Page 12 of Final Drive

CHAPTER FIVE

Reese

The high off that practice lasts right up until we reach the dock.

Coach Bennett is waiting, which is ordinary. What isn’t ordinary is the grin splitting his face, the one he saves for championship weekends. Coach Wilder stands beside him with her arms crossed and the same look on her.

Behind them are three people I don’t know.

“Beautiful work out there,” Bennett calls as we glide in. “Way enough. Let’s get her up and out.”

We brake the boat down and bring her alongside, and Gray goes out first to steady us before the rest follow in order. I stay in the seat until last, gathering my notebook and the cox box, trying to read the strangers while I do it.

Two men and a woman. The men wear polo shirts with logos I can’t make out at this distance, khakis, the uniform of college athletics. The woman is younger, late twenties, with a press badge on a lanyard and her phone already in her hand.

My stomach tightens.

“Outstanding splits,” Bennett says as we lift the shell clear. “Tyler, what did you clock on that last piece?”

“Three oh four point two for the thousand,” Tyler says, and one of the polo shirts writes something in a pocket notebook.

“That’s nationals-caliber speed.” Bennett is glowing. “Gentlemen, meet Russell Webb from the U.S. Rowing development program and David Okonkwo from the Olympic training center. They’re scouting for the under-23 national team.”

Every man on this dock straightens by half an inch.

This is the thing rowers chase for whole careers. College to the national team, and after that a possibility nobody says out loud. Bo’s easy smile goes serious.

“Impressive session.” Webb puts his hand out to Gray first. “Your rate consistency is exceptional, and the boat speed on that last piece was elite.”

“Thank you, sir.” Gray shakes it with the ease of a man raised to handle exactly this. “The whole crew’s been working.”

“We noticed.” Okonkwo works his way down the line, cataloging each rower. When he gets to me, still in the stern coiling the cox box cable, his face changes. “And you must be the coxswain. Reese Callahan?”

“That’s right.”

“We’ve heard interesting things about you.”

He leaves it there a beat too long. I keep my face where it is and my pulse comes up anyway.

“Good things, I hope.”

“Very good.” He smiles without much of it reaching his eyes. “Your calls from Lake Hartwell have been making the rounds. The way you handled that last five hundred was textbook.” He pauses. “Some people would call it instinctive.”

Instinctive. Like it isn’t training.

“I’ve had good coaching,” I say. “And a good crew.”

“Clearly.” He turns back to Bennett, satisfied with whatever he came for. “We’d like to watch a few more sessions before nationals, if that works. This crew has something.”

“Anytime,” Bennett says. “We’re on the water at four every afternoon.”

While the coaches talk, the woman with the press badge comes down the dock. She’s been hanging back this whole time with her phone lifting every so often.

“Hi there.” She puts her hand out to me and to nobody else, ignoring the eight Alphas in between. “Jenna Kowalski, Southeastern Sports Network. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“About what?”

“Team performance. Your role. Human interest.” Her smile arrives fully assembled. “Female cox on an all-male crew, first in Sable Ridge history. It’s a great angle.”