Page 78 of Open Water
Alex laughed. "It sure would. I'd be a traitor."
I put my arm around him. "A very sexy traitor."
He was smiling. "Thanks."
When we came down the hill, past the boathouse, I saw a figure at the end of the dock. Alone, a travel mug in one hand, looking out at the water the. Hale didn't go home. He ran on coffee and river water and a lifetime of being the first one in and the last one out.
"Is that you Moore? Harrington?"
"Yeah coach, it's us," I said.
Alex's hand touched my back. "I'll be over here," he said, and drifted off toward the boat racks, giving us the dock.
I walked out to him with my gut climbing up into my throat.
Because I knew what this was. Every other time I'd walked out to Hale on a dock it had been about a piece, or my mouth, or my temper — something I'd done in a boat. Not this. This was the first time I'd faced him since a photo of me kissing Alex went out. Since the whole school found out the scholarship kid was bi, tangled up with a Harrington, sitting right in the middle of the ugliest mess either program had seen in years.
And Hale hadn't said a word about it. Not one. A solid week of nothing from the one man whose opinion decided whether I had a future in this sport at all.
My whole body was braced for it.
He studied me a while before he talked. Read me like the current.
"Jace hands off his records this week. Rosters, the winter program. You've shadowed him the last few weeks. January it's yours, the whole operation, through the end of the season. We'll call it interim team captain."
"Okay." Relief flooded through me. He wouldn't have done that if he cared about my sexuality.
"You like guys Liam," he said like he was telling me what I was.
I nodded.
"I don't care." He turned and looked at me, flat, even, the most ordinary voice in the world. "But people have other opinions inthis sport. It's not always going to be easy. And the fact that you're shacking up with a Harrington." A beat. "Only makes it more complicated. But it doesn't change the work you put in. You row, you lead, you show up at six. That's it."
I stood there in the cold and couldn't get a word out. Because that was it. That was the thing I'd been terrified of for months — that the man whose word decided my scholarship and my future would decide I was a liability the program couldn't carry.
"Yes, Coach," I managed.
"You're not ready," he said, turning back to the river, because Hale never let you keep it clean. "Twenty years old, chip the size of the launch, hot-headed. But you're in the right direction, and the team needs you to get there fast." Another sip. "And Moore. Can you and your boyfriend stop hitting Kingswell students?"
I smirked. "No more fighting."
Coach Hale nodded. "Now go on. Your boy's freezing by the racks."
"Six AM," I said.
"Don't be late." He'd already turned back to the water.
I found Alex by the boat racks, hands jammed in the hoodie, breath clouding.
"Well?" he said.
"I didn't lose my scholarship and I'm interim Captain"
Alex leaned into me and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm so proud of you."
I felt the warm of him against my body, his heart beating against mine. For a moment, it felt like everything was going in our favor, because it was. Half the fears we had didn't come true and the other half… yet to be determined.
"He did say one thing," I said.
