Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Reese
Wednesday morning practice is the row that makes you forget anything else exists.
The lake is still and the air is sharp, and from the first stroke we’re locked in. Eight blades enter the water as one, eight bodies move through the drive with the same power, and the boat sings underneath me, that low hum of carbon cutting through glass at a speed it has no business holding.
“That’s it,” I call through the box, keeping my voice level while my heart goes. “Hold this pressure. Feel the run.”
We’re flying. Whatever moved in that house last night, in the conversations I was only half part of, has turned into something I can feel through the hull. The boat is long, clean, and fast enough that I stop checking the numbers every other stroke and just let them work.
“Power ten for the finish,” I call as the marker comes up. “In two. One. Two. Now. Legs down, send it!”
The boat surges, and for a stroke I’d swear we come off the water entirely. When we cross and I call them down, every one of them is gasping and grinning.
“Time?” Gray asks, chest heaving.
Tyler checks the monitor. “Two fifty-eight point seven.”
For a second, nobody says anything. Zane is the first to recover. “Bullshit.”
Tyler turns the SpeedCoach so he can see it. “It isn’t.”
That gets eight exhausted men talking at once. I sit in the stern listening to them lose their minds over breaking three minutes, trying not to grin as hard as they are. The sun’s up properly now and everything has gone gold and rose, and for a minute this is all there is.
This is what we are when nothing else is allowed in the boat.
Then my phone buzzes in my pocket and the rest of it comes back. I don’t check it because I know who it is.
“Let’s take her in,” I say. “Easy paddle. Save something for tomorrow.”
The row back is quiet. The high off that last piece is still in the air, but I can feel it thinning already, giving way to whatever is waiting on shore. Bennett meets us at the dock wearing the same giddy expression he’s had since the scouts turned up.
“Outstanding work. I could see the speed from the boathouse.”
We rack the shell and rinse the equipment, and I hang back while the others go in. There are three messages waiting for me.
Mother: Dinner tonight. 7pm. The Bellingham Club. Your father has reserved the private dining room.
Mother: Please dress appropriately.
Mother: And Reese, come alone. This is a family matter.
The Bellingham Club. Neutral ground where old money conducts its negotiations. I’ve been there a dozen times for galas and debutante nonsense, always in something my mother chose, always wearing the smile she taught me.
“You okay?”
Bo is watching me with the concern already sitting in his face.
“Fine.”
“You keep using that word.” He comes closer and drops his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Family. Dinner tonight, command performance.”
His expression darkens. “You don’t have to go.”
“I do. They’re doing damage control, and if I don’t show, they escalate.” I pocket the phone and pick up my bag. “Better to get it done.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but I’m already walking toward my car. By the time I make it across campus for Business Strategy, the high from practice is completely gone.
Professor Hawthorne usually holds me. He makes market analysis feel like it matters this afternoon instead of next quarter, but today I hear about a third of it.
Come alone. This is a family matter.
My mother knows exactly what she’s doing. Get me on her ground, surrounded by her people, where I either perform the dutiful daughter or get humiliated in a room with witnesses. She’s done it before.
I take notes I won’t be able to read and nod at things I don’t hear, and when class ends I’m out the door before anybody can talk to me.
The quad is full of ordinary people doing ordinary things, sprawled on the grass with laptops, cutting between buildings, complaining about classes.
This was supposed to be my version of normal.
Instead I’m sitting on a bench trying to work out how to survive dinner with my parents while half my life waits for me back at the house.
I read the messages again, as though the tenth pass will change them.
I could bring somebody. Turn up with Gray on my arm and watch my mother’s face go white.
But they’d read it as defiance, proof I’ve been turned against my own family, and it would hand them the exact story they want.
There’s no version of tonight that doesn’t cost me something.
My phone buzzes and my heart stutters before I see the name.
Quinton: Hey, you okay? You seemed distracted in Hawthorne’s class.
Quinton sits two rows behind me in Business Strategy. I hadn’t registered him today. I hadn’t registered much of anything.
Me: Fine. Just tired.
Quinton: The project can wait if you need a break. I meant what I said about being low-pressure.
It’s a kind message and my skin crawls anyway, which probably says more about the last three months of my life than it does about Quinton.
Me: Thanks. I’ll let you know about next week.
By mid-afternoon I’ve run tonight a dozen different ways and none of them end well.
I could refuse to go and let them stew, but later means phone calls to the administration and questions about my funding and possibly my mother on the porch of the team house.
I could go and grovel, apologize for the dock and promise discretion, except apologizing for choosing my pack puts acid in the back of my throat.
I could go and fight, which I’d enjoy for about four minutes. My parents don’t lose gracefully.
I’m in the library pretending to study for my economics midterm when a shadow lands across the table.
“You’ve been on that page for twenty minutes.”
Tyler is standing there with his laptop bag over one shoulder.
“Have I?”
“Give or take.” He takes the chair across from me without asking, which somehow isn’t unwelcome, and has the laptop out and open before he’s finished sitting. “You’ve also been tapping your pen in an inconsistent rhythm, which you never do, and you didn’t notice me come in.”
“Maybe I’m tired.”
