Chapter 4 #2
His jaw ached as useless words battered against his throat. This wasn’t the place to have this talk, not surrounded by hundreds of spectators eager to eavesdrop. “Never mind.”
She raised a brow. “Mr. Sutton, if you're trying to make a point, you've hidden it remarkably well.”
“Forget I said anything,” he said shortly. “You have a particular talent for that.”
“What does that mean?”
“Here are your oars!” A cheerful young attendant with sunburned cheeks appeared beside them as though conjured from thin air, thrusting an oar into each of their hands. “Your rowboat is number sixteen. Best of luck!”
“Thank you,” Cecelia said, though the way her fingers wrapped around the oar suggested she was deciding whether it might better serve as a weapon.
“Wait!”
Drew closed his eyes. The infernal woman from the neighboring rowboat had returned. “What now?” he muttered.
“The stakes!” she called as her partner pushed them away from the dock. “What are the stakes?”
“That’s right,” said a man sporting a bushy beard with flecks of his ice cream in it. “There have to be stakes!”
“Why?” Drew demanded, fully aware that he was taking his frustration out on the wrong person but unable to stop himself. “We’re already doing the damn race. Why do there have to be stakes, too?”
Several faces turned toward him in puzzled silence. The gentleman blinked. “Because…you’re rivals? Stakes are…important?”
“Why are you being so resistant?” Cecelia hissed under her breath as she shouldered past him.
Her confusion was warranted. At any other time, he would relish a show of strength on the water.
Would leap headlong into any ridiculous stakes the public wanted, so long as they cheered for him.
But for the first time, the downside to notoriety was crystal fucking clear.
All he wanted in this exact moment was to get in the rowboat, float along at whatever speed he goddamn wanted, and talk to Cecelia.
But if all she wanted was to continue the act, then that’s what he would do, too.
“What do you propose,” Cecelia asked the gentleman, “considering Mr. Sutton and I are on the same team this time?”
“You win together, or you lose together,” he supplied eagerly. “If you win, no harm done. But if you lose, each of you must wear something ridiculous to the flower competition.”
“Ridiculous how?”
“Whatever your partner chooses.”
“I accept.” She turned back to him and arched a brow. “Mr. Sutton?”
“I accept,” he replied, pinning her with his gaze. “Though we will not be losing.”
“Not if you listen to directions.”
“You assume I’ll be the problem?”
“Experience suggests as such.”
He released a long, slow breath. “Get in the rowboat, Cecelia.”
“Gladly!” She stalked past him, chin high. “The sooner this is over with, the better.”
Somehow, Drew managed to climb into the rowboat without tipping it over, hurling an oar into the lake, or throttling anyone in the tittering crowd.
He braced the oar against the dock and shoved them farther out into the lake.
They floated to the starting line just as the race director raised a white flag overhead.
Every rower leaned forward in anticipation.
The flag dropped.
“Row,” Cecelia barked. “Row.”
As though he'd planned to do anything else.
Drew buried his oar in the water, channeling every ounce of frustration into the stroke. Unfortunately, so did Cecelia—to an entirely different rhythm.
“One, two,” he called. “One, two— ”
“Bear left, you big ox!” she shouted over her shoulder. “We're drifting out of the lane.”
“We're drifting because you won't keep time.”
Their oars struck together with a sharp crack. The boat lurched sideways, then spun in a slow circle. Laughter rippled across the lakeshore.
“Oh, marvelous,” Cecelia muttered. “Now we're really entertaining them.”
“That’s the point.”
Determined to recover, he dug harder. The bow shot forward, only for Cecelia to steer them sharply left.
Every time he thought they were finally finding a rhythm, they lost it.
He compensated. She corrected. The boat zigzagged across the lake like a drunken duck, surrendering precious yards to every other crew.
Then he heard a muffled snort.
He leaned forward and peered over Cecelia’s shoulder. She clamped her lips together, but another snort betrayed her. Giggles burst from her in short fits until she was laughing openly.
