Chapter Seven #2
I’m not saying anything about “the fire” to a bunch of teens, though. Instead, I lift a shoulder and tell them, “Yeah, probably.”
Rohan’s mouth drops open. “That’s what you have to say? ‘Yeah probably’ our dreams are unrealistic?”
“Sure,” I tell him, even though I shouldn’t. I’m too honest with myself and everyone else to be good at these kinds of motivational speeches. “All big dreams are unrealistic. If you care enough, you’ll try anyway.”
A bunch of the kids, including Rohan, bury their gazes in frowns, but Adrian’s eyes catch mine and his lips tweak into a crooked smile. It’s the same look he gave me when I told him I had no thoughts of quitting rowing.
“Nahhhhh.” A voice pierces our pocket of silence, and Rohan lifts his phone toward my face again. “We’re gonna need something way more inspirational than ‘this shit’s hard, but try it anyway.’ ”
Adrian’s eyes shift and he clears his throat. “Okay, that’s enough. You’ll have plenty of time to pester Kath later. Right now, you all need to start getting on the water.”
Rohan groans, but clicks off his phone. The group scatters toward their awaiting shells.
Adrian remains by my side, though, which means we’re alone again.
I sink to a seat in one of the empty nylon slings behind me, partly because my legs have been so fatigued lately that they feel as substantial as Jell-O.
Also, partly to get out of Adrian’s proximity and the memories it induces.
We have exactly one relationship now: coach and athlete. Nothing more.
“It’s going to be great for these guys to train with you this summer,” Adrian says. “Peter, in particular, I think.”
I frown after the mess of heads bobbing down toward the dock. By my account, so far, we’ve only managed to all make one another uncomfortable. “Peter is the serious kid with the glasses?”
“Yeah. He sits stroke seat in my fastest quad. He’s serious about everything, but he’s most serious about rowing.”
I nod. That tracks.
“So,” Adrian says, sinking into a crouch in front of me, possibly so I don’t have to get up from my makeshift seat, but putting himself firmly at my eye level again. “Can we talk quickly? There were a couple of things I was hoping to go over alone.”
“Sure,” I say.
He glances around at the guys who seem to be a safe distance away or at least too preoccupied with their equipment to be listening in.
Then he says, “I know Carla has mentioned that I applied for the junior national team, but I’d rather you don’t share that with anyone else. The kids, specifically.”
“Won’t they find out eventually, anyway? If you get it?”
“Unlikely,” he says with a terse finality. “Can I have your word?”
I nod slowly. “Okay, sure. I won’t say anything.”
His expression softens. “Excellent, thank you. And the second thing. Are you feeling okay about everything? Now that you know who I am, too. Comfortable? We can also talk about this later if you need time to collect your thoughts.”
I blink with surprise and search his expression for a hint of insincerity.
In my experience, coaches barely acknowledge the existence of emotions, let alone ones directed at them.
I don’t remember the last time a coach asked me if I was comfortable with them, even though there are unique circumstances here.
“I’m fine,” I say when Adrian still hasn’t given any indication he’s anything but serious. “But I do want to talk to you about that loaner boat. I’m not sure if your delay was about all this”—I wave my hand around vaguely—“but I don’t have time to waste here.”
Adrian tilts his head and studies me with an expression that suggests he’s doing long division in his head. “You’re ready to get back to it. Just like that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “I hate to be crude about it, but you did experience an unfortunate series of losses.”
“I bombed, you mean.”
“Right.”
I shrug. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t change that. All I can control is what I do today, tomorrow. That’s why I’m here.”
Emotion passes over his face like the roll of wake across the edge of a dock. He holds my gaze for long enough that a breeze kicks up around us, swirling the light morning mist over my skin. Goose bumps race down my arms.
“Well, that’s something else, Parker,” Adrian says, voice low. Then he stands, putting distance between us. “But still. You’ll need to wait. I didn’t tell you that because of anything to do with us. I said it because you’ve just spent the last month racing and you need a physical and mental break.”
