Chapter 26 – Tessa
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tessa
We reach the dock, and Chad is waiting for us with his shirt tucked in, and his clipboard hugged to his chest.
I dread whatever he is about to say.
“Rowboat challenge!” He practically bounces. “Sun’s perfect. Water’s calm. This is the bonding activity of the weekend.”
Behind me, Rowan mutters something that sounds suspiciously like drown me now.
Honestly? Same.
My ankle aches, but it’s manageable.
“You two are up,” Chad says, motioning toward a narrow rowboat that looks even smaller in person.
I glance at the boat. Then at Rowan.
He doesn’t step forward. He doesn’t even pretend to be civil about it. He just stares at the thing with his arms loose at his sides and his jaw tight.
“It’s rowing,” I say, nudging his elbow. “Not brain surgery.”
“No,” he says, voice flat, “it’s an inefficient transportation method that requires synchronized effort and provides very little payoff.”
I blink at him. “Translation: someone’s scared they’ll get outpaced.”
He gives me a look.
The look.
The flat, unimpressed one he used to aim at me during undergrad whenever I suggested adding music cues or special effects to our class projects.
Chad claps his hands together. “Loop around the center buoy and back. Fastest couple wins.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “That’s you two lovebirds.”
Rowan turns toward him with slow, irritated focus. “Can I request a different partner?”
“Nope,” Chad says, cheerful to the point of delusion. “Firm-mandated chemistry.”
Rowan exhales through his nose, the kind of quiet frustration that tells me he’s one inch from walking straight into the lake.
And honestly?
Same.
“Fuck me,” Rowan mutters, stepping into the boat.
I follow, because apparently, my survival instincts took a personal day. The boat rocks hard under our weight. My stomach drops straight through the floor. This is it. This is how I die—not in a courtroom defending the innocent, but ass-first into a lake, wearing my nicest underwear.
Rowan steadies the boat without comment, one hand braced on the edge, the other catching my elbow as I lower into the front seat.
His fingers press into my arm through the fabric. Five points of heat. Five reminders that my body still does stupid things around this man.
We settle. Oars in hand. The water makes soft slapping sounds against the dock that definitely don’t sound sexual at all.
Thanks, brain. The morning is stupidly peaceful—the kind of quiet that normal people find relaxing.
People who aren’t sitting two feet from their ex while wearing athletic gear that shows exactly how not over it their body is.
I grip the oars tighter. The wood is already making my palms sweat. Or maybe that’s just me. Hard to tell at this point.
The lake stretches out, all sparkly and postcard perfect. Pine trees lean in along the shoreline, doing their best Bob Ross impression. A breeze sends hair directly into my mouth. I scrape it back behind my ear.
“Ready?” Chad calls.
“No,” Rowan deadpans.
I lift my oars anyway, because someone has to pretend we’re functional adults.
“On your mark—”
“Just remember,” Rowan says behind me, his voice closer than I expected, “if we capsize, I’m letting you flail for a full thirty seconds before I help.”
“Team spirit. I love that for us.”
“Rowan and Tessa, go!”
We push off.
The boat lurches violently to the left.
A sound escapes me—not quite a scream, more like a stepped-on cat.
Rowan swears under his breath. Something creative, involving anatomy and poor life choices.
We overcorrect. The boat swings right. Water splashes up, soaking my knee. Then we’re gliding.
One stroke. Two.
And somehow… it works.
The boat moves in a steady rhythm, and my body falls into it immediately. Not the rowing itself, but the us of it—the weird synchronization we always had, even when we were arguing about everything else.
Behind me, Rowan’s breathing settles into something even and controlled.
Of course, it does.
Rowan is good at everything. It’s infuriating. It’s also unfair because he looks good while being good at everything, and honestly, someone should regulate that.
I risk a glance over my shoulder.
He’s rolling up his sleeves. Then he decides that’s apparently too limiting and pulls off the entire shirt, folding it once before tossing it beside him.
I absolutely do not mean to stare.
I do anyway.
His chest is lean and defined, every line sharp without being showy.
Sunlight hits his shoulders in a way I’m pretending not to notice.
His abs tighten each time he pulls the oars, and there’s a muscle in his forearm working hard enough that I suddenly understand why people used to swoon during fencing demonstrations.
Focus.
Water.
Buoy.
Winning.
Not the way his back shifts with every movement.
Not the fact that I want to run my mouth along that same path and—
Okay. I need a therapist. And possibly a priest.
This is supposed to be fake. A performance. A job. But sitting here with him, moving in perfect rhythm, every bit of him focused and powerful and annoyingly beautiful, I have no idea how I’m expected to handle this without becoming a cautionary tale.
Rowan exhales, steady and too calm.
“Eyes on the water, Captain.”
I snap forward so fast my ponytail whips. “I was just checking our progress.”
“You were objectifying my rotator cuff.”
“That cuff is smug,” I shoot back.
He doesn’t deny it, which means he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
And the worst part?
So do I.
He doesn’t answer, but the smirk in his silence is so loud I could probably hear it underwater.
And that’s somehow worse, because now I’m grinning, too.
Because now we’re actually winning. He knows it, I know it, and the boat knows it.
We fall into a steady rhythm—clean, tight strokes that move us forward with this easy glide I didn’t expect.
The other boats are scattered behind us, and Rowan hasn’t even broken a sweat.
Of course, he hasn’t. He rows like someone who did a quick mental calculation and decided exactly how much power he needs to exert to humiliate the competition without looking like he’s trying.
Showoff.
