Page 15 of Open Water
"Everyone who earns it," Eldridge said. "Starting with today's baseline."
Braden looked at Alex. Then at me.
"Two-thousand-meter test," Hale said. "Ten minutes. Warm up."
The room moved. Ergs coming alive. Tyler dropped into the machine next to mine.
"Equipment management," he said. "You're team mom."
"Tyler."
"Mom Moore. I'm into it."
"I'm going to break you."
"See? Protective. Maternal."
"That doesn't even make sense dude."
Jace took the erg on my other side. Already pulling warm-up strokes.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Good. I'm not losing my last baseline to you."
I grabbed the handle. Set my feet. The monitor glowed blue.
Across the room, Alex sat down on his machine. He adjusted his foot straps. Pulled the handle once. Looked up.
Our eyes met across the room for a half-second. Then he looked down at his monitor and I looked down at mine.
The timer started.
I pulled.
Chapter 4: Alex
Aquad.
The word kept turning in my head while I pulled the erg handle. Two thousand meters. Legs, back, arms. Arms, back, legs. The chain hissing and returning. The monitor ticking down.
A quad would be eligible for Henley. The Royal Regatta. My father had framed it on his office wall — a photo of himself at twenty-two, standing on the bank of the Thames in a Kingswell blazer, holding a trophy he'd won in a four that no longer existed. He'd pointed at it my entire childhood.That's the standard, Alexander. That's what this family does.
Henley had been his dream for me since I was old enough to hold an oar. And the truth was, for a long time it had been mine too. Or I'd thought it was mine. The line between what I wanted and what I'd been trained to want had blurred so long ago that I couldn't find it anymore. Like trying to see where the river ended and the current began.
But doing it with Liam. In a quad we'd built together. That would be something real. Something that belonged to us, notto the Harrington name or the donor wall or the photo in my father's office.
If it was even what I wanted.
The monitor hit zero. 6:28. I sat back. Lungs burning. Sweat running down my temples.
Across the room, Liam was leaning back on his machine, chest heaving. He caught me looking.
And smiled.
It wasn't the nod the guys do. It was his smile for me only. Crinkled eyes, sweat on his forehead, his whole face open for a half-second before he caught himself and looked away.