“This,” she gasped between breaths, “is the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever done.”
He stared around them. “We've rowed all of twelve feet.”
“And at least three of them were backward!”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Then the other. A chuckle escaped before he could stop it.
Cecelia pointed triumphantly. “There! I knew you had a sense of humor.”
Within seconds, they were both helpless, the boat rocking beneath them as the other competitors pulled steadily ahead.
“At least it can’t possibly get worse,” she said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
But he looked past her toward the leaders slicing cleanly across the water. “Cecelia, I don’t finish last. Ever.”
Cecelia studied him for a long moment before nodding once. “All right. Let’s try again.”
He blinked the sweat from his eyes. “Move backward six inches. Oar to the left.” She adjusted without argument. “Easy strokes.” Again, she matched him. “Now dig.”
The boat leaped forward. A moment later, they slipped past one pair of struggling rowers. Cheers erupted from the shoreline.
"Again!" she shouted over her shoulder. “Drew, we're catching them!"
This time, when he called the rhythm, she was already there.
The oars entered together, rose together.
Water sloshed beneath the hull as the boat skimmed across the lake.
Another rowboat fell behind them, then another.
Fans raced along the shore, shouting encouragement, and when Cecelia raised her arms overhead and asked for more, they gave it.
"We can do it,” she screamed.
He dug deeper, pushed harder. Not because he couldn't bear to lose, but because he couldn't bear to let her down.
Not when the crowd was rooting for her, rather than laughing at her.
Not when he had a chance to prove himself.
He gave everything he had left. His shoulders burned, his lungs begged for mercy—the horn sounded.
They were too late.
Drew’s chest heaved as the winning crew drifted toward the dock ahead of them. They'd come up short, only by a handful of strokes, but short all the same.
“Damnit,” he grunted, bending forward to brace his elbows against his thighs. “Damnit, Cecelia. I’m sorry.”
She twisted in her seat to look at him. “Why on earth are you apologizing?’
He squinted up at her. “We lost.”
“True.” Her hair had come loose from its pins, dark curls lifting in the breeze. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, her blouse rumpled and dotted with lake water, and she looked…undefeated. Hell, she looked more alive than he had ever seen her. “But at least we lost together.”
An incredulous laugh escaped him. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”
“No.” She tilted her head, considering him. “Shared failure is preferable to lonely success, wouldn’t you say?”
Shared failure. He'd never considered such a thing. For him, losing had always meant more than coming in second. It meant someone else had been better. Someone else had earned the attention. Someone else had become the person worth watching. And if he wasn't the one people watched…who was he?
He'd spent years making himself impossible to overlook. The swagger, the flowers, the impossible bets and ridiculous stunts. People loved the Fighting Florist, but would they look twice at Drew Sutton without all of that?
“You don't understand,” he said quietly.
“Apparently not.”
He nodded to the shore, where spectators were already moving on to the next attraction. “People stop looking when you stop being useful.”
Cecelia frowned. “Then they weren't worth impressing.”
She made it sound as though admiration was something freely given, not earned through endless effort. As though a person’s worth did not rise and fall with how much delight they brought to a room. He envied that certainty.
“Drew, I spent years trying to become someone worth noticing.” A rueful smile replaced the frown. “Eventually, I realized the people who mattered were the ones who set me free of expectations.”
He sat in silence, chewing on her words.
“It wasn't a performance,” he blurted out.
“What wasn’t?”
“What I wrote.” The noise of the fair—the cheers from the shore, the splash of oars, the voices calling from the docks—seemed to fade around them.
This was his chance, his moment to let her know the truth, the consequences be damned.
“I know what it looked like. I know everyone thought I was putting on another show, but I wasn’t. I meant it.”
She stared into the distance, thinking. Then she nodded. “All right.”
“All right,” he echoed. It wasn’t the grand triumph he’d imagined, but she hadn’t laughed. Hadn’t said no. Hadn’t told him it was impossible.
He’d faced worse odds.
This was one fight he meant to win.