Remy scanned it.
Ethan intercepted it from Remy's hand. "The lighting is criminal. They had you facing east at 2 PM. That's backlit. I would have shot from the south wall with a reflector."
"Nobody asked about the lighting," Remy said.
"Somebody should have."
The magazine reached us. Liam took it. Held it between us on the armrest.
"Crossing the River: How a Joint Program is Rewriting College Rowing." A full spread. The boathouse. A pull quote from Eldridge about "innovation meeting tradition." And the photo—Liam and me standing by the double, hands on the hull. Looking at the camera. Professional. Partners.
"You look constipated," I said.
"That's my serious face."
"It's your constipated face."
"Says the guy who looks like he's posing for a J.Crew catalog."
"At least I know what a J.Crew catalog is."
He kicked my foot under the seat. I kicked his back.
Then Liam whispered: "we look damn good."
I couldn't help but smile.
Marcus's face appeared between the headrests behind us. "You two really are the story of the season." His voice was warm. Almost wistful. "Enjoy it, boys."
He disappeared back into his seat. The comment hung in the air. Harmless on the surface.
I closed the magazine. Set it on my lap. Cover up.
"You okay?" Liam asked. Quiet enough that only I could hear.
"Yeah." I turned the magazine over. "Fine."
But something about the way Marcus had saidenjoy it—the careful emphasis, the smile that didn't quite reach his eyes—stayed with me longer than it should have.
Liam's knee pressed against mine. Still there.
Hours later, Boston assembled itself through the windshield.
Suburbs first—strip malls thinning into denser neighborhoods. Then the skyline. Glass and steel and stone rising above the highway. The city materializing like something stepping out of fog.
I'd been to Boston before. Twice. Once for a Kingswell alumni event with my father when I was fifteen—a ballroom at the Four Seasons, men in suits, my father's hand on my shoulder steering me through conversations I was too young to understand. Once for a junior regatta on the Charles—I was fourteen, rowing asingle in the youth division. I'd finished seventh and my father had been quiet the entire drive home.
Neither trip had felt like this.
The bus crossed the bridge and the Charles River opened up below us. Wide. Dark. Real.
Boats practicing on the water already—eights and fours and doubles cutting lines through the current. The bridges spanning the river at intervals, stone and steel arches that would be packed with spectators in a day.
Beside me, Liam was leaning toward the window. Not trying to hide his reaction. His eyes wide. His mouth slightly open. Taking in the scale of it—the river, the city, the bridges, all of it—with the unguarded awe of someone seeing something for the first time and not being ashamed of it.
Most people would have tried to look unimpressed. Liam didn't bother. He just looked.
And watching him—watching the city reflect in his eyes, watching him absorb a world he'd never been given access to—something turned over in my chest. Not the usual ache. Something fiercer. The urge to give him this. To give him every version of this. Every city and every river and every stage that the world had built for people like me and fenced off from people like him.
