Teagan
She needed to be part of the conversation. No way was she sitting out a Josh Regis–led vote to put Josh Regis back in the stroke seat. That was it—she was going in!
“WHOA!” she shrieked as eight shades of naked were burned into her retinas forever. A few in a good way. Not that she’d admit it. The rest? The less said, the better.
As she covered her eyes, and the guys covered… other parts, Ryder voted for himself and got a show of support from Noah. Cam, to her surprise, didn’t get any. He, of all the rowers, deserved the team’s support.
“Who’s with me?” demanded Josh.
Teagan peeked through her fingers to check the show of hands. Everyone bar Cam, Noah, and Ryder raised their hand.
Lemmings.
Josh strutted about like it was a done deal.
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” warned Ryder. “Coach Hayden made the final calls—not us.”
Josh patted him on the cheek. “You keep telling yourself that, cuz.”
Ryder’s punch might’ve landed if Baloo hadn’t picked him up and put him on the other side of the room. Teagan thought it was good to see Ryder standing up for himself. He’d gone for it even though he knew the odds were stacked against him. And, more to the point, put a target on his back.
This was Josh Regis—the type of guy who made it his mission to destroy you if you didn’t do his bidding. Like stealing your cox box, for example.
She found it in the end. In her locker. Even though the team was doing a pretty good job of letting her know they hated her, whoever had stolen it had been kind enough not to add it to the list of bills her mom couldn’t pay.
Now that the FBI had frozen her education trust—the reason behind the unpaid school fees—it wasn’t like her mom could afford to buy a new one.
There was no girls’ shower room in the boathouse—just a broom closet—so she decided to head home for a shower. Maybe she could find some coxswain training videos online, and pray her mom wanted to skip the fancy parents’ cocktail party the school was hosting tonight.
She was halfway to the bike rack when she heard footsteps crunching on the path behind. Turning, she saw Cam, looking like he was still fueled by that post-workout afterglow. The kind that made you feel all buzzy and alive. Not that it mattered. It was just an observation.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” She blushed. Like an idiot. Just because he’d talked to her didn’t mean he’d forgiven her. Cam was always polite. And there was only one path from the boathouse up to the school.
When he didn’t say anything else, she blurted, “I’m really sorry I lied about my dad being dead.”
He pulled a face that made it clear it hadn’t been one of her shining moments. His eyes painted a starker picture. “He put you in a tough position.”
As nice as it was for him to give her an excuse, he wasn’t letting her off the hook.
Not fully. Fix it, Teagan. Fix it fix it.
“That’s nice of you to say, but it’s not a good enough excuse.
Seriously. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied.
No one here knew and all my friends at home have ghosted me and…
” And she really, really hadn’t wanted him to judge her the way they had. “I guess I panicked,” she said feebly.
The ball was in his court now.
He tipped his head back and forth like he was weighing up the scales of justice. “Don’t worry about it.”
Not exactly a peace accord. More like a ceasefire. “Thanks. That just leaves me to worry about you and the rest of the team hating me for being the world’s worst cox.”
He stopped walking and looked at her, perplexed. “I don’t hate you.”
He didn’t seem to like her much either. Or trust her. She’d have to earn that back.
She glanced over her shoulder, annoyed to see the rest of the team making their way up from the boathouse. Cam had given her a pass. Not a full one. But it would have to do.
“Thanks,” she said sincerely. “That means a lot.”
Cam clocked the crew, too, and began walking again. She jogged a couple of steps to catch up to his long-legged strides and tried to hit a lighter note to address the other proverbial elephant lumbering between them. “I guess I have to take it on the chin that you think I’m the world’s worst cox.”
His lips twitched against a smile. “You were pretty shit out there.”
Yeah. She had been. “The guys didn’t pull punches.”
“No, but they’re stressed. Parents’ weekend does that.
Turns even the most put-together kids into eight-year-olds desperate to please Mommy and/or Daddy.
It’s a high-pressure show-and-tell. Like you said, change isn’t easy.
