Bridge, already on the bow, shot them a look. “Too late.”
Joss laughed from the dock, passing down an extra fender. “You’re all terrible role models.”
Fly caught it one-handed. “Yet you’re still here.”
They moved through prep in easy rhythm. Sail flaked. Lines coiled clean. Voices overlapped, familiar and loose. Fly liked them like this. Focused but relaxed.
He straightened and looked past the breakwater.
The bay opened wide beyond the marina, blue and inviting, a soft breeze sliding across his skin. The horizon sat low and pale. Clouds stacked thin in the distance, nothing dramatic. Just weather being weather.
Something tightened anyway.
Just a sense of pressure where there shouldn’t be any. The water out there looked too smooth between pulses. The wind brushed his face, then hesitated, then came again from a slightly different angle.
He inhaled slowly. The air felt cooler than it should.
Fly held his gaze on the water a second longer than necessary, cataloging details without naming them. Timing. Texture. The way the surface seemed to breathe. Beneath the hull, Valor rolled, slamming the side into the fenders, foam protectors between Valor and the dock. He stared down, his shoulders tight, then they relaxed as the water settled.
“Fly?”
Mei’s voice pulled him back. He turned, already steady again.
“Yeah.”
“You want the jib run tighter?” she asked. Calm. Trusting.
He nodded. “Yeah. Go a touch tighter.”
She adjusted without question, fingers fast, precise. Than shifted his weight automatically to compensate. The boat answered like it always did.
Fly let the unease settle where it belonged. Deep. Quiet. Filed away.
He clapped his hands once. “All right. Finish rigging. We launch in twenty.”
The bay stayed calm. Bright. Cooperative.
Fly didn’t look away from it until the last line was ready.
Hollis’s voice cracked across the water, sharp and pleased. “Varsity crew, let’s move. Tight and fast. I don’t want daylight where a hand should be.”
Fly didn’t react. Varsity wasn’t a title you wore. It was a standard you were held to. They’d earned the boat, the race slot, the scrutiny that came with it. That meant no slack, no excuses, and no room for error.
The chase boat idled nearby, Hollis standing tall at the console, grin sharp and eager. He looked energized. Almost giddy. Race day did that to him. Competition lit him up in a way Fly had learned to catalog and work around.
Fly stepped aboard first and took the helm without ceremony. The tiller settled into his palm like it belonged there. Valor answered the touch immediately, a small shift, a promise.
“All right,” Fly said, voice calm and level. “Bridge, bow. Eyes up. Call anything that looks off.”
Bridge scrambled forward, nimble and fearless, planting herself near the rail with an easy confidence that still surprised him sometimes.
“Joss,” Fly continued. “Jib assist. Stay loose but ready.”
“Yes, sir,” Joss said, already moving, lines in hand, attention locked in.
“Than, foredeck. Ballast when we need it.”
Than nodded once and stepped into position, wide stance, weight centered, like gravity listened to him.
