Chapter Eleven
Eleven
Adrian practically skips to the lockers. From one of the wooden cubbies, he extracts a gym bag like a handyman retrieving a well-loved toolbox.
“Meet you there?” he asks. “I’ll change.”
That enthusiastic grin has reinvigorated his face. This time, a certain deviousness simmers just under the surface. It reminds me of Sofi’s wolfish grin when she’s about to crush me at pinball. Wariness rises up in me, like my body has internalized a mistake before my mind has caught up.
I sling my own bag onto my shoulder and scale the rickety old wooden stairs toward the upper levels of the boathouse, forging toward the erg room.
I’m not a religious person, but if I were, this place would be my house of worship.
Dust motes dance in the rectangles of light spilling from the massive bay windows.
They illuminate the row of ergs like pews awaiting their parishioners.
The room smells like sun-warmed wood and old varnish and I’m bathed in a prayer shawl of silence, entranced.
The first time I ever felt the sensation of rowing was on one of these machines.
It was the summer before I started high school, Mom was between jobs, and no two days were the same.
One night she’d wake me up at midnight because she was craving waffles, and the next she’d be canceling our plans to go back-to-school shopping so we could do a candle-making workshop at the YMCA.
On a whim, Mom signed me up for Discover Rowing Day.
The coach, Darlene, led our awkward group of shuffling teens through the trophy room to tell us about the club’s long, decorated history, and let us each hold an oar.
I was already awestruck by what she described: the discipline, the routine of early mornings, the consistency of long-distance sessions.
It was the erg that sold me, though. When we got upstairs, Darlene said we could all give them a try, so I sat on a seat and pulled at the handle, awkwardly lifting it over my bent knees.
The flywheel came alive in a whir and the display screen lit up to monitor distance, stroke rate, and splits.
My technique was all wrong, even inexperienced I could tell that, but as I watched the little screen, I started experimenting, moving my arms differently or pushing my legs harder.
I loved the way the numbers jumped or stabilized in response to my movements, the smooth feeling of the handle in my fingers, and the droning, constant purr of air.
Standing over me, Darlene asked what I planned to do with the rest of my summer.
“This,” I told her through panted breaths. “I want to keep doing this.”
That night when I got home, it didn’t even matter that Mom was still asleep, snoring softly on the couch.
I tucked a blanket over her toes, made myself dinner, and searched for rowing videos on a laptop in my room.
In the soft glow of that screen, I watched, mesmerized, as oars skimmed the surface of placid water in the same regular, rhythmic movements I’d just made on that whirring machine.
In the erg room now, I sip on blue liquid from my blender cup and consider the room. So much has changed and yet so little. Despite all the difficulties and hurdles and unending heartache, rowing has always felt like an escape and a privilege. It’s just as true now as it was when I was fourteen.
Now, I just have to win this erg race to get it all back.
The stairs creak. The door cracks open and Adrian bursts into the room.
And, oh shit.
He’s donned a spandex unisuit, but he has the top folded down so he’s basically wearing nothing but fitted shorts.
Clearly, he’s kept himself in shape. Not the gym rat way with bulging (read: useless) biceps.
He’s got the long muscles of an athlete: defined abs, broad, muscular shoulders.
He even has that deep V shape cut into his lower abs that trails into the top of his shorts.
My god, in Italy, I ran my hands over those abs and I had no idea what was lingering right under his dress shirt.
More bad news.
It’s not just Sofi’s prodding or my alcohol-soaked memories. Adrian isn’t just objectively attractive.
I’m attracted to him.
“Do you want to go first?” he asks, startling me from my train of thoughts.
Okay, even worse. I’ve been staring. Also, my mouth is open.
I snap my lips closed and lift my gaze to his face. His eyes dance with another devious smile. So, he caught me staring. This has actually become the worst-possible-case scenario.
“I—” Shit. Shit. Shit. “I’m so sorry.”
Adrian sucks in his bottom lip and furrows his eyebrows in exaggerated confusion. “For what?”
My cheeks might be made of fire now. This man is supposed to be my coach. “You know.”
“I really don’t.”
“I’m sorry for…” I hate this. But when I’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of thing, I’ve wished the dudes and occasionally ladies would fess up and apologize. So, I take a deep breath and say, “I’m sorry for ogling you.”
Adrian’s smile draws wider. “Ogling? I thought you were merely perusing.”
