You're so fucking hot.
My hand on him. His dick hard. The way he'd grabbed my wrist—not rough, not rejecting. Just firm. Like holding something that could break.
Not like this.
Every other time we'd been together, it was equal. Both of us wanting. Both of us there. This was different. I'd been falling apart and he'd caught me. I'd offered myself and he'd said no—not because he didn't want me, but because he wanted it to count.
Nobody had ever been that careful with me before.
And I'd repaid it by telling him we were a mistake.
The ache in my chest wasn't heartbreak. It was something worse—the specific, surgical pain of knowing exactly what you had and watching yourself destroy it. Not because you didn't want it. Because wanting it was the most terrifying thing you'd ever done.
I pulled Liam's pillow closer. Pressed my face into it. Let the fading scent of him fill my lungs.
Tomorrow there would be practice. The boat that felt dead. The coaches watching. The interview to prepare for—sitting next to Liam in front of a journalist, performing the partnership that was crumbling behind closed doors.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight it was just me. In a perfectly organized room. With a pillow that smelled less like Liam than it had yesterday. Holding onto something that was already disappearing.
The quad was quiet through the window. The lampposts casting their circles of light on the empty pathways.
I didn't sleep for a long time.
Chapter 18: Liam
Tuesday, another bad day on the water with Alex.
We ran a Charles trial piece—full three miles, race simulation, the coaches timing from the launch. The conditions were decent. Flat water. Light wind. No excuses.
We clocked an 18:23.
Two weeks ago we'd posted a 16:40. That wasn't a slump. That was a complete fuck-up.
Hale was waiting for me by the dock.
Not inside the boathouse where the rest of the team was racking shells and peeling off sweaty layers. Outside. Alone. Coffee in his left hand, clipboard tucked under his right arm. Standing at the edge of the water with his back to me like he was having a conversation with the river.
I almost turned around. Almost took the long way through the bay and out the side entrance and pretended I hadn't seen him.
But you didn't dodge Hale. Hale saw everything. He'd been coaching long enough that trying to avoid him was like trying to hide a bad catch from a coxswain—pointless and insulting.
"Moore."
"Coach."
"Walk with me."
We walked along the dock. The wood was slick from the morning mist. The river moved beside us—flat, grey, uninterested.
Hale didn't talk for the first thirty seconds. Just walked. Sipped his coffee. Let the silence do the work.
"Eighteen twenty-three," he said finally. Not a question. Just the number, sitting between us like evidence.
"I know."
"That's a minute forty-three off your best. On the same water. Same conditions." He stopped walking. Turned to face me. "You want to tell me what's going on?"
