“No one,” I snapped. “Because it didn’t happen.”
Cal leaned back against his locker. “People talk, Liam. Someone raced someone.”
“It wasn’t me,” I repeated.
Tyler studied me and I felt cornered. Because this wasn’t harmless teasing anymore. This was pressure. This was the walls closing in.
Remy tilted his head.
“Dude,” Tyler said, lowering his voice but not his intensity, “you know I respect you. But if you did something that could get you benched, we need to know. Coach Hale would—”
“Enough,” Jace said, stepping between us with the authority of captain. “If Liam says it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him.”
Tyler opened his mouth. Jace gave him one look and Tyler shut it.
Cal closed his locker with a soft click. “Whoever it was, it was reckless. They’re lucky nothing happened to their boat... or themselves.”
My stomach twisted harder.
“Alright guys, let’s get down to the river,” Jace said.
The room cleared out and Jace turned to me. “You good?”
I nodded, even though every nerve in my body was lit up.
“Good. Let’s hit the water.” Jace turned and headed for the door.
And me? I stood there feeling like the floor had tilted beneath my feet.
It hit me just how many people knew. Just how close this secret was to blowing up my season. My scholarship. My whole future. Alex’s too. But he could probably get out of it—he was legacy, he was wealthy. I didn’t have that. I just had a mom with two jobs hoping I’d make something better of myself.
All this and the scrimmage was tomorrow.
The river was still holding the last traces of late-afternoon gold when I walked down the dock. My single bobbed beside me, hulltouching the water with the soft confidence of a boat that knew it could punish me for every mistake.
I rested a hand on the gunwale and let myself breathe in the river air—brackish, cool, familiar. My body felt wired, humming with too much energy, like every muscle had been switched on one notch too high.
Then I heard Remy’s voice in the distance.
The freshman eight slid toward the dock, blades flashing in perfect alternating arcs. Remy sat in the cox seat, tucked low, headset crackling through the boat speakers. Even from here, I could hear the difference in how he commanded a crew.
Most coxswains barked.
Remy calibrated.
“Alright, boys,” he said, voice steady, precise. “Sit up. Find the run. Catch placement only. In... two... one... now.”
The freshman eight responded like his words had real power, not fear or toxic pressure. He never wasted a syllable. No ranting. No aimless corrections. Every cue was a direct line to what he wanted the boat to feel.
“Let the stern swing under you,” Remy called. “Quiet hands. Lighter. Good. Hold that.”
The boat lengthened.
Even from the dock I felt myself slipping into their rhythm—the soft slide of seats, the sharp click of oarlocks, the smooth hiss of blades entering water. The freshmen weren’t perfect, not yet, but Remy had them breathing in unison after only ten strokes.
“Draw through. Don’t muscle it,” he continued. “You’re not chopping wood. You’re gliding.”
I found myself smiling. Remy was a born coxswain. He didn’t shout rowers into shape. He stitched them together.
