Page 132 of Final Drive

“I had one.” I stay in the doorway. “I wrote out four things I was going to say on the drive to the course this morning. Then Quinton put his hand on you, and I spent the rest of the day watching Jackson somehow not fall apart. It’s nine o’clock and I don’t have any of the right words anymore.”

She waits.

“May I come in anyway?”

Reese steps back.

I sit on the end of the bed, which appears to be where everyone sits when they come to this room, and rest my hands between my knees.

“I don’t know how to do this part.”

“I know.”

“I plan everything. My week. My degree. Conversations I’ll probably never have.” I look down at my hands. “When Jackson and I started whatever it is we have, I worked out the terms before anything happened. Three years and neither of us has broken them.”

“And?”

I look at her. “I have no idea what happens next.”

She doesn’t rescue me from it.

“This morning Quinton grabbed you and Jackson moved before anybody else could. There was nothing useful left for me to do, so do you know what I did? I counted the volunteers.” Her eyebrows pull together. “Everybody close enough to see it, so I’d know how many witnesses there were. You were being grabbed and I was standing there doing arithmetic.”

Reese sits beside me.

“You want me to tell you that was bad.”

“I want you to tell me it wasn’t.” I rub my thumb across my palm. “I’m not sure you can.”

“I’m not going to tell you either one.” She reaches over and takes my hand, because apparently we both know I’m not going to take hers first. “You counted witnesses. That’s why there’s a deputy’s report tonight with four names on it instead of Jackson’s word against Quinton’s.”

“That isn’t the same as reaching for you.”

“No. It isn’t.” Her hand tightens around mine. “But Jackson reached for me. You did the thing he couldn’t, because he was busy trying not to kill somebody. You’re allowed to be the one who counts, Eli. Somebody has to be, it mattered today, and I’d take that over useless and heroic every time.”

We sit there for a while with her hand around mine.

Then I say, “I keep a page on you.”

Her head turns. “You what?”

“In the back of my notebook. Before you make a call, I write down what I think you’re going to do. I wanted to learn how you ran the boat.” I make myself finish it. “Then I kept being wrong. About sixty percent. Closer to seventy.”

Reese laughs, and some of the pressure that’s been sitting between my ribs all day finally shifts.

“Today I had you leaving us at thirty-seven,” I tell her. “You took us to thirty-five with Hampton Hills a canvas up.”

“And?”

“And I was wrong again.”

“Good.”

“That isn’t usually the preferred outcome.”

“It is when I’m the coxswain.” She’s quiet for a second. “Keep the page. You’ve spent months working out how I think, and not so you could beat me to the call. You wanted to know why I made it.” She looks at me. “And you were never going to tell me.”

“No.”