I rolled forward. Caught the water. The blade bit cold against resistance.
"Row!"
The gun went off.
All five crews exploded in an instant.
The first ten strokes were chaos. Five boats lunging off the line, oars churning white water, the grunting percussion of ten rowers emptying their legs into the start. Princeton launched like a battering ram—their stroke seat screaming something at his bow man, rating impossibly high, forty-plus, raw power tearing the water apart. Dartmouth clean and fast beside them. BU and Northeastern surging on our left.
And us.
From the very first stroke, something clicked into place.
Not just synchronized. Not just good. Something I'd only felt with him where the hull lifted like it wanted to fly.
My blades entered. His blades entered. The same sound. The same splash. The same silence between strokes where the hull justran.
But we weren't ahead. Not yet.
Princeton had jumped to an early lead—half a length on the field, their brutal start sequence buying them open water. Dartmouth sat right on our outside quarter, their bow even with our stern. BU a seat behind. Northeastern already fading.
We settled into race pace. Thirty-two. Long strokes. Building.
Legs. Back. Arms.
Arms. Back. Legs.
The rhythm so deep in my muscles it didn't require thought. Just the body behind me, matching every movement I made. Trusting that I'd be where he expected me to be. Trusting that he'd be there when I needed him.
And he was.
God, he was.
400 meters.
Wind hit us from the right. Lane five catching the worst of it—a gust that raked across the surface and shoved our bow a fraction off course. I felt the boat check, felt the resistance spike as chop slapped against the outside hull.
Shit.
The other lanes were sheltered. Smoother water closer to the bank. That's what lane five cost you—every gust, every ripple from the officials' launch, every bit of weather the river threw at you landed on your outside blade first.
I adjusted. Pulled slightly harder on my left oar to correct the line. Alex felt it instantly—matched the adjustment without a word. The boat steadied.
But the gust had cost us a seat. Dartmouth was level with us now. Their stroke seat—lean, dark-haired, rowing with a metronome precision that made my jaw tighten—glanced over.
Yeah. Look all you want.
500 meters.
Northeastern fell away behind us. Their rhythm had gone ragged—catches splashing, boat rocking. One down.
But Dartmouth wasn't going anywhere.
They were right there. Half a seat up on us now, their hull cutting the water with that irritating efficiency. No wasted motion. No splash. Just clean, quiet speed that was somehow harder to chase than Princeton's brute force.
On the bank, the crowd noise shifted. A murmur. People noticing that the Kingswell-Riverside experiment was in a fight with Dartmouth for third.
Third. Lane five. Exactly what they expected.
