Chapter 14 Alex
Evening practice left my entire body humming—not in the clean, satisfying way it usually did after a long row, but in a sharp, restless buzz that wouldn’t settle no matter how many meters I logged.
Honestly, I was shocked I’d even made it through the second session.
After what happened this morning with Eldridge reading every slip in my technique, the disaster in the showers, the panic that followed me all the way back to my room... I’d half expected to feel too strung-out to function.
Eldridge didn’t give me room to spiral—not tonight.
It was the most brutal workout I’d ever experienced before a scrimmage. Usually, we’d take a night off or a day off before a race. But Eldridge was on some kind of insane mission to squash the idea that Riverside could even be called a rival.
He ran us through long, punishing technical pieces in pairs, and even though he didn’t say it outright, everyone knew who he was really watching.
Me.
I didn’t have any hard evidence, but sometimes it felt like my father ran the program more than the coaches.
Anyway, by the time we carried the boats back into the boathouse, my legs were shaking, my forearms buzzing, my lungs scraped raw. But none of that calmed the thing underneath. The anticipation, the dread, the way tomorrow’s scrimmage pressed against my ribs like something sharp.
I just wanted it to be over. And at the same time, I didn’t want it to happen at all.
Ethan fell into step beside me as I walked along the river walk that eventually led to a bridge that crossed to the other side of the river—the Riverside State side.
He walked like he always did after practice—relaxed, shoulders loose, breathing steady—because he only had to document the brutality.
“You’re quiet tonight,” he said, adjusting the strap of his camera bag across his shoulder.
I huffed out an exhale. “Ethan, I’m exhausted.”
Ethan gave me a sideways look. “I know. I’m just worried that this scrimmage is eating you alive.”
He was right, that was only half of it.
We cut across the green toward a cluster of dorms, the early autumn air brushing cool across the back of my neck. Students drifted along the pathways in scattered pairs and small groups, laughing, heading to late dinners or study sessions.
“It is eating me alive,” I said.
“Don’t stress it. You’re going to do great. Plus, you’ll get to see your man out on the river tomorrow.”
“My man?”
Ethan laughed. “I’m messing with you.”
He had no idea... or maybe he knew everything. If we had lived in another age, I think Ethan would have been a mind-reading wizard.
I shook my head and kicked an acorn that had fallen in the path. “There’s just so much pressure to perform.”
“Look, man... you’ve been dialed in since preseason. Almost too dialed in. Eldridge said something to you after practice, didn’t he?”
“Just told me to rest up, said everyone’s going to be assessed tomorrow.”
“Alex.” Ethan slowed. “You don’t have to be perfect, you know. It’s only the first week.”
My jaw tightened. “I wish it were true.”
He studied me for a beat, the crease between his brows deepening. “If something’s up, you can tell me. I’m not going to make it weird.”
I wanted to say something about my dad, about how he already knew the lineups before Eldridge even confirmed them. Marcus understood, but I didn’t think Ethan would ever get it. He was just part of a different world than we were, and that was fine.
He didn’t need to know everything that was going on in the underworld of legacy families.
I didn’t want to talk about anything that had to do with me anymore, so I asked, “How’s your... thing going?”
“My thing?” Ethan looked down at his crotch. "I think it's still there."
That got a smirk out of me. “No,” I said, waving my hand. “Your situationship.”
His mouth twitched into a smirk. “Wow. Harrington asking about my gay love life. Should I record this for evidence?”
I rolled my eyes, but the corners of my mouth tugged upward. “You make me seem like the worst friend ever… just answer.”
He laughed. “It’s going. Ish.”
“What's that mean?”
He shrugged. “It’s whatever. He’s cute, he’s terrified of commitment, and he thinks labeling feelings is a government conspiracy.”
“It sounds confusing.”
“It's fine for now. We hang out, we make out, we don’t define anything. It’s chill.”
Chill. The word landed in my chest like a stone.
I tried to imagine being that open, that unbothered.
Seeing someone because I wanted to, letting myself want things without calculating consequences or fallout.
Ethan lived in a world where desire wasn’t a threat.
Where attraction didn’t have to be hidden or rearranged into something straighter, safer.
I swallowed. “Is that what you want?”
“I like this Alex.”
“What?” I turned to look at him.
Ethan wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “The Alex that doesn't mind talking about gay shit.”
Some kind of joy pushed up in my chest, almost like I wanted to laugh. A giddy feeling. I made eye contact with Ethan.
“Thanks?" I said.
Ethan smiled a genuine smile. " Honestly, if he stopped pretending he isn’t obsessed with me. And just commit I'd prefer that.”
I barked a laugh like I knew exactly what he was going through. In some way I did. And I think he knew much more than he ever let on. I saw it in the look he gave me. I had someone on my side… my gay side.
I should’ve left it there. But the question pushed its way up anyway.
“So... what was it like?” I said. “Coming out.”
Ethan's arm slipped off my shoulder. We kept walking while he paused.
Then, he said, “Hard. At first. Not because of my parents—they were cool. Too cool, honestly. My mom made a cake.” He shuddered. “Rainbow frosting. Very traumatic.”
I gave a small laugh.
“The weirdest part wasn’t telling them, it was hearing myself say it out loud. It was real all of a sudden.”
I nodded.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “After that, life just... kept going. Got better, honestly.”
“Makes sense.”
Ethan didn’t search my face for meaning. Didn’t tilt his head or ask why I wanted to know. He just bopped along, as if we’d discussed the weather.
We came to a fork in the pathway—one led back to the quad, the dorms, and dining hall. The other kept going along the river.
“You want to grab food?” he asked. “Carb load or whatever excuse we use.”
“Not yet. You go. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay,” he said. “Take it easy before then.”
