for a while if you want. I've got editing to do. You can just... chill."
I stayed. For an hour, I sat on Ethan's bed while he edited footage and the room smelled like coffee and the sounds of the documentary filled the quiet—oars hitting water, coaches calling from launches, the rhythmic thump of erg chains.
The sounds of the world I'd built with Liam, playing through Ethan's laptop speakers.
Something about the smallness of the room helped. The cluttered desk, the film posters thumbtacked to the walls, the way Ethan didn't look at me like I was falling apart even though I was. I felt safe here. It was the first time all day my chest wasn't tight.
"Hey." Ethan swiveled in his chair. "Come look at this. I pulled some footage of you and Liam from Wednesday."
I got up and stood behind him. On the screen, the camera tracked our pair from a chase boat—Liam in front, me in back, the blades entering the water in perfect unison. The boat moved like a single thing, skimming low and fast across the surface, barely disturbing the water beneath it.
"Jesus," Ethan said. "You two are fast."
I watched Liam's shoulders rotate through the drive, watched my own body mirror his half a beat later, and it was strange seeing it from the outside.
From inside the boat it was all sensation—pressure on the footboard, the catch of the blade, Liam's breathing syncing with mine.
From out here it just looked effortless.
Like we'd been rowing together for years.
"You look cute together too, by the way," Ethan said, not looking up from the screen. "Just objectively. The whole synchronized thing. It's almost annoying."
Heat crept up the back of my neck.
"Shut up," I said.
"I'm a documentarian. I observe. I report."
I watched a few more seconds. On the footage, Liam turned to say something to me and I could see myself grin—open, unguarded, the kind of expression I didn't know my face made.
"Just make sure you don't catch anything suspicious," I said. "On the footage. If there's anything that looks—"
"I know." Ethan nodded. "I'm careful. Nothing that isn't two guys rowing a boat."
I went back to his bed and pulled my knees up. The footage kept playing—the launch motor, the coach's whistle, the sound of our oars entering the water together, again and again.
Who benefits from you being scared?
I didn't have an answer yet.
But the question wouldn't leave me alone.