A few heads turned. Marcus looked at me, then at Liam across the dock, then back at me with an expression I didn't want to decode. Derek just nodded, like he'd expected it.
I glanced across the dock. Liam was pulling oars from the rack, not looking at me. Jaw set. Shoulders tight under his Riverside jacket. He moved with that contained energy he got when he was angry—controlled on the surface, everything coiled underneath.
I couldn't stop replaying it. The meeting at the Riverside Club. Tyler's voice, casual as anything:You bringing Emily?And Liam's answer—flat, automatic, like the words cost him nothing:Yeah, I'm bringing Emily.
Like he hadn't been in my bed four days before that.
I grabbed my oars and headed toward bay three. The familiar weight of the sculls in my hands. The rubber grips cold from the morning air.
Liam was already there, standing by the double on the slings. Up close he looked worse than I'd expected—tired. Shadows under his eyes. A tension in his face that went deeper than pre-practice nerves.
Good. I hoped he'd slept as badly as I had.
"Hey," he said.
I didn't respond. Just set my oars against the rack and moved to my side of the boat. Checked the riggers—fingers tracing the pin, the oarlock swivel, the washer. Everything tight. Everything where it should be.
Everything except us.
"Alex. We need to talk about—"
"No." Flat. Final. "We don't."
He was quiet for a second. Then, lower: "You can't just—"
"I said no."
I grabbed my end of the hull and lifted. He stood there—I could feel him deciding whether to push it. Two seconds. Three. Then he grabbed his end, and we carried the shell to the dock in silence. Set it in the water harder than we should have.
Other doubles were launching around us. The sound of oarlocks clicking, shoes finding stretchers, coaches callingassignments from the launch boats idling near the dock. Tyler and his partner were already out, warming up in long easy strokes.
"Bow or stroke?" Liam asked. His voice had gone professional. Closed off. The walls back up.
"I don't care."
"I'll take bow then."
Fine. That put me in stroke—. Liam behind me where I couldn't see his face. Maybe that was better. Maybe staring at the back of my head was easier for him too.
We climbed in. Me first, settling into stroke, shoes locking into the stretchers, seat sliding to find the right position. Then Liam behind me. The boat rocked as he got in—every micro-movement traveling through the hull to my seat. His weight settling. His feet finding the footplate. The small adjustment of his hands on the oar handles.
The physical awareness was suffocating. Three feet of fiberglass between us and I could feel him like he was pressed against my back.
"Ready?" Liam asked.
I pushed off from the dock without answering.
The first stroke stuttered. My catch was early—just a fraction of a second. The boat checked instead of running clean, the hull decelerating mid-stroke.
From behind me, silence. Pointed silence. The kind a rower gives when they feel the mistake but don't correct it. Yet.
Second stroke. Late this time. My blade slapped the water instead of slicing it.
I couldn't focus. Liam's presence at my back was a constant signal my body couldn't ignore.
I pulled harder on the next stroke. Channeling all of it — the anger, the humiliation, the want — into the drive. Too muchpressure. The blade buried deep instead of catching clean. The boat lurched port-side.
"You're rushing the slide," Liam said.
