Page 104 of False Catch

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Reese

We win the third race by half a boat length. Not pretty, not dominant, but enough.

"Good," I say through the cox box, my voice barely there after three races and too much emotion. "Let it run."

The officials make us wait twenty minutes before announcing we need a placement race - us against Ridgemont to determine second and third for the day. My body feels like it's made of lead. The emotional whiplash of the last few hours has drained me more than any physical effort could.

"One more," I tell the guys, trying to inject energy I don't have into my voice. "Then we're done."

The placement race is pure determination over skill. We're exhausted, fractured, held together by spite and stubbornness. But Ridgemont's been racing all day too, and we want it more. Or maybe we just have more to prove.

We win by three seats. Second place overall. Not what we came for, but considering we completely imploded in the middle, it's a minor miracle.

The bus ride back is tomb-quiet. I sit in my usual spot, staring out the window, trying not to think about everything that's happened. The video. Gray's explanation. The way he hid me from his world like I'm something shameful. Like I wasn’t raised in cotillions and charity galas and can handle myself. Like I hadn’t already proved it at that dinner with his family.

Someone slides into the seat beside me. Tyler, surprisingly. He doesn't say anything, just takes my hand carefully, like he's asking permission. When I don't pull away, he laces our fingers together.

The contact grounds me. Tyler's always been the steady one, the analytical one. No drama, no overwhelming Alpha energy. Just quiet presence.

I rest my head on his shoulder, and he squeezes my hand gently. We stay like that for the entire two-hour drive, not speaking, not needing to. It's the first peace I've felt all day.

Back at the team house, everyone scatters. I end up on the back deck, staring through the trees at the distant shimmer of the lake, trying to process everything.

"Reese?"

Gray stands in the doorway, hesitant in a way I've never seen from him.

"What do you want, Gray?"

"To apologize. Properly." He comes out onto the deck but keeps his distance. "I fucked up. Not with Kinsley - I swear that's not what it looked like. But with hiding the gala, with taking Sophia, with not trusting you to handle that whole thing."

"It’s my world too," I remind him. "Different circles maybe, but the same bullshit."

"I know. I just..." He runs his hand through his hair. "I'm used to protecting people from my family. It's instinct at this point."

"I don't need protection. I need honesty."

"You're right." He moves closer, still careful. "I've spent so long being the perfect son, the perfect captain, the perfect everything that I forgot how to just be real. You make me want to be real, and that terrifies me."

I study him in the fading light. His dark hair is disheveled from running his hands through it, his usual perfect styling completely abandoned. Those steel gray eyes that usually hold such cold control are clouded with exhaustion. His muscular frame, always held with military precision, seems almost boyish now in its uncertainty. The controlled facade is cracked, showing the exhausted twenty-two-year-old underneath who's been carrying too much for too long.

"I can't do this if you're going to hide me," I tell him. "I won't be anyone's secret."

"You're not. You won't be." He takes a deep breath. "There's another gala next month. The Spring Charity Auction. I want you to come. As my date. My official, public, fuck-what-anyone-thinks date."

"What about your father?"

"He'll have to deal with it. They all will." His shoulders straighten, the uncertainty replaced by something harder, more resolved. "I'm done letting him control my life. I'm done pretending to be what he wants."

"And if he retaliates? If he ruins your rowing future?"

"Then I'll build a different future. One that includes you. All of you, if that's where this is heading."

It’s a heavy statement. One I don’t know what to do with right now. Eight Alphas, one Omega. The thing we've all been dancing around but never naming directly.

"I need time," I tell him. "To think. To figure out if I can trust you again."