Chapter 18 Liam
Tuesday, another bad day on the water with Alex.
We ran a Charles trial piece—full three miles, race simulation, the coaches timing from the launch. The conditions were decent. Flat water. Light wind. No excuses.
Hale was waiting for me by the dock.
Not inside the boathouse where the rest of the team was racking shells and peeling off sweaty layers. Outside. Alone. Coffee in his left hand, clipboard tucked under his right arm. Standing at the edge of the water with his back to me like he was having a conversation with the river.
I almost turned around. Almost took the long way through the bay and out the side entrance and pretended I hadn't seen him.
But you didn't dodge Hale. Hale saw everything. He'd been coaching long enough that trying to avoid him was like trying to hide a bad catch from a coxswain—pointless and insulting.
"Moore."
"Coach."
"Walk with me."
We walked along the dock. The wood was slick from the morning mist. The river moved beside us—flat, grey, uninterested.
Hale didn't talk for the first thirty seconds. Just walked. Sipped his coffee. Let the silence do the work.
"Eighteen twenty-three," he said finally. Not a question. Just the number, sitting between us like evidence.
"I know."
"That's a minute forty-three off your best. On the same water. Same conditions." He stopped walking. Turned to face me. "You want to tell me what's going on?"
Yes. I'm sleeping with my doubles partner. Someone is trying to frame us. And I'm terrified.
"It's Harrington," I said instead.
Hale's eyes narrowed. "What about him?"
"He's not—" I stopped. Started again. "He's dealing with something. I don't know the details but it's affecting his focus and when his focus goes, the connection goes."
It was close enough to the truth to feel honest and far enough from it to be safe. Alex was dealing with something. Several somethings. And one of those somethings was me.
"So it's his fault," Hale said.
"I didn't say that."
"You just did." He took a sip of coffee. Studied me over the rim. "Here's what I heard: my partner is distracted, which is why the boat is slow, which means it's not my problem to fix."
"That's not—"
"Because if that's what you're telling me, I've got a different question." He set his coffee on a dock cleat. "Do you want to lead this team someday?"
The question landed harder than the 18:23.
"Yeah," I said. "You know I do."
"Then start acting like it. A leader doesn't come to his coach and say it's the other guy.
A leader figures out what his partner needs and finds a way to get them there.
" He crossed his arms. "You think Jace ever came to me and said Tyler was having a bad week so the eight was slow?
You think Derek ever blamed a rower for the boat not running? "
"That's different."
"How?"
I didn't have an answer. Because it wasn't different. The boat didn't care whose fault it was. The boat only cared whether two people could find each other in the stroke.
"We're eight days out from the Charles, Moore. Eight days." Hale picked up his coffee again. "I believe in what you and Harrington can do. I saw it. I timed it. Sixteen-forty is real. But eighteen twenty-three is also real, and right now eighteen twenty-three is what I've got."
"I'll fix it."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But I will."
Hale studied me for a long beat. "I'll give you till the end of the week. On Friday we'll run another full race simulation. If it doesn't together, I've still got options. Marcus and Collins have been solid. And Braden's been pushing for a shot at the double."
Braden.
Something cold moved through my chest.
The whole point of the texts—rattle Alex, rattle me, break the connection, open up seats. If whoever was sending those messages wanted us out of the double, Hale was describing exactly how to make that happen.
Is that what this is about? Not destroying us—replacing us?
The thought sat in my gut like a stone.
"You won't need them," I said.
"I hope not." Hale uncrossed his arms. "Because what you two have—when it's working—is the best thing I've seen in twenty years of coaching. Don't waste it."
He turned and walked back toward the boathouse. I stood on the dock alone. The river lapping at the pilings. The 18:23 on the clipboard in his hand, getting further away with every step.
The texter wanted us scared. Wanted us distracted. Wanted us rowing like strangers so someone else could take our seats.
And it was working.
We had eight days to figure it out.
***
The dorm was dark when I got back. Noah's desk lamp was on—the only light—casting a warm circle across his notes.
He looked up when I came in. Read my face in about two seconds.
"That bad?"
"Hale's going to pull us from the Charles."
Noah closed his laptop. "Shit."
"We have until the end of the week. If we can't row together, he puts Marcus and Collins in the double. Or Braden." I dropped my bag on the floor. Sat on my bed. The mattress sagged under me.
