Tipping the Balance (29 page)

It was still the CalPac crew, and people still took oars down to the dock or stretched or, like Morgan, warmed up on the rowing machines. Brad knew what they were doing because he’d done it so many times himself, even if he didn’t know most of the faces anymore, even if there were now so many more bodies than when he’d rowed just a few months before. He wondered if any other members of the oversight committee had set foot in the boathouse recently. The numbers, at least for the two men’s teams, had skyrocketed, and Brad was proud to be part of the reason why, proud to have achieved so much under Nick Bedford’s coaching.

Brad nodded in satisfaction. None of that mattered. Even though the boathouse was now filled to bursting with bodies and even a new eight in slings in the middle of the bay, it was still the boathouse. It still felt like home. What had changed, Brad realized, was him. He’d changed. He no longer studied, if that had ever been the word for his five years in college, at California Pacific. He was an alum, and he was back in the boathouse to coach. It felt right, he thought, nodding slowly.

Then Nick himself came out of his office.

And grinned. “Brad! You made it!” Nick pulled him into the coaches’ office.

“Yeah, here I am, Coach, just like old times,” Brad said.

Nick looked at him closely. “But it’s not, is it?”

“No, I guess not,” Brad agreed, “but it’s still good to be back.”

“I’m really glad you are, and I hope you seriously consider coaching with me. As you can see,” Nick said, gesturing at all the people outside the office door, “we’ve got a lot of bodies out there. Even just from a safety standpoint, we need more launches on the water.”

Nick was right. Brad knew that. “The oversight committee’s just going to have to come up with more money. Even if I bounce back and forth between varsity and junior varsity—”

“You won’t really be able to help with either one,” Nick said. “But Brad? I hope you know that’s not even remotely why I asked you to help.”

“Couldn’t get anyone else?” Brad joked.

Nick rolled his eyes. “Granted, people in the area with the time and knowledge to coach are few and far between, but no.”

“Seriously, Coach, I don’t know why else you’d ask,” Brad admitted.

“Someone’s really done a number on you,” Nick muttered. “I asked because you know a lot about rowing. You bring something that I can’t, and that’s recent experience in a boat. The rest of it, like the periodization of training and what drills work for what issues, I can teach you. But you just went through them as an oarsman a few months ago. Don’t sell that—or yourself—short.”

Hearing those words from Nick warmed him, and Brad smiled. “Got it, Coach.”

“And stop calling me ‘Coach’,” Nick groused. “You knew my name this summer. Besides, you’re a coach, too, now. So for this morning, just follow me around. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a practice plan and throw you in a launch.”

“Got it,” Brad said.

A knock on the door halted further discussion. “Coach? You in here?”

Brad looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Hey, Cockring, how’s it hanging?”

He laughed as Stuart Cochrane gritted his teeth so hard he could practically hear the much shorter man’s fillings crack. “Don’t ever call me that again,” Stuart snapped, smacking the back of Brad’s head.

“Hey!” Brad yelped.

“Who or what is that?” someone behind Stuart said like Brad wasn’t even there.

Brad looked around the still-seething coxswain and saw a much taller man with café au lait skin and a bushy thatch of hair the improbable color of milk chocolate that made his moss-green eyes all the more vivid. Brad thought he detected a slight British accent. Whoever he was, he hovered protectively over Stuart.

“That’s Brad Sundstrom, an asshole from last year’s varsity crew who’s apparently back to plague and vex me,” Stuart said.

Brad stood up, smirking. He stuck his hand out. “
Coach
Sundstrom. Nice to meet you.”

The other man shook his hand warily. “Jonathan Poisonwood. Pleased to meet you, as well. I’ve heard about you.”

“No doubt,” Brad said, still smirking.

“No,” Stuart breathed. “Just… no.”

“Coach Sundstrom’s doing me the favor of checking you all out to see if you’re worth his time,” Nick said.

“I knew him leaving for good was too much to hope for,” Stuart sighed. “Anyway, the crews are out running to warm up, and then they’ll do their dynamic movement drills to stretch. The coxswains are ready to go over today’s practice plan.”

Nick nodded. “We’ll be right out.”

As Stuart and Jonathan left, Brad looked at Nick. “Who or what was that?” he asked, mimicking the new rower.

“You know Stuart,” Nick said with a laugh, “and that was his shadow, Jonathan Poisonwood, my star acquisition. I recruited him from Orange Coast College down in the OC.”

“What’s going on between those two?” Brad said.

Nick shrugged. “Who knows at this point, but you saw it, too, huh?”

“Blind people can see it,” Brad snorted.

“Everyone but them, according to Morgan,” Nick said, laughing again. “Come on, let’s go herd some cats. Just stand behind me and look confident while I tell the coxswains what’s what today.”

“Any of ’em besides Stuart any good?” Brad asked.

“I nabbed one of the JV coxswains who wanted to follow her boys up to the varsity, Evangeline Chin.”

“You stole Evie from the JV? Way to go,” Brad said. “Anyone else?”

Nick shrugged. “We’ll see. Let’s go meet them.”

