"Morning," Liam said.
"Morning."
The bus pulled out of the parking lot. Through the rear window, the boathouse shrank. The river disappeared behind a line of trees. Ashford falling away.
Nobody said anything about Liam sitting with me. Nobody needed to. But I could feel the bus recalibrating—the subtle shift in attention that happened when something unexpected occurred and thirty people decided simultaneously whether to acknowledge it.
They didn't. Which was its own kind of acknowledgment.
Remy had turned back to his laptop. But from three rows up, I caught the angle of his head—tilted slightly, the way it tilted when he was processing information. Then he went back to his footage. Whatever conclusion he'd drawn, he kept it.
Ethan glanced back once. Caught my eye. The smallest nod. Then he leaned over Remy's shoulder to critique whatever wason the screen, because Ethan couldn't look at footage without having an opinion about the lighting.
"You've never been to Boston," I said.
"Is it that obvious?"
"You're already looking out the window and we haven't left campus."
"I'm looking at the road."
"Very interesting, huh?" I couldn't help the sarcasm in my voice. The guard was thinner today. The bridge had done something to it—loosened the hinges on the door I kept slamming shut. "The Charles is wider than our river. More current. And the turns are real. There's a section near the Eliot Bridge where the course narrows and the crowd is so close you can hear people talking."
"You've raced it before?"
"No. But my father has. He talks about it like other people talk about church." The words came out before I could filter them. The honest version instead of the polished one. "He'll be there tomorrow."
"I know."
"Having dinner with donors tonight. At the hotel."
Liam's jaw tightened slightly, then relaxed. "Let him watch."
"Yeah?"
"We'll give him something to see."
His knee touched mine. Under the armrest. Invisible to every person on this bus. The contact warm and deliberate and steady—not an accident, not a brush. A choice. The same choice as the seat.
I left it there. Didn't move. Didn't calculate. Just let his knee rest against mine and felt the warmth spread through my entire body.
I was just sitting on a bus next to the person I wanted to sit next to, going to the city where the biggest race of our lives was waiting.
***
The magazine surfaced somewhere around Worcester.
"Yo—who's got it?" Tyler's voice from three rows back. "Collins, pass it up."
A copy of New England Rowing Magazine sailed over headrests. Marcus caught it—reflexes sharp, always—and flipped through with the casual confidence of someone expecting to find his own name.
He found ours instead.
"Page thirty-six." He held it up. "The joint program golden boys."
The magazine made its way through the bus. I tracked its progress by sound—Tyler whistling, someone reading a pull quote out loud, Mason saying "actually a solid photo."
Jace got it. Studied the spread for a moment. Looked back at us over his shoulder. A nod. No words needed. From Jace, a nod was a standing ovation.