“I’m rested. It’s been, like, three days of resting.”
“You mean while you took a transatlantic flight and then packed up all your belongings and then took another flight across the state?” he asks.
“Exactly.”
He shakes his head, another smile caressing his lips. “It’s not enough. You’re overtrained.”
I cross my arms. Overtraining is real, but it’s a feeling more than a diagnosable condition. Carla flags it for me when she sees my split times worsen, but without a metric like that, it’s hard for someone else to identify it.
“How can you tell?” I challenge.
Adrian’s eyes trace my face, my shoulders, and dip down my torso to my toes.
I feel warmth prickle each body part his gaze touches, like he’s extracting something from my exposed skin.
“Your complexion is pale. When you talk, the ends of your sentences are clipped. Your feet drag when you walk and you’re sitting at every opportunity. ”
I lurch to a stand. “Maybe that’s just how I am.”
“We’ve met three times,” he says. From this vantage, we’re suddenly close again. Too close. “I know how your face looked from the first and how you move from the second.”
More heat climbs up the back of my neck. I fight to inhale properly. I try to take a step back, but my thighs brush against the sling, trapping me. “Those are all just—just subjective measures.”
Adrian’s eyes flick to my watch. “I bet your resting heart rate is through the roof.”
As though on instinct, my wrist swivels to point my watch face upward. The numbers blink in yellow instead of green—more consistent with a light walk than standstill. The textbook would say that’s a signal of cardiovascular stress and a good indicator of overtraining.
I slap the screen and drop my hand. “That could be from the travel and the time change.”
“Yeah? What’s the number, then?”
Before I realize what he’s doing, Adrian reaches toward me and envelops my wrist with his long fingers.
I’m so caught off guard I do nothing but stand limply as he gently swivels my watch upward again, drawing my hand toward him.
My heart takes off at a gallop. The watch face careens through colors—dark yellow, then bright orange.
I yank back my hand.
“That’s not—” I splutter. “It doesn’t matter what my heart rate is.”
Adrian finds my eyes and my chest lurches like the traitor it is.
“Of course it matters,” he says.
I shake my head, some combination of defiance and embarrassment moving my chin before conscious thought. My heart wouldn’t be dancing around in my chest like a rhythmic gymnast if we hadn’t arm wrestled or danced. If I hadn’t tried to kiss him. If he didn’t have those eyes or those damn shoulders.
“I’m ready to get back on the water,” I say firmly. “This is my call.”
Adrian’s eyebrows squeeze together as he studies me again. This time, though, he’s not examining anything on my face or my body, but something deeper. Something that sends another shiver right through my spine.
He clicks his tongue and his body language shifts—arms crossed, back straight, smile gone.
“Rest, Parker. You need rest. And then you need to do something else. Something fun. Don’t think about rowing. And that’s not your call. It’s mine.” With that, he turns and strides down the hill toward the docks. “You can get back on the water when you can stand upright and the watch stays green.”
I gnash my teeth even as I let myself slide back into the sling. Kids filter down to the docks, shells lofted high on shoulders. One by one, they pile onto their seats, push off, and stroke away.
As the boats recede into pinpricks, I run through mental math.
I have sixty-one days until Pan Ams. It might sound like a lot, but in training terms, it’s nothing.
A blink. Plus, to get my heart rate down to baseline, I’ll need days off.
So, Adrian is saying I should skip—what—twelve percent of my on-water sessions?
I can’t give up that much precious training time if I want to beat the unbeatable Canadian.
Resolved, I march into the boathouse and hunt for a shell that no one will miss. I find my prize crammed into the back. Its faded gray cover is thick with dust, and it has a cracked footplate and a missing bow ball.
Better than nothing, I think as I settle my boat into the water, strap in my feet, and push my fingertips off the dock.