Page 53 of Crew Girl

“Neither do I. That girl is terrifying!”

Right. Cool. Okay. They could do this. What had happened at the lake was a freak occurrence. Two people having a crisis, overcoming the odds together. It didn’t mean they needed to blow up their lives and go all Romeo and Juliet on each other. Too much was at stake. He put his hand out. “Just friends?”

She shook it. “Friends.”

She pulled her hand away before the current humming between them had a chance to turn into anything else.

A smart move. Romeo and Juliet hadn’t ended well. For either of them.

TEAGAN

Teagan peeked out at her mom, still asleep in bed, then closed the bathroom door to play Britney’s voice memo again.

“Hey, girl. Got your tryout. Meet Gravenhurst at the erg room at six-thirty. I know you’ll smash it. And remember? A deal’s a deal. Buh-bye!”

She looked down at the workout clothes she’d put on instead of the team uniform that was hanging in the closet.

Her mom was sitting up to have a stretch when Teagan came out of the bathroom. “Morning, sweetie. Hey, why the frown?”

“I was invited to erg with Gravenhurst.”

“Who are…?”

“Private school with the East Coast’s best rowing program.”

Her mom didn’t understand. “That sounds like a good way to burn nervous energy before the regatta.”

“Mom. It’s a tryout.”

“Oh? Gosh.” She gave Teagan a funny look. “So why aren’t you running around like a lunatic telling everyone?”

Because it was complicated. A lot more than she’d thought it would be when she’d told Britney to make the call. “I don’t want the guys to find out. They’d be hurt if they knew I was thinking of leaving them.”

“It’s only a tryout.” Her mom batted the concern away. “You could bomb!”

Teagan stared at her. It wasn’t only a “tryout.” It was her entire future at stake. “You seriously need to work on your pep talks, Mom.”

“Break an oar?”

As if her stress levels needed another shot of adrenaline, she spotted Cam with the coach’s daughter, Madison. Who shoved him toward her. Weird.

“Hey,” Cam said, all casual like he hadn’t just been pushed. “Morning. Where are you headed?”

She really didn’t want to lie to him again. Should she tell him? No. Definitely no. It wouldn’t be fair to upset one of her crew before the regatta. “Meeting my mom.”

“Cool,” he said. “Cool, cool.” He shot a look over his shoulder at Madison, who gave him a double thumbs-up. “Ummm… I went by your room yesterday, but you weren’t in. I, erm, I wanted to apologize. About the Josh thing. No!” He held his hands up. “I’m not going to talk about Josh. No more Josh. He’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

She glanced at her phone. She really needed to get going. “Okay.”

“I was wondering if… would you want to hang out with me sometime?”

Yes! Yes, she did. “I’d love to.” But she also needed to hotfoot it to the erg room.

“Awesome! There’s a new Mexican food truck in town.”

“Tacos are my love language.”

Were they? He looked pleased, so yeah. Why not? Who didn’t love a little spice?