Brad listened closely while Nick went over the plan for the day. It was early in the season, still in the “getting the rust out” phase after summer vacation when some of the guys hadn't touched an oar or erg, so for that morning’s practice, Nick planned some basic drills to get the oars in the water at the same time, followed by rowing first by a rotation of six of the eight rowers, then all eight. Pretty standard stuff, when Brad thought about it.

“Let’s get out of the way,” Nick said, steering Brad toward the launch once he’d gone over the day’s practice with the coxswains. “Normally I’d have the leftover rowers in here, but I put them on the ergs this morning. Today I just want it to be us so we can talk freely. Once you’re up and running as a coach, we can put the leftovers in smaller boats, the singles and pairs I bought this summer.”

Brad pulled on his cap while they puttered out into the river, careful not to kick up a wake that might push the expensive and somewhat fragile rowing shells into the dock. “Today I want you to observe. The perspective’s different out here,” Nick continued over the farty sputter of the motor. “I think you’ll find that you’ll learn things about rowing just from watching. I know I did. I’ll point things out to you, and if anything jumps out at you, speak up.”

“Will do,” Brad said. He pulled his gloves on. “Is it always this cold in the morning?”

Nick nodded. “You might want to put long johns on under your jeans. That helps.”

So Brad kept quiet and watched as practice got under way. It didn’t take him long to realize that Nick was right. He saw everything from the launch, every late catch, every squirm of the rowers’ bodies out of place, all the little things that could upset a boat, and the more he watched, the clearer those mistakes became. Nick looked over and nodded, like he’d heard Brad’s thoughts.

“How come we didn’t do this launch lizard bit?” Brad asked, almost accusingly.

“Numbers. We had eight rowers and one coxswain. We could’ve borrowed a four from the women, I guess, but you’d have spent more time fighting the set in a smaller boat than rowing, so it didn’t seem worth the hassle to me. We made do with what we had, and we did all right,” Nick said.

Then Brad connected some dots. “That’s why you filmed us.”

“Yep, and I’ll do it for these guys, too, even though we now have enough for some real competition for seats in the A boat,” Nick said. “One of the things having an assistant does is free me up to concentrate on one group or another and still have someone to run a safe practice for the rest.”

They stopped talking then. Nick had a practice to run, and Brad knew he could either focus on the crews or talk to his old coach. He chose to watch the crews. He still thought it was a trip there were enough rowers for a B boat, plus some spares. The guys were going to have to hustle, and Brad wondered if he’d have made the cut. Then he realized it didn’t matter. That was then, and now he was out of the competition. No, he was helping run the competition. He smiled. This could be fun.

After practice, Brad tagged along behind Nick as he debriefed with the coxswains. His attention wandered as they discussed specific people whose names he hadn’t yet learned. There, in the middle of the bay, was a gleaming vision in white, the latest in carbon-fiber hull technology from one of the boat-makers. Brad couldn’t tell which one, and right then he didn’t care. He just wanted to admire the boat.

“That’s yours, you know,” Nick said, coming up behind him.

“What’re you talking about?” Brad said, frowning.

“It took me a while to figure it out, but you asked your dad to donate a boat when you graduated, didn’t you?” Nick said.

Brad blushed. “Yeah. I… uh… I also figured it might give the athletic department some incentive to get off your case about Morgan.”

Nick stared, stunned. “You did that? For me?”

Brad shrugged, and his blush turned to one of shame. He couldn’t tell Nick that he was the one who’d turned in that anonymous note that lit the match to the whole powder keg. He didn’t regret much in life, but his actions that spring filled him with shame. He squirmed. “Can we not talk about this? Ever? My dad’s got more money than he knows what to do with. I thought about a car, but I like mine okay, and this way I could help someone else out, help out the crew, you know?”

Nick gripped Brad’s shoulder. “You’re a good man. C’mere, there’s something I want to show you.”

Nick led Brad around to the boat’s bow. “There. See the name?”

Brad froze and time stood still.
Helena Sundstrom
. His mother. They’d named the boat for his late mother. “I…,” he started, but his mouth was dry. He coughed. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I thought you might like that,” Nick said softly.

Brad’s thoughts raced. His dad named the boat for his mother. The news shocked him. He really didn’t think the old bastard was capable of caring that much. Hell, at all. Where Brad was concerned, his dad usually parachuted in, spent what he had to spend to maintain appearances, and then bailed out just as quickly. That Randall first bought a boat for Brad’s old crew and then named it after his mother….

“Didn’t think he had it in him,” Brad whispered.

Nick scratched his head uncertainly. “That’s the thing. Once your dad donated the money, we never heard back. You’re on the oversight committee, so you should know.”

“This went down before I joined. I think that’s why they wanted me, so they could juice some more out of my old man,” Brad said.

“Usually the person who donates the money names the boat, but your dad won’t return my phone calls,” Nick said. “It’s pretty frustrating.”

“Then… how’d you pick the name? How’d you know?” Brad said, his heart sinking.

Nick looked Brad in the eye. “Drew thought you might like that.”