” His expression softened. “And like you also said, it can be good. Tough love advice?”
“Lay it on me.”
“You’re going to have to change with us if you want to prove it.”
He wasn’t wrong. The only person she’d ever really competed with was herself. Sure, there were other competitors to beat, but she didn’t have any control over them. Being cox meant understanding she wasn’t just part of the team, she was the one they looked to for guidance.
They stepped off the path into a small glade of oaks as a clutch of students led their parents down to the boathouse.
“Is your dad here?” she asked.
Cam shook his head. “He’s at the shop. Apparently, some girl set her car on fire. Crazy.”
Yes indeed. It had been. “Hey, since we’re officially teammates, would you mind giving me some insight into what makes the guys tick? If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right.”
Cam glanced down the path, gauging how far the rest of the guys were behind them, then took her hand and pulled her behind a huge oak tree, presumably so the rest of the team wouldn’t see or hear them. It wasn’t a romantic gesture, but when his hand left hers, she missed it.
Cam started with Josh.
“Yup. The boy who would be king,” she said.
“Rumor has it that his grandfather is the one who really runs the show and that Josh’s dad will do anything to make sure the business is passed down to his side of the family.”
“Meaning… shafting Ryder’s side?”
“Pretty much.” Cam ran through a few more of the guys. “Baloo,” he said, his tone softening. “He’s kind of an outlier.”
“In what way?”
“He’s nice.” They both laughed. “No, but seriously,” Cam said.
“He really is a genuinely nice guy, especially considering how much pressure his mom puts on him and Britney to be perfect. Britney obviously nails the socials, but their mom is always calling Baloo up whenever he posts something she thinks ‘won’t reflect well on the campaign trail.’”
“The Evil Queen is Baloo’s sister?”
Cam laughed. “Is that what you call Britney?”
“She did publicly humiliate me.”
“Fair. And accurate. Apparently, their mom used two different surrogates at the same time. Designer twins.”
Teagan checked his face to make sure he wasn’t joking.
Nope. Not a joke. This place was so weird.
She peeked out to watch the approaching team just as Baloo split off from the crew to pick a few brightly colored flowers from one of the beds lining the path.
He tucked one of them behind his ear, then started plucking the petals off the other, one after the other. When he got to the last one, he smiled.
“Looks like someone loves him,” Teagan said.
“Shame he has to be so secret about it.”
“Why would he have to—” she started, but Cam cut her off.
“We don’t know—he’s usually pretty upfront about the guys he’s chasing after.”
“So what? You think it’s someone the team won’t like?”
Cam shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he just really cares about them. Their mom’s pretty controlling about the family’s public image.
Every photo Brit’s ever taken looks like a professional photo shoot.
But Baloo’s more genuine—and sensitive. And I don’t think he’s ever dated someone in real life, so for him to be publicly with someone? That would be big.”
That sucked for Baloo. “And here I was thinking I had it hard wearing the Embezzlement Barbie cone of shame.”
Cam guffawed. A big, friendly laugh she hadn’t heard before. It was nice.
“I hadn’t heard that one.” He put on a fake-serious face and began sizing her up through an imaginary camera lens, like he was seeing if the moniker fit.
“No,” he concluded. “Crew Girl’s a better name for you.
If…” he qualified, “you get your act together at the front of the boat.” He shifted around so they were side by side and pointed to the right. “What’s this?”
“Starboard,” she said, standing at attention like she was being tested by a drill sergeant.
“And this one?”
His arm brushed against hers as he pointed to the left. A spray of fireworks shot through her. The same thing must’ve happened to Cam because all of a sudden they were staring into each other’s eyes, the noise and chaos around them fading away.
“Port?” she whispered.
“Cam-bucha! Tea Party!” Baloo came bounding over. “Are you playing hide and seek? Who’s it?”
Apparently, they weren’t quite as invisible as they thought.
A life lesson, Teagan thought, as she excused herself and scurried off to get her bike. No one was invisible at Easton Prep. And with all of the students’ parents here? They weren’t just on show. They were under the microscope.