My gaze sinks to my neon yellow running shoes. “I regret everything.”
“I, for one, am nothing but thrilled.”
“Do you accept my apology or not?”
“Oh, yes. Apology accepted.”
“Do you want to, uh…” I point a tentative finger at his upper body. “Put the top part up? Just so it doesn’t happen again.”
I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull straight if I know Adrian’s exposed abs are in the same room as my eyeballs.
When I peek up from my shame-stare, Adrian has obliged. The problem is that the top of his suit is so tight I can still make out the ridges of his muscles. I force my eyes back down.
“Better?” he asks.
Sort of. I nod at the ground. “I can go first.”
I take a breath and try to get my head in the game. So, Adrian has been keeping himself in shape, but that doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to win. I have some control here. I can still choose my own destiny.
With as much confidence as I can muster, I peel off my sweatshirt, set the erg’s heel cups, and strap my shoes into place. I take a deep breath and—to the best of my ability—push thoughts of Adrian’s abs out of my mind.
Then I put my hands on the smooth, plastic handle. And it all gets easier because I’m lost.
In fluid motions, I move. My quads flex as I press down, powering into my first stroke.
As I round the top, my abs tense, shoulder blades pinch, and hands snap into my torso, sharp and quick.
I hit a microscopic pause. Then I release it all in a rush of air and breath, now barely audible under the purr of the flywheel.
In an instant, I’m pulling again, inhaling back up the slide in motion after glorious motion.
Press, flex, pause, repeat.
It’s a song. A prayer. The pain builds, but I’m in the zone now.
Committed. It’s not just this moment on the line, but the next eight weeks.
Control over my own program and an end to the otherwise endless cycle of frustration and consternation.
If I give in to the burning in my lungs and the fire in my legs, I’ll lose it all forever.
So, I pull with everything I have. Sweat slicks my face. My breath heaves in fiery inhales. Up and down, I glide. I fly.
Seconds tick. I push my legs harder. On the display screen, meters blur like sand flowing through an hourglass. Press, flex, pause, repeat. I’m nearly there. Two hundred meters to go. A hundred. The last burning ounces of pain extracted like a sacrifice to a sadistic god.
My neck lifts out of neutral and I hear Carla’s voice screaming at me to get my chin down. I force myself to drop it. Chest up. Heart forward. Pull. Again. And again.
I let out a gasping yell. And cross the finish.
My hands release the handle. I gulp down air, forcing my lungs to relax, before swiveling to examine the display. It’s far from my personal best, but it’s the best I could have hoped for today.
I glance up, suddenly remembering Adrian is here, too.
He’s staring. Lips slightly parted. Hands limp by his sides. Chest rising and falling, like he’s also out of breath.
The heat that had just eased from my body rushes back like a swollen river overtaking a bank.
Memories of our night in Italy spring from their carefully contained box: A bead of sweat descending Adrian’s collarbone. Our synchronized movements in the deep thrums of bass, bodies glued together from chest to knees. My arm curling around his neck as his knuckles trail along one of my triceps.
“That looked good,” he says.
He steps toward me and crouches next to my erg. Every inch of my skin is magnetized, like I can feel the molecules of air humming over me.
“Except for one small issue.” He hooks his index finger under my chin and tilts my head up. My vision fills with nothing but his face. “Your chin rises when you’re pushing hard.”
He’s so close. I’m breathless, quivering from head to toe like a tuning fork. Adrian is imparting technical advice here, but all I can think about is the pressure of his finger, gently lifting my chin. And his lips, soft and just a shade lighter than red. I wonder how they taste.
“I—” I clear my throat. Try to get a grip. “I’m working on it.”
“Don’t,” he says softly.
“Don’t what?”
Adrian releases me. Air rushes back into my lungs and reality floods my system.
Coach. He’s my coach.
Despite our brief but memorable history, I can’t let my mind wander into musings on what he tastes like.
Probably citrus, though.
“Stop trying to fix it,” Adrian explains. “It works for you. It’s like you’re looking to the sky for your power. Like you can’t be contained to just the water and the boat. Why not let it tilt?”
I squint at his forehead. With some distance between us, I can finally put my tumbling thoughts into a coherent order.
The fact that I have to explain this doesn’t bode well for Adrian’s level of knowledge or my future recommendation to USRowing—and that’s not to mention the strange nonsense about sky and power.