Alex surfaced next to me. Close. His hair slicked back, water beading on his face, and despite the cold—despite everything—he was laughing. This startled, real laugh that cracked open his composure in a way I'd almost never heard.
I was laughing too. Couldn't help it. The absurdity of it. The relief. The two of us treading water in the middle of Octoberin our racing gear while our teammates lost their minds on the dock above us.
And not just Riverside—I could see some Kingswell guys up there too. Cheering. The barrier between the teams crumbling in this one moment of pure, stupid, earned joy.
Then I noticed the camera crew. On the bank, thirty feet away. The long lens pointed right at us. The red recording light steady and unblinking. The reporter saying something into a handheld mic, gesturing toward where we treaded water.
Two guys laughing in a river. That's all the footage would show. Teammates celebrating. Nothing more.
But my stomach tightened anyway. Because I knew what was underneath the laughter. And cameras had a way of catching things you didn't mean to show.
Alex must have seen them too. His eyes tracked to the bank and back to me—quick, automatic, the risk calculation I'd seen him run a thousand times. But this time, something was different. This time he didn't flinch. Didn't rearrange his face. Just looked at me with the water between us and those wrecked, bright eyes, and let the camera see whatever it wanted to see.
Alex swam closer. Not much. Just enough that his hand brushed my arm under the water where nobody could see.
"My room," he said. Quiet enough that the chaos above drowned it out. His voice low. "Tonight."
My stomach dropped. Heat cutting through the river cold like it was nothing.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
His eyes held mine. Water on his lashes. Close enough that I could see his pulse hammering in his throat. Close enough that if I leaned forward six inches—
Hands reached down from the dock. Tyler's. Remy's. Someone else's.
"Come on, you idiots, you're gonna freeze!"
We let them pull us out. Hands grabbing, everyone talking at once. Noah cheering. Ethan's camera steady.
The sports reporter was on the dock now. Moving toward us through the crowd with her mic and her cameraman. Professional smile. The kind of energy that meant she smelled a story.
"Incredible race," she said, eyes on both of us. "Can I get a quick word? The viewers are going to want to hear from the pair that just beat Princeton, Dartmouth, and the rest of the field from lane five."
Alex straightened. I watched the shift happen—the jaw setting, the shoulders going back, the composure sliding into place like armor. Full Harrington. The version of himself he wore for audiences. But there was something different underneath it now. Something looser. Like the armor didn't fit quite as tight as it used to.
"Of course," he said.
She turned to me. Mic extended. "Liam Moore, Riverside State. How does it feel?"
I was still dripping. Still shaking. Still buzzing with adrenaline and river cold and the ghost of Alex's hand on my arm.
"Feels pretty good," I said.
She smiled. The cameraman zoomed in. "Any comment on the partnership? A lot of people said a Kingswell-Riverside pairing couldn't work."
I glanced at Alex. He was watching me. That careful, steady look—the one that saidI'm right herewithout saying anything at all.
"They were wrong," I said. Simple. Looking at her but talking to him.
She asked a few more questions. Alex handled most of them—smooth, articulate, the perfect sound bite about collaborationand competition and the value of the joint program. Saying all the right things in that Harrington way that made everything sound rehearsed even when it wasn't.
I stood next to him and let him talk. Watched the cameraman frame us together—two guys in soaked racing gear, standing close enough that our shoulders almost touched. Teammates. That's what the footage would say.
Let it.
The reporter thanked us and moved on. The cameraman swung his lens toward the coaches. The red light tracked away from us.
