Page 12 of False Catch

I type back: Sounds good. We can discuss tomorrow.

Normal. Professional. Simple.

Nothing about my life is simple anymore.

"Ready for practice?" Zane asks, bouncing on his toes with typical pre-practice energy.

"Always," I say, pocketing my phone.

But as we head toward the boathouse, I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something. Some piece of information that would make everyone's reaction make sense. Gray's warning echoes in my head: He's not what he seems.

Then again, neither am I.

The irony isn't lost on me. Here I am, an Omega pretending to be a Beta, surrounded by Alphas pretending we're just teammates, worried about an Alpha who's pretending to be... what?

I guess I'll find out tomorrow at three.

CHAPTER FOUR

Jackson

The afternoon sun beats down on us like punishment, turning the lake into a mirror that throws light back in our faces. I keep my eyes down, focused on Zane's back in front of me, trying to find rhythm that won't come.

We're rowing like shit. Again.

My mind keeps drifting to this morning's Business Strategy class, where Reese got paired with that lacrosse prick Quinton for their semester project. The way he looked at her. The way Gray's jaw tightened when she mentioned it at lunch. Now we're out here falling apart, and I can't help but think the two things are connected.

"Jackson, you're late on the catch," Reese calls through the cox box. "Eli, match Jackson's timing."

I adjust, but it doesn't help. The boat lurches with every stroke, eight bodies fighting physics instead of working with it. We've been out here forty minutes and haven't strung together ten clean strokes.

Coach Bennett's launch idles fifty meters away. He's been watching in silence for the last twenty minutes, which is worse than yelling. Coach Wilder sits beside him, making notes on her clipboard. Neither of them can smell what's happening in our shell, the invisible war of pheromones and suppressed instincts that's tearing us apart.

That's the thing about human coaches. They see the symptoms but miss the disease.

"Way enough," Reese calls, frustration bleeding through her professional tone.

We let the boat glide to a stop. The silence stretches, broken only by heavy breathing and water lapping against carbon fiber. In stroke seat, Gray's shoulders are rigid with barely controlled anger. Not at Reese. At himself. At all of us for failing to perform.

The launch motors closer. Coach Bennett kills the engine, letting momentum carry him alongside.

"That was embarrassing," he says simply. No heat in it. Just fact. "You just won Riverside. Six days ago, you were champions. Now you row like a novice four who've never seen each other before."

Nobody responds. What can we say? That our coxswain is an Omega whose scent is scrambling our brains? That half the team has been inside her and the other half wants to be? That we're one administrative review away from losing everything?

"Back to the dock," Coach continues. "Team meeting in the boathouse. Twenty minutes."

The launch pulls away, leaving us floating in our failure.

"You heard him," Reese says quietly. "Let's go home."

The paddle back is funeral-quiet. I stare at my oar, watching water drip from the blade, trying not to think about how Reese's scent has changed since this morning. Sweeter now. Richer. The suppressants are working, but they can't erase what we all know is there.

At the dock, we're met by the JV crew preparing for their session. Eight younger guys who watch us with obvious excitement, hoping to move up to varsity next year. Their cox, a Beta named David, gives Reese a respectful nod.

"Rough session?" he asks.

"We've had better," she replies, professional as always.