"Today was good," I said.
"Yeah." His voice was rough. "It was."
"Alex."
"Yeah?"
I looked at him. The dashboard light catching his face. His eyes tired and warm and holding something that looked a lot like the thing I wasn't ready to say out loud.
"Thank you," I said.
I looked around—nobody—then leaned in and kissed him quick.
I got out. Leaned back in through the open window. He looked up at me and I wanted to kiss him again but we were back now. Back in the world where kissing could end us.
"See you tomorrow morning," I said.
"Tomorrow morning." He smiled.
I stepped back. He pulled away. The taillights of the BMW disappeared around the corner of the building.
I stood there in the parking lot. Cold air on my face. The flannel warm on my arms.
I pulled out my phone. Looked at the photo one more time.
The best day of my life. Tucked inside a secret nobody else would ever know about.
I pocketed the phone and walked toward my dorm. The performance waiting for me inside those doors. The distance. The lie.
But under the flannel, something warm stayed. Something that didn't care about performances or secrets or the distance between two campuses on opposite sides of a river.
Something real.
Chapter 9: Alex
Sixteen fifty-eight.
That was our time. Wednesday afternoon, full 5K simulation, race conditions. Hale had set the buoys wider this time—simulating the Charles's turns, the bridge clearances, the current shifts. And we'd ripped through it forty-three seconds faster than our first simulation last week..
Sixteen fifty-eight.
Hale didn't sayCharles fastthis time. He said something better. He said nothing. Just looked at his stopwatch, looked at us, and nodded. Then he turned the launch around and headed back to the dock without a word.
Eldridge, watching from the bank with his clipboard, said: "That time would have placed top five in last year's collegiate double at the Charles."
Top five. In the country.
The rest of practice was a blur. The other boats finished their pieces. Remy's quad posted a solid time. Braden and Collins were respectable in their pairs. But everyone knew—the number on the board was ours, and it changed the math.
And Liam—across the bay, racking his oar, not looking at me. But his face was doing the thing. The barely-contained grin he was trying to kill.
I gave him nothing. Kept my face neutral. But inside, something was glowing so bright I was surprised nobody could see it.
Maybe we can have this. Maybe we can win the race, keep the secret, and figure out the rest later.
The team dinner was Hale's idea.
"You've earned a night off," he'd said after practice. "Both squads. Downtown. Be human for a few hours."