“You know,” I say, breath catching a little, “you’re alarmingly good at this.”
“I’m alarmingly good at everything,” he says, just dry enough to make me choke on a laugh.
“I’m serious. You’re actually doing really well.”
He glances over at me, one brow lifting. “Careful. Compliments like that are going to go straight to my head.”
I smile. “I’m just giving credit where it’s due.”
We round the final buoy, the dock coming into view. Chad is jumping up and down with the enthusiasm of a man who definitely gets paid too much to supervise adults in boats.
“You’re going to gloat about this for hours, aren’t you?” I ask.
“Hours?” Rowan switches to rowing with one hand, because why not. “Try years.”
We glide past the last marker—smooth, and annoyingly perfect.
The dock erupts in cheers.
Chad blows his whistle. “And that’s a win for Team Rowessa!”
“Kill me,” Rowan mutters, looking physically pained.
I turn around in my seat, breathless and flushed in a way that has nothing to do with rowing. “Admit it. You had fun.”
He looks at me.
Really looks.
Not the sarcastic version. Just him, stripped of all the polished edges.
“I forgot what it felt like,” he says quietly, “to be good at something with you.”
My breath catches. I know I should respond with a joke—something snappy, something to keep us from slipping into dangerous territory—but I can’t. I’m too warm. Too aware of him. Too stuck in the feeling of being a team again, even for five minutes.
It’s stupid how much I’ve missed this.
Missed this version of us that didn’t crumble under pressure.
Before I can say anything Rowan drops the oars, leans forward, and kisses me. His mouth moves against mine with a certainty that knocks the air out of my lungs and wipes every coherent thought from my head.
I gasp against him, and everything inside me jolts awake.
My brain fires off warnings because this is reckless and impossible and exactly what I promised myself I would never fall back into. But none of it matters, not when he’s holding me like this and kissing me like he wants something he shouldn’t want.
His mouth is warm, sure, and familiar in a way that shouldn’t feel this good after everything we broke. And suddenly I can’t remember the reasons I built walls, or the speeches I rehearsed, or the boundaries I swore were unbreakable.
And that’s when he grins against my mouth.
My eyes fly open. “Oh no.”
He tips the boat.
We hit the water hard enough that my scream mixes with the splash and Chad yelling something about his clipboard in the background. Cold rushes up my spine, my arms flail, and my lungs forget their job entirely.
Rowan surfaces first, laughing. Actually laughing. His hair is plastered to his forehead, water dripping down his cheekbones, and the smile on his face is so open it makes my chest tighten.
“Y-You’re insane!” I sputter, swiping lake water out of my eyes. “You flipped the boat!”
“I stand by it.”
I float there, blinking through wet lashes, suspended between fury and something dangerously close to joy. I should shove him under the water. I smile instead.
I try to pretend I’m angry when the truth is much worse. I’m laughing. I feel… good. Too good. And it scares me because I know how fast good things can slip, how easily one wrong step can send everything crashing down.
Because if this becomes real again I don’t know if I can survive watching it fall apart a second time.
Rowan turns toward the boat, grabs it, and starts dragging it toward the dock. I watch him for a second, my chest tight in a way I don’t want to examine.
I don’t swim back immediately.
I need a breath. A moment.
Because we were just in this strange, careful place where things worked again. And then he kissed me.
And I kissed him back.
Not because of the retreat.
Not for Chad or the partners or the act we’ve been maintaining.
I kissed him because I wanted to.
For one second, everything felt easy again, and I forgot that I break things when I get too close.
I finally force myself to swim back, heart pounding in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
Because I know this can’t stay safe.
Not if I’m part of it.
I climb out of the lake with all the dignity of wet laundry. My clothes cling to my body, outlining every place I don’t want anyone to look at. My tank top is nearly transparent, and my hair is plastered to my head in a way that isn’t ideal.
Rowan’s already on the dock. His shirt is a ruined pile beside him. His chest is bare. His skin is flushed from the sun and the cold water, and his hair drips onto his shoulders.
He looks at me.
Really looks.
And something in his expression tightens—something dark and hungry.
Then he blinks, and the look is gone.
He extends a hand.
I take it.
Our fingers lock together.
“Back to the house!” Chad calls from the dock. “Dry clothes and debrief in twenty!”
I step off the dock. My shoes squelch. Water drips down my legs.
Rowan walks quietly behind me. I can feel his energy without turning around, and that’s the problem. I shouldn’t be able to feel him like this anymore.
By the time we hit the path, the silence between us is so thick I almost choke on it. I slow just enough to sense him closer at my back, his presence warm despite the cold water still clinging to us.
“Say it,” I mutter.
“Say what?” His voice is too calm.
“That you planned to drown me.”
“No, not today. I was simply helping you out,” he says. “You looked overheated. I addressed the issue.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“And yet,” he says quietly, “you indulge me, especially when I kissed you. I didn’t see you push me away.”
I stop walking.
He’s right.
I didn’t push him away.
I turn to face him.
He’s watching me with that steady, unreadable stare. The one he used to give me when he was trying to figure out what I really wanted but didn’t trust me to say it out loud.
“I don’t know what this is,” I say, breath catching on the words.
And I mean it.
He made the move.
He kissed me.
And if this is real—if he wants this, wants me—then I have to face the truth I’ve been avoiding:
I don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive loving him again.
And I don’t know if he could ever forgive me for the way I left the first time.
Because last night wasn’t a mistake.
The kiss in the boat wasn’t a game.
It was a shift. A door reopened.
And I’m scared.
What if I’m the one who breaks us again?