Page 23 of Open Water
Marcus was today. Not tomorrow. Not after some plan. Today.
I needed to do this for Liam.
The Riverside boathouse appeared through the bare trees. Concrete and steel. The dock jutting out into the river. Bay doors open, light spilling onto the gravel.
Liam was already inside. I could see him through the bay door, pulling on his shoes by the erg row. Tyler next to him, talking with his hands. A normal morning. Like he hadn't fallen asleep against me six hours ago.
I waited two minutes. Then walked in through the main entrance with the Kingswell guys.
Hale had been rotating quad combinations all week.
Every morning a different lineup. Different boats, different seats, different experiments that ended with Remy shaking his head in the cox seat and saying things like "that felt like rowing through peanut butter" or "I've coxed funeral processions with better timing."
Nothing clicked. The pieces were there — good rowers, strong numbers, clean technique — but a quad isn't four good rowers. It's a conversation between four bodies and the person steering them, and most of these conversations sounded like strangers arguing at a bus stop.
Until that Tuesday.
Hale posted the lineup on the whiteboard at six-forty-five. I was pulling on my shoes when Tyler read it out loud.
"Moore stroke. Marsh three. Lockwood two. Harrington bow. Ortega coxing."
The boathouse was quiet. Three Riverside guys. Two Kingswell guys. And Braden Lockwood in the same shell as me and Liam.
Braden, standing by the erg row, looked at the board. Then at me. Shook his head. But he didn't say anything.
Liam caught my eye from across the room. Eyebrows up.Did you know about this?
I shook my head. He shrugged. The whole conversation.
Hale was already down at the dock when we got there. Arms crossed, coffee in hand, watching the river. He stood at the water's edge before a session and studied the current, the wind, the light.
"Alright, listen up," he said as we gathered on the dock. "This is the last combination I'm trying this week. If this doesn't work, we table the quad and focus on pairs through December."
He looked at each of us. "Moore, you're stroke. Same role as the double. Set the rhythm, set the pace. Marsh, three seat. You're the engine room. I want power."
Tyler nodded.
"Lockwood, two seat. Same thing. Power, consistency. Match Marsh's pressure." Braden's jaw tightened but he nodded.
"Harrington, bow. You're the anchor. Balance, timing, technical precision. Same relationship to stroke as you had in the double." He looked at me. "You know what that means."
I did. Amplify. Don't lead. Feel Liam through the hull and make everything he does bigger.
"Ortega. You're calling."
"Obviously," Remy said from behind his clipboard.
Hale almost smiled.
"Eldridge and I are both watching from the launch. Don't try to impress us. Just row." He took a sip of his coffee. "Put in."
The November sun had broken through for the first time in a week. Not warm — the air was still cold enough that your hands went numb on the oar handles within minutes — but the light changed everything. The river was steel-blue instead of the usual grey. You could see the bottom near the banks where the water ran shallow over gravel.
We carried the quad down to the dock. It was an Empacher, one of the Kingswell shells Eldridge had sent across for the jointprogram. Carbon fiber, stiff hull, the kind of boat that responded to everything you did whether you wanted it to or not.
Braden climbed in first. Then Tyler. Then me. Then Liam. The boat rocked with each body — that familiar instability of a shell finding its balance.
Remy stepped into the cox seat. Settled. Adjusted his headset.
