Page 137 of Final Drive

At nine she lied to me about how little she’d slept, and I let her. I could’ve gone around her, asked Tyler, found the answer and put it in front of her. Two months ago, I would’ve called that love.

That one was a bad night’s sleep. This is heavier, and I could follow her upstairs later. I could ask Bo what he noticed or get Tyler to start digging. Between the eight of us, we’d probably have an answer before dinner.

Two months ago, I would’ve done that too.

Instead, I sit by the window with my hands empty and watch the woman I love play cards with my crew. She asked for tomorrow night, so I give her tomorrow night.

I put my head back against the chair and close my eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Reese

Yesterday afternoon, I stood in a parking lot next to a planter with somebody’s cigarette butt in the dirt and listened to Carmine tell me the compliance office had finished its review at four o’clock.

My designation registration has been corrected in the university system, and my eligibility for this weekend stands. Sable Ridge certified me in good faith on documents it had no reason to question.

That’s the good part. She gave it to me first on purpose.

The rest took about ninety seconds.

The conference has entered a finding that a student-athlete competed for two seasons under a registration that didn’t reflect her designation. The finding doesn’t allege intent on my part. It doesn’t have to. The remedy under the bylaw is a competition bar, and the bar runs one full season from the date of the finding.

I’m a junior.

One full season from now is my senior year.

“I want to be clear about what that means,” Carmine said, “because you’re going to want to be sure before you decide anything. You’ll race tomorrow. You will not race again.”

I asked her one question.

“Does it apply to coaching?”

“No.”

Then I said thank you, which surprised both of us. I hung up, stood beside the planter until I could trust my face, and went inside to play cards.

The final is at two-ten this afternoon.

We’re in lane three. Middle of the course, protection on both sides, and the only reason we’ve got it is that we came second yesterday instead of fourth. Northridge is in four. The crew that beat us is in five, which nobody can explain to me, and their coxswain spent breakfast telling anyone who’d listen that the wind would sit down after noon.

It doesn’t.

At eleven, I go out to the fifteen-hundred-meter mark by myself and watch the water for twenty minutes. The wind is coming across from the west bank in gusts with about forty seconds between them, putting a lump on the surface that’s going to punish anyone who shortens up.

That’s useful. It gives me somewhere to put my hands and a problem to solve, and for twenty minutes I’m not somebody who’s been told she gets one more race.

At noon, I eat half a sandwich with Bo watching me do it. He doesn’t say anything about the other half, which means Gray has probably talked to him.

At one-fifteen, I go find Bennett.

He’s at the trailer alone with a clipboard he isn’t reading. There’s an expression on his face I can’t place.

I’ll be able to place it tomorrow.

“Coach.”

“Callahan.”