"Alright? Hale was smiling hard. I didn't know his face could do that."
"His face can't do that. Must've been the fumes from the launch," I said.
Tyler laughed. Behind us, Evan was half-jogging to keep up, his gear bag bouncing against his hip.
We continued over the bridge onto Riverside's campus.
"How far is it?" Evan asked. "The Charles. The actual race."
"Three miles," Jace said from ahead of us. He walked the way he always did—front of the pack without trying, shoulders squared, that quiet certainty I'd never figured out how to fake. "Upstream. Bridges, turns. It's not a straight shot."
"And there's like a thousand boats. You launch in intervals. It's chaos," Tyler said.
"Organized chaos," Jace said.
"Is the school covering hotels? Or are we sleeping in the van again like last year at the Providence invite?" Tyler asked.
"Program covers basic travel. Shared rooms, nothing fancy." Jace glanced back. "Don't expect the Ritz."
"I'd settle for a Holiday Inn with a working shower," Tyler said.
"Lower your expectations and you'll never be disappointed." Jace shot a look at the crew.
"That's dark," Evan said, raising his eyebrows.
"That's realistic."
They kept going—Tyler asking about restaurants near the racecourse, Evan wanting to know if they could watch other races when they weren't competing, Jace answering most questions because he had done this before.
It was the rhythm of a team that actually liked each other.
I listened and didn't say much.
Because here's the thing nobody talks about: when you've never stayed in a hotel, you don't know what questions to ask. Tyler was joking about room service and mini-bars. Evan was googling Boston pizza places on his phone. And I was doing math in my head.
$147.
That's what was in my account after last month's meal plan payment cleared. One hundred and forty seven dollars to last until my work-study check hit in two weeks. My mom had sent twenty last Thursday with a text that said'just for food', which meant she'd skipped something to send it.
Hotels cost money. Restaurants cost money. Even walking around Boston cost money if you weren't careful—a coffee here, a sandwich there, the small expenses that most kids didn't even register as expenses.
I'd figure it out. Pack granola bars, skip the restaurant, stay in the room while everyone else went out. That was my life strategy.
Jace said something that pushed everything else aside.
"Hey, by the way. I'm graduating in December. Finishing early."
Tyler stopped walking. "Wait, what?"
"December graduation. I've got a U23 development camp invitation for January and I'm not passing it up."
"How'd you pull that off?" I asked.
"Got my advisor to reprocess some of my transfer credits, and they took them this time."
Tyler laughed. "That's fucking boss bro."
"U23?" Evan's eyes went wide. "Like—national team?"
