21. Chapter 21 Liam #2
They made it halfway across the cove like that.
Remy backward, Ethan forward, their hands between them.
Ethan's ears were pink, and he was concentrating so hard his jaw was tight, and Remy was talking him through it in a low, steady voice that I recognized from the cox seat, except softer.
No command in it. Just: I've got you. Keep going.
Alex cruised onto the ice wearing my aunt's scarf with a big smile on his face.
He could skate. Of course he could. Clean edges, straight back, the mechanics of someone who'd been taught properly.
But he wasn't skating properly. He was skating loose, arms open, catching himself late on turns, letting his form go sloppy in a way I'd never seen from him.
He bumped into Remy and grabbed his shoulder, and Remy shoved him off without looking, and Alex laughed and kept going.
I stood at the edge of the cove for a second and watched all of them on the ice. The sounds carried — blades cutting, Noah yelling something about physics, Priya ignoring him, Ethan's laugh, Remy's voice low and fast underneath it. My lake. My people. Everyone of them had driven hours to be here.
Noah eventually gave up on skating and sat on a log near the bank. He'd found a stick and was drawing patterns in the snow and eating trail mix out of the bag.
"— and the problem with the second rebuttal is structural, not substantive," Priya was saying, skating slow circles in front of him. "Davis had the evidence. He didn't have the frame. You can't introduce empirical data without a normative anchor, or the judge has nowhere to put it."
"I agree."
"You said that last time and then you let him restructure the rebuttal around policy impact, which is exactly the wrong frame for—"
"I agree that I was wrong."
She stopped skating. Looked at him. "You're doing the thing where you agree with me to end the conversation."
"I'm doing the thing where I agree with you because you're right." He held out the trail mix. She took a handful without looking and resumed skating.
The rowing talk started when Ethan came off the ice and sat on the log next to Noah. Remy followed, standing behind Ethan with his hands in his pockets. Everyone gathered around the bag of snacks.
"So Tyler told me something."
I looked at him. "Tyler told you something. Not me."
"You're interim captain, Liam. Not the FBI. People are allowed to text me."
"Yeah, yeah. What'd he say?"
"He heard from Collins that Eldridge has been talking about restructuring the spring lineup. Moving away from the joint format. Running Kingswell boats only."
Alex was standing at the edge of the ice. He went still.
"That's a rumor," I said.
"It's Tyler. Everything's a rumor. But he said Collins seemed serious."
Ethan cut in. "I heard something similar, actually. Derek said he ran into Eldridge at the boathouse last week of the semester picking up gear, and Eldridge made some comment about 'getting back to fundamentals.'"
"Getting back to fundamentals means running his own boats," Remy said. Pulling an energy drink out of the snack bag. "It means he wants control back."
"Can he even do that?" Noah asked. "Just pull out of the joint program?"
"Hale and Eldridge shook hands on the joint program. There's no contract. Either one of them can walk away." Remy looked at me. "But Hale's not going to walk. He's got the better hand."
"How?"
"Riverside has the stroke seat, the cox, and half the engine." He nodded at me, then at himself. "Kingswell has the bow and the three. If Eldridge pulls out, he doesn't got much. No offense Alex."
"You're not wrong." Alex said.
"The quad's the whole point. Alex, Braden, Liam, Tyler. Me in the cox seat. That's the fastest lineup either program can put on the water. You break that up, neither side has a boat worth entering at Henley."
"There's also Braden," Noah said. "Tyler again. Tyler said Braden's been rowing every morning over break."
"Hold on," Ethan said. "How does Tyler know what Braden's doing at five in the morning?"
"Because Tyler's been doing it with him," Noah said.
That stopped the conversation. Everyone looked at Noah.
"Tyler — Riverside Tyler — is meeting up with Braden Lockwood to row in the winter?" I said.
"That's what he told me."
"Over break. Voluntarily. Nobody assigned it."
"Nobody assigned it."
Remy leaned forward in his chair. "That's not normal."
"That's insane," Ethan said. "Those two barely spoke before the joint program. Tyler called him 'the Lockwood kid' all last semester."
"Well, apparently the Lockwood kid rows at five and Tyler decided to show up." Noah ate a clementine segment. "I don't have more context than that. Tyler just said it like it was obvious."
