"Bus leaves Sunday at noon. Don't be late."
He disappeared into his office. The door closed.
Alex and I stood there. Hands on the hull. The boat between us. The 16:28 hanging in the air.
And for the first time since this whole thing started—the texts, the photo, Braden, the fight, the silence, the bridge—I believed we were going to be okay.
Not because the problems were solved. They weren't. Someone still had that photo. Someone was still watching. The anonymous texter was still out there, patient and strategic and waiting.
But the boat was alive again.
And the boat had never lied to us.
Chapter 23: Alex
Igot on the bus early because that's what Harringtons did. First to arrive. Best seat secured. The appearance of preparedness masking the fact that I'd been awake since five and couldn't sit still in my dorm room any longer. I'd left three tabs open on my laptop—a half-finished essay, the course portal, an unanswered email from my professor.
All of it still there when I'd finally closed the lid and left—it was time to row.
The charter was nicer than what either program usually traveled in—cushioned seats, actual legroom, an overhead rack that didn't rattle. Eldridge's doing. He'd made a call to the alumni travel fund, which was Kingswell code forsomeone's father wrote a check.Possibly mine.
I took a window seat toward the back. Left side. Plugged in my AirPods. Put on the meditation app I'd been using all semester.
My intention for the day was to not throw up from nerves.
The bus filled in waves. Kingswell guys first—Collins and Mason claiming seats in the middle, Derek already asleep before the engine started, which was a talent I envied more than hisfour years of varsity experience. Eldridge settled into the front row with his newspaper.
Then the Riverside contingent. Tyler's voice before his body. Two novice rowers I didn't know by name, one with a freckle on his cheek. Jace boarding quietly, taking the second row.
Remy came on a few minutes later. Laptop already under his arm. He took a window seat three rows ahead of me, set up his clipboard-tray-table contraption, and had race footage playing before the bus left the parking lot.
Ethan appeared beside Remy. "You mind? I've got footage to review and you've got footage to review and we can be antisocial together." Remy shifted his bag without looking up and Ethan dropped in beside him.
I'd been assigned to room with Ethan in Boston. The email had come through earlier in the week. I hadn't thought much of it. Ethan was easy. He'd edit on his laptop while I did my pre-race routine and we'd coexist the way we'd learned to after rebuilding something that had once been broken.
The bus rumbled to life. Through my window I could see the boathouse—the dock where we'd posted the 16:28 two days ago. The river beyond it, flat and grey. The water that had carried us back to each other.
Movement in the aisle.
I looked up.
Liam was walking toward the back. Duffel over his shoulder. His Riverside hoodie zipped to the chest, hair still damp at the edges the way it got when he showered and didn't bother drying it. He moved through the bus the way he moved everywhere—shoulders first, no apology for the space he took up.
He passed Tyler. The seat beside Tyler was open. The obvious choice—his friend, his program, the person he'd rowed with since freshman year. Tyler glanced up. Liam kept walking.
My pulse did something stupid.
He stopped at my row. Looked down at me. The overhead light catching the green of his eyes.
"This seat taken?"
I pulled out one AirPod. "It is now."
He swung his duffel into the overhead rack. Dropped into the seat beside me. The cushion dipping under his weight, the warmth of his body immediately present in the space between us.
He was sitting with me. In front of both teams. In front of both coaches. Liam Moore—the Riverside scholarship kid who'd spent a month performing indifference toward Alex Harrington—had walked past his entire program and chosen the seat next to me.
The British meditation woman was saying something about releasing tension in my shoulders. I turned her off.
