Page 19 of Hers By Summer’s End

The boat leaped forward. A moment later, they slipped past one pair of struggling rowers. Cheers erupted from the shoreline.

"Again!" she shouted over her shoulder. “Drew, we're catching them!"

This time, when he called the rhythm, she was already there. The oars entered together, rose together. Water sloshed beneath the hull as the boat skimmed across the lake. Another rowboat fell behind them, then another. Fans raced along the shore, shouting encouragement, and when Cecelia raised her arms overhead and asked for more, they gave it.

"We can do it,” she screamed.

He dug deeper, pushed harder. Not because he couldn't bear to lose, but because he couldn't bear to let her down. Not when the crowd was rooting for her, rather than laughing at her. Not when he had a chance to prove himself. He gave everything he had left. His shoulders burned, his lungs begged for mercy—the horn sounded.

They were too late.

Drew’s chest heaved as the winning crew drifted toward the dock ahead of them. They'd come up short, only by a handful of strokes, but short all the same.

“Damnit,” he grunted, bending forward to brace his elbows against his thighs. “Damnit, Cecelia. I’m sorry.”

She twisted in her seat to look at him. “Why on earth are you apologizing?’

He squinted up at her. “We lost.”

“True.” Her hair had come loose from its pins, dark curls lifting in the breeze. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, her blouse rumpled and dotted with lake water, and she looked…undefeated. Hell, she looked more alive than he had ever seen her. “But at least we lost together.”

An incredulous laugh escaped him. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

“No.” She tilted her head, considering him. “Shared failure is preferable to lonely success, wouldn’t you say?”

Shared failure. He'd never considered such a thing. For him, losing had always meant more than coming in second. It meant someone else had been better. Someone else had earned the attention. Someone else had become the person worth watching. And if he wasn't the one people watched…who was he?

He'd spent years making himself impossible to overlook. The swagger, the flowers, the impossible bets and ridiculous stunts. People loved the Fighting Florist, but would they look twice at Drew Sutton without all of that?

“You don't understand,” he said quietly.

“Apparently not.”

He nodded to the shore, where spectators were already moving on to the next attraction. “People stop looking when you stop being useful.”

Cecelia frowned. “Then they weren't worth impressing.”

She made it sound as though admiration was something freely given, not earned through endless effort. As though a person’s worth did not rise and fall with how much delight they brought to a room. He envied that certainty.

“Drew, I spent years trying to become someone worth noticing.” A rueful smile replaced the frown. “Eventually, I realized the people who mattered were the ones who set me free of expectations.”

He sat in silence, chewing on her words.

“It wasn't a performance,” he blurted out.

“What wasn’t?”

“What I wrote.” The noise of the fair—the cheers from the shore, the splash of oars, the voices calling from the docks—seemed to fade around them. This was his chance, his moment to let her know the truth, the consequences be damned. “I know what it looked like. I know everyone thought I was putting on another show, but I wasn’t. I meant it.”

She stared into the distance, thinking. Then she nodded. “All right.”

“All right,” he echoed. It wasn’t the grand triumph he’d imagined, but she hadn’t laughed. Hadn’t said no. Hadn’t told him it was impossible.

He’d faced worse odds.

This was one fight he meant to win.

CHAPTER FIVE