He clapped my shoulder before heading back to campus.
I continued forward and after ten minutes or so—
Someone stepped into the lamplight ahead of me.
“Alex.”
That voice. It sent electric through my body. I stopped.
It was Liam.
He looked different under the soft yellow glow—tense, but not closed off or angry. I studied his face for a moment, his expression softer, almost vulnerable. His lips were slightly parted.
He looked like himself, not the rival I’d been circling all week, not the ghost from the summer I’d tried to bury, but just... Liam.
The boy I’d kissed under the stars at Brackett Lake.
A deep longing opened up in my chest, sharp and sudden, and I realized how much I’d missed this version of him—the one who let me see him.
“We need to talk,” he said.
My heartbeat jumped.
There were a hundred things defensive things I could’ve said but something in his expression stopped me.
“Okay.”
He let out a breath, half relief, half dread, and stepped closer. Close enough that I could see the stress sitting in his shoulders and the nervous way he swallowed before pulling out his phone.
“I got something and you need to see it.”
My stomach dipped. “What kind of something?”
He didn’t answer. Just pressed play and handed me the phone.
And then I saw water. A familiar stretch. Early sun. Two singles. Two rowers.
It was us.
Me driving my legs down. Liam matching me. The river boiling under our hulls as we tore across it like we were racing for our lives.
We looked fantastic—it was beautiful seeing us rowing next to each other like that. And it would have been fine if it wasn’t totally illegal.
Someone had filmed us that morning.
Someone had been there.
I froze.
My whole body locked, breath snagging in my throat as the camera zoomed, making the image sharper, more undeniable. I looked at myself in that grainy recording, hair plastered to my forehead, arms working with a kind of focused anger I didn’t remember feeling.
I saw Liam beside me, giving everything he had, and the sight of it—the two of us like that—knocked every coherent thought out of my head.
When the clip ended, I handed the phone back. Our hands touched for a brief moment—the first time since Brackett Lake. The touch was short but warm.
We made eye contact and it was the first time I’d seen it in his eyes. Liam Moore was scared.
All I wanted to do was hold his hand, squeeze it, tell him it was going to be okay.
“Shit, Liam... where did this come from?”
“No idea.” His jaw tightened. “Some number I don’t recognize. Just said, ‘Thought you’d want to see this.’”
I looked down, my pulse thumping through my whole body. Everything was over. This was hard evidence. If this got out then my life would be over.
A gust of wind moved across the quad, rustling the branches overhead. For a moment neither of us spoke. We just stood there, both breathing too shallow.
I looked at him.
Even now, even with everything falling apart, I noticed the way his hoodie stretched across his shoulders. The stubble along his jaw. The way he smelled—cheap soap mixed with the familiar and intoxicating smell that was Liam.
“Someone was watching. I don’t know if they sent it to anyone else. I don’t know if it’s out there. I don’t—”
He stopped himself. He voice softened into a tone I’d never heard before. “I just... I didn’t know who else to tell.”
My chest shifted from feeling dread to connection. The fact that he’d come to me. That he’d chosen me before Hale, before his teammates, before anyone else.
“That morning… we weren’t supposed to be out there.”
“I know.”
“And if Riverside finds out—”
“I’ll lose my scholarship.”
“And if Kingswell finds out—”
“Your dad will kill you.”
I winced. “Yeah.”
He huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it weren’t laced with panic. “So we’re screwed.”
“We’re... not,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I believed it. “Not unless it spreads.”
He nodded, staring at the pavement for a second before looking back up at me. His green eyes looking directly at me. I felt him. All of him in a way I hadn’t in years.
That moment was like a return to something we both wanted to be. Then I remembered I was the one who ended it.
God. Why did I do that?
I shook the thought off before I started spiraling.
“Thanks for showing me... you didn’t have to,” I said.
“Yeah, I did. We're in this together.” he said.
Together. With that word the space between us felt different. It wasn't two rivals, it was us standing shoulder to shoulder against a mess we created together.
It almost felt like the beginnings of a truce.
Almost.
A wild fantasy flashed through my mind of us going back to my dorm to figure this out. Tracing the text, even though I didn’t know how to do that. But I could see it. Us working together to figure this out. We’d be unstoppable together.
If we could just be together.
And then my stupid mouth betrayed me.
“We should figure this out before the scrimmage tomorrow,” I said.
And just like that, the softness vanished. The warmth in his eyes disappeared. Liam’s entire posture changed. His shoulders tightened again. His mouth pressed into a thin line.
Why did I even say the word scrimmage?
“Right,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” he cut in. “We’ll deal with the video at some point. We should both sleep. And... whatever happens in the morning...”
His voice was controlled. Flat. Not hostile, but closed off in that way that made it impossible to tell whether he was angry or scared.
I took half a step closer and put my hand on his shoulder. “Liam—”
He pulled away like my hand was toxic. “Alex. Don’t touch me.”
I stepped back.
What was I doing?
But it was impossible—I was like metal drawn to a magnet. I wanted to fix everything. I wanted to go back and never break it off with him. If I hadn’t done that... then none of this would—
“I gotta go,” he said.
“Okay.”
He turned as if to leave, then hesitated—a small pause, like a line of tension pulling taut between us. For a second I thought he might say something else, something real, something from the part of him that cared about me.
But he didn’t.
He pulled his hood up and walked away, shoulders tight, strides quickening as though distance was the only safety he knew how to reach for.
I stood there for a long time after he vanished behind a row of trees, the wind brushing against my skin, the night settling around me with the heavy certainty of everything that couldn’t be said.
Tomorrow, we’d be racing each other again.
But tonight, for a brief moment, we touched something from the past.
And I didn’t know which thing terrified me more.