“You’re dreading something.” He types something without looking at the screen. “Those texts at the dock. Your mother?”
I should mind being read like a set of results. Instead it’s a relief, because there’s nothing careful about it.
“My parents want dinner tonight. The Bellingham Club. Just the three of us.”
“Private room?”
“Of course.”
He stops typing. “So they can say whatever they want without anybody hearing it.”
“Pretty much.”
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“They specifically said to.”
“Obviously.”
I look at him. “That’s generally how come alone works.”
“Isolation is the point, Reese.”
“I know.”
He goes quiet, gaze dropping to the table, and I can practically watch whatever he’s thinking sort itself into columns.
“Gray would last through appetizers,” he says finally. “Jackson would scare your mother, and Beckett would enjoy himself far too much.”
I stare at him. “You’ve thought about this.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He adjusts his glasses. “I would be useful.”
It takes me a second. “You’re offering to come.”
“I’m saying I know how these dinners work.
My parents are academics, but my grandmother’s side is old money.
I spent most of my childhood at tables like that learning which fork to use and how to say nothing while appearing engaged.
” His shoulders have gone tight even though his voice hasn’t.
“Your parents won’t read me as a threat, and I’m very difficult to provoke. ”
“That’s true.”
“I assume that was a compliment.”
“It mostly was.”
“I can be the concerned classmate supporting a friend through a difficult family conversation. They’ll ask questions. I’ll answer them without giving them anything useful.”
“Tyler.” I wait until he looks up. “Are you offering, or thinking out loud?”
He’s quiet for a moment before his voice drops. “I watched your face at the dock this morning when you read those messages. You looked like somebody bracing for a hit. You looked like you’ve had practice at it.”
I have to look at the table.
“I know that expression,” he says. “I spent a lot of years learning how to stop making it. My parents meant well. Their expectations were still their expectations.” He closes the laptop with a soft click. “You shouldn’t have to do that on your own.”
I’ve watched Tyler from across a room for three months and read all that stillness as distance, as a man who processes the world at arm’s length and doesn’t feel it the way the rest of us do. I think I had that entirely backward.
“They’ll ask questions,” I warn him. “About the team. About us. They’ll take whatever they get and use it.”
“I can handle questions. I’ll give them answers that are true and worthless.”
“And if they’re cruel? If they start on Omegas, on the pack, on me being—”
I can’t finish it. The word my mother used on that dock is still sitting in my mouth.
“Then I change the subject, or I tell them they’re being rude in the politest available terms.” Tyler’s voice doesn’t move. “And when we leave, I’ll buy you ice cream and we can discuss what terrible people they are. Or not discuss it. Whatever you want.”
A laugh gets out of me, watery and surprised. “Ice cream?”
“There’s a place on the way back to the house. Thirty-two flavors.” The corner of his mouth moves. “I’ve been looking for a reason to try the salted caramel.”
“You planned the dessert.”
“I planned the exit. The dessert came with it.” He looks down at the table. “People find that off-putting.”
I reach over and put my hand on his wrist. “It’s not off-putting. It’s actually kind of perfect.”
His breath catches, and for somebody that controlled, it may as well be a shout. He ducks his head.
“I should tell you this isn’t entirely selfless. I’ve been trying to work out how to spend time with you outside of team things.” His mouth tightens. “This isn’t how I would’ve chosen to do it.”
“You were going to say suboptimal.”
“I was.”
I smile at him despite the entire day. “Tyler Wu, are you asking me on a date to my parents’ ambush?”
“I’m asking if you want backup.” He meets my eyes, and there’s warmth in them I haven’t been shown before. “The date can wait until we’re somewhere your mother isn’t weaponizing the bread basket.”
For the first time since I read those messages this morning, I can breathe all the way down.
“Okay. But you’re getting briefed first. My mother has a doctorate in psychological warfare and my father thinks silence is a power move.”
“I was raised by academics who treated passive aggression as a love language. I’ll manage.” He checks the time. “I’ll get you at six-thirty. That puts us there without rushing.”
“And arriving after they’re seated.”
“It’s a small thing. They’ll be waiting on you instead of the reverse.”
“You’ve really thought about this.”
“I think about most things.” His eyes come up to mine and hold. “Particularly the ones that matter.”
I gather my books and realize I’ve been in this library for hours and my next class started ten minutes ago. I don’t especially care.
“Hey, Tyler. Thank you. For offering.”
“You’re welcome.” He hesitates. “I’ve been told I’m not good at emotional support. I’m working on it.”
“You’re better at it than you’ve been told.”
My phone buzzes on my way out, and I expect my mother with another reminder about dressing appropriately.
Bo: Everything okay? You’ve been quiet today.
Me: Better now. Tyler’s coming with me to dinner with my parents tonight. I’ll fill everyone in after.
Three dots appear, vanish, then appear again.
Bo: You sure that’s a good idea?
Me: No. But it beats going alone.
There’s a longer pause this time.
Bo: Okay. We’ll be here when you get back. All of us.
I read that one twice before I put my phone away and head for class. Tonight is still going to be awful. My mother will make sure of that, but Tyler will be sitting beside me, and when it’s over, I know where I’m going.