I sat with it. Braden and Tyler, opposite schools, grinding together in the dark before anyone was awake to see it. No coaches. No program structure.
"He's not the problem I thought he was," Alex said quietly.
"No," Ethan agreed. "He's not."
The talk drifted — Jace gone, who takes over scheduling permanently, whether Hale would make a move before Eldridge did or let him self-destruct.
Remy laid out the Henley qualification math without notes — times, margins, the April window — and Priya listened from the ice with the expression she probably wore in debate rounds, and at one point she asked a question about seeding criteria that was so precisely framed Remy actually paused before answering.
Then Alex said it.
"I don't even know if I'm going to be rowing in January."
Nobody spoke. The ice groaned underneath us. Priya stopped skating.
Alex wasn't looking at anyone. He was looking at the lake, at the flat white nothing of it, and his voice was steady but his jaw was working the way it did when he was holding something down.
"My registration's on hold. Tuition's gone. I don't know if I'm even enrolled."
The quiet was the hard kind. The kind where everyone's doing math on what to say and nobody wants to say the wrong thing.
Remy spoke first.
"We'll figure something out."
Not soft or inspirational. Just flat and certain, the way he said everything that mattered.
"He's right," I said. "We will."
Ethan stood up. Skated over to Alex and pulled him into a hug, full, both arms.
"We got you, buddy," Ethan said. "Whatever it looks like. We got you."
Alex didn't say anything. But his hand came up to Ethan's back and gripped the jacket, and he held on for a few seconds longer than casual, and when he let go his eyes were wet and he wiped them with the heel of his hand and nobody pretended, they didn't see it and nobody made it worse by talking about it.
***
And then it was just us.
Alex and I, skating slowly at the far end of the cove. The sky going gray to purple at the treeline. The ice groaning underneath. Deep creaks that meant the temperature was dropping.
He reached for my hand. I took it. We skated like that for a while, side by side, matching strides without trying, the way our strokes matched in the boat — not something we decided, just something our bodies did when they were close enough.
We didn't talk. We didn't need to. The ice held us and the cold held us and his hand was warm in mine and the lake was ours.
We slowed. Stopped near the center of the cove where the ice was smoothest. He turned to face me. My Riverside hoodie under his dark peacoat, his hair messed from the cold, his cheeks raw. He looked like the version of himself that only existed when nobody else was watching.
"I'm going to find a way to make it work," I said. "The tuition, the registration, all of it. We need you. I need you. At school. In that quad."
His face shifted. "Thanks. I just don't—"
"Hey." I put my hand on his jaw. "Stop."
He stopped.
"I care about you so much," I said. "And it's not only that. Being with you in a boat, whether it's a quad or a double, it's the best thing. It's the best thing I've ever done."
He was quiet.
"I know," he said. "My two favorite things. Liam and… Liam." He smirked.
We were close. Face to face, our skates almost touching. I could feel him, his breath, the heat coming off his skin despite the cold, the way his body leaned into mine like gravity had an opinion about us. His hand came to my chest. Stayed there.
"Hey, Liam?"
"Yeah."
His eyes were on mine. Crystal blue, the color they got in winter light, lighter than they had any right to be. His lips parted.
"I..." He swallowed. "I think I..."
He paused.
And it was the way he looked at me, a special look, one he only gave me here and there. He was going to say it. Right here… right now.
My heart started beating faster. Hard and harder. I could feel it in my throat, in my wrists, behind my eyes. I looked at him and I knew what was coming, and every part of me was leaning toward it.
Oh god. I love you too.
The thought quickly turned to that heat in chest. I loved Alex Harrington. I loved him, fuck I loved him. And it felt so good.
Then, his face shifted. Just slightly. A flicker…
"I think we're really great together," he said.
The air came out of me. Not all at once. Slowly, like a door closing on a room I'd already walked into.
I smiled. It was a fake smile. But we were really great together. But I just wanted more, and it scared me that I wanted more. The emotions ran through me so quickly. The moment was there, and it was gone. And I didn't know what — and then we were kissing.
Cold lips. Warm mouth. His hand still on my chest, mine still on his jaw, and the lake stretched out around us in every direction, dark and patient.
It was okay. We both felt it.
I pulled back. Rested my forehead against his.
"Yeah," I said. "We are."