Page 34 of Crew Girl

She grabbed her phone and checked it. “I didn’t get one.”

He waited for the penny to drop.

And… ping! Her eyes blazed with indignation. He hadn’t noticed the little gold flecks in them before.

“There’s another group text for the crew?”

“You’re the other group text, Coxie.” He laughed the laugh of a victor. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

Her hands flexed like a cat preparing her claws for battle. He already had a split lip thanks to Ryder. He was carrying it off with panache, obvs. But having his eyes scratched out lacked appeal. Heaven, as ever, intervened.

“Josh, honey.” His mom and Ella came into the room. He stood up, because that’s what polite young men did when women came into the room. “I was just asking Ella about the dinner with your grandfather.”

“I’m sure you’ll love it,” Ella said. “I’ve booked a restaurant run by a friend of mine who was just awarded her first Michelin star.”

“It sounds amazing, Ms. Emerson. And may I say”—he shot a glance at Teagan before delivering his next line—“you have a beautiful home.”

As the door closed behind him and his mom, he heard Ella sigh, “What a well-mannered young man.”

As he climbed into the Range Rover he heard Teagan’s scream.

Josh Regis shoots? He scores. As ever. He was feeling it now. Pumped, primed, and ready for their next stop: Regis Airlines HQ.

TEAGAN

Three Weeks Later

Teagan pinned the final sheet of today’s crew session to the board.

Coach Hayden gave it a scan. “New warm-up for today?”

“Yeah.” These past few weeks, she had poured herself into her new role. Things had improved between her and the crew, but they were far from perfect. Being relegated to a separate group chat from the rest of the crew, for example. Whatever. She was their cox, they mostly listened to her now, and, one way or another, she’d get them in shape for the regatta against Westvale—Easton’s number one rival. “I thought we’d do some pick drills on the ergs. It’s always good to go back to the basics, right? Break down the strokes. Finesse sequences, rhythm. We need to fine-tune our timing issues.”

Coach nodded approvingly. “How’s Ryder been holding up in stroke position?”

“Good,” she said honestly. “But he knows it. I’m keeping an eye on him.”

Hayden gave her shoulder a clap. “You’ve already made good progress with them these past few weeks. Keep it going and you just might whip them into shape for our first competition.”

Teagan grinned. She’d been working her butt off. Coach Hayden wasn’t exactly singing her praises, but reading between the lines? She was acing it.

“One thing,” Coach said, stopping on his way out and turning back. “Where are they?”

Teagan’s eyes shot to the clock. It was fifteen minutes after practice was meant to start. Her stomach sank as she looked back at Coach Hayden and realized he’d known this all along.

She silent-screamed at the ceiling. She’d been doing that a lot since she’d started at Easton. She’d hoped winning the Iron Crucible would be enough to get the guys to consider her part of the team. She’d obviously been deluding herself.

Maybe she was more like her mom than she’d thought.

They found them twenty minutes later.

In detention.

“I’m sorry, Coach. Like, bottom of my heart sorry.” Quaid, the reason the Easton Eagles were confined to the library, hung his head like a forlorn, overgrown hound dog puppy. “I know I was wrong, and I swear I won’t do it again.”

As miserable as he looked, Quaid’s apology sounded memorized. As if he’d said those exact same words, in the exact same order, a million times before.

No surprise, really. The oversized goofball was not only one of the team’s powerhouses, he was also their resident prankster. It was like he couldn’t help it. He saw an opportunity? He took it. Teagan had no doubt he’d be saying the same words again. And again. And again.