Chapter 22 Liam #2
Second turn. Tighter than the first—Hale had set the buoys to simulate the Weeks Bridge passage on the Charles, where the river narrowed and the current shifted and crews that weren't prepared lost seconds.
"Tight turn," I called. "Heavy inside. Light outside. On my call."
"Ready."
"Now."
We carved it. The bow swinging through the gap between buoys. Alex's blade work impeccable on the outside—feathering high, skimming the surface, giving me room to pull hard on the inside. The boat emerged from the turn pointed straight. No drift. No lost momentum.
"Clean," I said.
"Told you I fixed the feather."
I grinned. Couldn't help it.
"Two and a half miles," Alex called. "Five hundred to go. What have you got?"
"Everything."
"Then let's use it. Power ten on my count."
Something flipped in my chest. Alex calling a power ten. Not me. The bow seat calling the stroke—that wasn't textbook. That was trust. That was Alex saying I see what we need and I'm going to ask for it instead of waiting for me to decide.
"Ready," I said.
"One."
Drive. Hard. The boat leaping.
"Two."
Harder. The hull lifting. The run stretching.
"Three—four—five—"
My legs were on fire. Past fire. Into that place where the pain became white noise and the only thing left was the will to keep pulling.
"Six—seven—"
Alex's voice was raw. Shredded. But steady. Counting like a coxswain. Counting like someone who'd decided that whatever happened in the next thirty seconds was going to be earned together.
"Eight—nine—TEN."
The last stroke was the hardest. The one where your body said stop and you said no. My blade caught the water clean. The drive went through my legs like a detonation. Behind me, Alex matched it—perfectly, violently, both of us throwing everything at the finish.
The buoy marking the three-mile point slid past.
I collapsed over my oar handle. Gasping. Lungs destroyed. My legs shaking so hard the seat was rattling on the slide. Behind me, Alex was in the same state—I could hear his breathing, ragged and desperate, the sound of two people who'd left everything on the water.
Hale's launch pulled alongside. The engine cutting to idle.
Silence from the launch. Hale looking at his stopwatch. Eldridge looking at his clipboard. Neither speaking.
My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Hale lifted the megaphone.
"Sixteen twenty-eight."
The number hit me like a physical thing. Sixteen twenty-eight. Twelve seconds faster than our best. Twenty seconds faster than what Eldridge had said would place top five at the Charles.
I turned in my seat. Looked back at Alex.
He was bent over his oars, chest heaving, face flushed, sweat and river mist on his skin. He looked up. Our eyes met.
And for the first time in weeks—the first time since before the party and the fight and the silence and the bridge—he smiled at me. Not the careful, measured smile. Not the Harrington performance. The real one. The one that crinkled his eyes and showed his teeth and made my chest crack open.
I smiled back.
Hale's megaphone crackled one more time.
"Well. That works." A pause. "You're ready for the Charles."
Eldridge smiled.
Hale turned the launch and headed back toward the dock. Eldridge was writing on his clipboard. Neither of them said anything else. They didn't need to. The number said everything.
We docked. Racked the shell. Wiped down the riggers.
The post-practice routine—but different.
The air between us had changed. Not charged the way it used to be—not the desperate, electric tension of two people pretending they didn't want each other.
Something steadier and warmer. The feeling of two people who'd been through something and come out the other side.
I was wiping down the port oar when Alex's hand appeared on the hull next to mine.
"Sixteen twenty-eight," he said.
He grabbed a towel, started wiping down his oar handles. I did the same on my side. The boathouse mostly empty now—everyone else still on the water or up at the erg room.
"You talked to me out there," Liam said.
I ran the towel down the shaft of my oar. Didn't look up.
"Yeah, well. I said I'd carry you." He wrung out the towel. "Figured the least I could do is tell you when your blade's going in too deep."
Quiet. Just the drip of water off the hull. The hum of the bay lights.
"That's not the same thing," I said.
"It's what I've got."
When I glanced over the hull, he was looking at me. That soft, unguarded look—just Alex.
"Well, it worked." I said.
I looked at him. Across the hull. The morning light coming through the bay doors now—golden, warm, turning the dust motes to sparks. His face still flushed from the row. His hair damp. His blue eyes sparkling.
Just there. Just Alex. Looking at me the way he'd looked at me in the photo from the bridge.
"We're going to fucking Boston," I said.
"We're going to Boston." He smiled.
Hale walked past us. He didn't stop. Just said, over his shoulder, the same way he said everything that mattered—casually, like it was already settled:
"Bus leaves Sunday at noon. Don't be late."
He disappeared into his office. The door closed.
Alex and I stood there. Hands on the hull. The boat between us. The 16:28 hanging in the air.
And for the first time since this whole thing started—the texts, the photo, Braden, the fight, the silence, the bridge—I believed we were going to be okay.
Not because the problems were solved. They weren't. Someone still had that photo. Someone was still watching. The anonymous texter was still out there, patient and strategic and waiting.
But the boat was alive again.
And the boat had never lied to us.