Page 36 of Open Water
Liam's room. Liam's bed. Liam's arm still heavy across my stomach.
My right hand throbbed. I held it up in the half-light. The knuckles were swollen into a ridge of purple and black, the skin split across two fingers, dried blood crusted in the creases. My jaw ached where Marcus had hit me. When I touched it, the bruise sang.
5:12 AM. Practice at six. Riverside boathouse.
The thought arrived the way my father's voice always did, automatic, uninvited, already organized into a schedule. Forty-eight minutes. Shower, dress, walk to the boathouse.
Walk to the boathouse. Together.
Liam stirred behind me. His arm tightened. His face pressed into the back of my neck and I felt his breath change — the shift from sleep-breathing to the shallow, faster rhythm of someone surfacing.
"Hey," he said. Voice rough.
"Hey."
"What time?"
"Five twelve."
"Fuck." But he didn't move. His arm stayed. His mouth was against my neck, warm, and his hand found my hip under the blanket and settled there. "How's the hand?"
"Operational."
"Operational." I could hear him almost smile. "Very Harrington of you."
"My jaw's worse."
His fingers traced up from my hip. Found my ribs. My chest. Stopped over my heartbeat.
"We have practice," I said.
"I know."
"Forty-seven minutes."
"I know."
Neither of us moved.
"Shower?" he said.
"Here?"
"No, I'll walk you across the bridge to the Kingswell spa." His hand was still on my chest. "Yes, here. It's early enough. Nobody's up."
***
The Riverside communal bathroom was… institutional. Fluorescent lights that buzzed at a frequency designed toprevent relaxation. White tile going yellow at the grout lines. Six shower stalls with plastic curtains that didn't reach the floor.
At 5:20 AM, it was empty.
Liam turned on the last stall. The water took a minute to heat, much longer than Kingswell's pipes, which I noticed and hated myself for noticing.
He pulled his shirt over his head in one motion.
His shoulders were broad. The rowing had done that. Thickened the lats, carved the lines along his obliques, built the kind of back that moved boats. A faded bruise on his ribs from catching the oar handle wrong last week. Freckles across his shoulders from summers at the marina. He pushed his joggers down and stepped out of them and I tracked every movement like something I'd been starving for.
My body responded before my brain had a vote. The blood going south with a certainty that was almost absurd given that I'd just beaten my oldest friend bloody on a library floor.
