He set his coffee on the bench. Dropped his bag. Walked to the other side of the shell and put his hand on the hull—mirroring mine. Both of us standing there with our palms on the fiberglass. The boat between us.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Yeah. You?"
"No." A beat. "But I'm here."
"That's enough."
"You want to warm up early? Get some water under us before everyone else shows up?"
Alex nodded. "Yeah. I want to feel the boat before Hale's watching."
We lifted the double off the rack
The hull settling onto our shoulders—his end and mine, the weight distributed the way it had been a hundred times before. We walked in step toward the bay door. Out onto the gravel path. Down to the dock.
The river was still dark. The mist low on the surface—thin enough to see through but thick enough to feel. The air coldenough to bite. Our breath making clouds that dissolved into the grey.
We set the shell in the water. I held it steady while Alex locked in his oars. He held it steady while I locked in mine. The boat rocked on the current—that familiar, delicate balance.
I climbed in first. My feet finding the stretchers and seat sliding into position. Then Alex behind me. The hull dipping under his weight, steadying, settling.
"Ready?" I said.
"Ready."
We pushed off.
The first strokes were careful. The way you'd touch a bruise to see if it still hurt.
My blade entered the water. Catch. The pressure through my legs on the drive—quads loading, hamstrings firing, the power transferring through my core and out through the oar handle. Finish. Release. Recovery. The blade lifting clean, the boat gliding forward.
Behind me, Alex matched. A half-second delay—bow following stroke, the way Eldridge had drilled into us. His catch landing right where mine had been. His drive matching my pressure.
The boat moved. Not singing. Not dead. Somewhere in between—alive but guarded. Like us.
We rowed in silence for a minute. Two. The rhythm settling. The dock getting smaller behind us. The mist opening up ahead.
Then I said something I'd never said in this boat before.
"I'm going to build to twenty-six. Tell me if I'm rushing."
A pause. In the old days—before the fight—I wouldn't have asked. Wouldn't have needed to. We'd rowed on instinct and silence and the unspoken connection that coaches spent careers chasing.
But instinct had gotten us an 18:23. Silence had gotten us a dead boat. And unspoken wasn't working anymore.
"You're good," Alex said from behind me. "Rate feels right. Your port blade's going a bit deep on the catch."
I adjusted. Shallower entry. The boat responded—a tiny lift in the run between strokes. Barely perceptible. But I felt it. And I knew Alex felt it too.
"Better?" I asked.
"Better."
Behind us, the boathouse was waking up. Voices carried across the water—doors banging open, the scrape of shells being pulled from racks. I caught the low rumble of the launch engine turning over in the marina slip. A four was already at the dock, someone barking commands about port-side rigging.
The world filling in around us. But out here, in the mist, we had a head start.
