“Leave him be,” Orion said, pulling on his unisuit. “What bloody business is it of ours? He’s our teammate, yeah?”
I gave Orion a nod in thanks. He had clout with the guys, because Tucker and Rhett left me alone, and we headed down to the dock.
“I probably sound like a broken record by now,” Coach said next to the choppy water under a cloudy sky. “We have the Narragansett Bay Club Regatta coming up, and then the cold weather is going toshut us down until March. This is our shot to show the clubs what they can look forward to competing against in spring.”
Assistant Coach Wright stepped up. “Today on the docket, pause drills. Dean is going to call out a hold so we can see where you’re at in both individual form and as a unit. Okay, let’s go.”
The shell was tethered parallel to the dock. We all climbed in, me at the bow and Dean as cox all the way on the other end closest to Rhett, who pulled in the stroke seat.
Over the past few weeks, I’d spent more time on an ergometer than I could possibly want. Despite the chill in the air, it felt good to get on the water. Once the team was in, Tucker, from the five seat, shifted into captain mode.
“All right, guys, let’s show Coach what we can do. Nice and clean at every pause. We got this.”
Orion turned to look at me over his left shoulder, grinning. “Hear that? We got this.”
I grinned back. “Where are we taking it?”
He cackled. “You’re a madman, Ford.”
At the opposite end of the shell, Dean adjusted his mic’d headset. “Ready? And…pull.”
My back to the open water, I pulled along with my team, and the shell glided away from the dock. Coach’s boat puttered alongside us, and he put a megaphone to his mouth.
“Up first, I want to see a hold on the finish,” he said. “Smooth drive, then clean finish. Legs, body, arms…in that order. Go ahead, Dean.”
“On it,” Dean said, his voice amplified over the wind. We all rowed in unison, pulling at our oars, but even before Dean called for the pause, I knew we weren’t synced.
“Ready…and…hold!”
We all stopped in the leaned-back position, oars pulled up to our chests.
“Rhett, your oar is nearly up to your chin,” Coach complained.“You look like your elbows are coming out of your goddamn neck. Good, Knox. Good, Kai. Excellent, Xander.”
Again and again, at different parts of the stroke, Dean called for a hold, and Coach assessed our form and then complained about it. He was especially hard on Rhett and excruciatingly complimentary of me.
“I wish you could all turn around and watch Ford’s stroke. He’s textbook at every single pause, and the only one who looks like he knows what the hell he’s doing.”
My face went red, and the other guys turned around to glance at me—Rhett, Tucker, and Justin with grimaces; Kai, Henry, and Knox with approval. Orion flashed me a brilliant smile and a thumbs up.
“Let’s go again,” Coach said. “This time, hold on the catch. I want to see clean catches, no smashing. Smooth.”
“Row,” Dean called, and we began. After a few strokes, he called a hold on the catch.
“Christ, Calloway, look at your blade,” Coach bellowed into the megaphone. “No, hold it,” he snapped when Rhett tried to fix his angle. “You’re shallow as hell and about to wash out. Go again.”
The drills went on for two hours, until finally we were allowed to dock. Every part of my body was on fire with exertion as we stood in a row, Coach pacing up and down our line. He gave us his general feedback—none of it good—then stopped in front of Rhett.
“You’re around six feet, right? What do you weigh?”
“About one-seventy, Coach,” Rhett said in a low, wary tone.
Without breaking eye contact, Coach called out to me at the other end of the line. “Ford. Height and weight.”
“Six feet, one-sixty-nine,” I said, having weighed in prior to practice as required.
“Calloway, I don’t know what the hell you’ve been doing since last year,” Coach said, “but I’ll remind you that stroke seat isn’t just a position, it’s a responsibility. The entire crew is relying on you for pace. For rhythm. For technical precision. If you can’t hack it, I’mgoing to switch you and Ford, you got me?”
My eyes fell shut.Fuck me.