"He won't do that."
"He will. He meant it. How are you?"
"Prepping for this debate."
"How's it going?"
"It's good, but I wanted to tell you something else. Not great news."
Noah was quiet for a second. Then he swiveled his chair to face me fully.
I looked up.
"The number." Noah pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolled to a text thread. "Burner. Prepaid. Bought with cash. No name on the purchase. No card. Nothing."
"So it's a dead end."
"Yeah." He set the phone on the desk. "Chris ran it twice. There's no trail. Whoever bought it paid cash, activated it from a public Wi-Fi network, and only used it to text you and Alex. No other calls. No other messages. Then it went dark."
"Went dark?"
"Turned off. The number hasn't been active since the last text." He leaned back. "This isn't some kid messing around, Liam. Whoever did this, planned it."
I stared at the floor.
"So we've got nothing."
"We've got nothing on the number." Noah paused. "But we know something about the person."
"What?"
"They're patient. They sat on the illegal race video for weeks before using it.
They sat on the kiss photo for weeks before sending it.
They're not impulsive. They're strategic.
" He folded his arms. "And they want something.
If they just wanted to destroy you, they would have sent the photo to Eldridge or your coaches or—"
"Alex's father."
"Right. But they didn't. They sent it to you guys privately. Which means they're holding leverage, not using it." He looked at me. "The question is what they're waiting for."
The radiator clicked. Someone's music thumped through the wall—bass, muffled, the soundtrack of every night in this building.
"You know what I'm going to say," Noah said.
"Don't."
"The secret is the leverage. As long as you're hiding—"
"Noah. Don't."
He held his hands up. Let it go. But the words hung in the room anyway, taking up space the way Noah's words always did—quiet, precise, impossible to ignore.
I lay back on my bed. Stared at the ceiling. The same water stain I'd been staring at for almost two years—shaped like a question mark, which felt about right.
"Anyway. I talked to Priya about the debate invitational," Noah said. Changing the subject. Giving me air. "She thinks we should restructure the second rebuttal around constitutional precedent instead of policy impact."
"Yeah?" I asked, not really knowing what he was talking about.
"She's wrong, obviously. But she argues it well enough that I have to take it seriously."
"Sounds like you've met your match."
Something softened in his face. "Maybe."
And then Noah talked at length about Priya.
For a few minutes the room was just Noah talking about a girl who was smarter than him and how that made him feel alive instead of threatened.
Good stuff. The kind of conversation we used to have before my life became a series of crises separated by rowing.
I listened.
Eventually we crashed. I slept in fragments—an hour here, forty minutes there, my brain jolting me awake every time it remembered something I didn't want to think about.
***
Morning came.
I went to class because that's what you did. Sat through a lecture on macroeconomics that I absorbed nothing from. Ate lunch alone in the dining hall—a sandwich and coffee, the cheapest thing I could assemble from the salad bar without looking like I was counting.
Walking back to the dorm after, I checked my email. Most of it was junk—course updates, a campus safety bulletin about locking bikes, a dining services survey nobody would fill out.
Then one from Eldridge's office from yesterday. CC'd to me and Alex.
Re: New England Rowing Magazine — Joint Program Feature
Liam and Alex,
NERM will be sending a journalist and photographer to the boathouse Thursday at 2 PM for the joint program profile ahead of the Head of the Charles.
Please plan to be available for an interview (approximately 30 minutes) and photo session (approximately 20 minutes).
Wear program gear. Coach Hale and I will be present.
This is an excellent opportunity for both programs. Please be punctual.
— Coach Eldridge
I read it twice. Closed the email. Kept walking.
Tomorrow. A journalist. A photographer. Me and Alex sitting side by side answering questions about our partnership while we couldn't even look at each other on the water.
The thought of it made something twist in my gut.
The photos. Standing next to him. Close enough for a camera frame. Close enough to smell him and feel the heat off his skin and remember what it was like when standing that close meant something different.
I thought about the bridge photo. The one from Marlow—both of us grinning, his arm on my shoulder, the trees going gold behind us. I'd sent it to him that night and he'd saved it instantly and that had made my chest do something stupid.
Now we'd be posing for a different kind of photo. The professional kind. Two athletes. Partners. Nothing more.