"At what point do we go ahead and beat each other with the oars?" I asked. "I'm wondering because I'd like to get in as much splashing as possible before that time."
"You're a sociopath," he murmured.
"Are we diagnosing each other now? Because that will be fun."
He made a noise, something like a laugh that'd taken an unexpected turn into a groan. "Maybe later."
"The oar beating? Or the diagnosing?"
He didn't respond to that verbally but the sigh he released could've filled our sails…if we had any sails.
We found the rhythm again and made decent progress though it never seemed like the boathouse got any closer. My arms were somewhere between the fire and noodle stages.
Eventually, Sebastian said, "Did you stay in California after USC?"
"No." I shook my head. I'd needed room to breathe then. Needed to be far enough away from home that I could establish boundaries, even if the only boundary was distance. "Hopkins med. Columbia residency. Stayed in New York for fellowship."
There was a pause. Then, "Really."
I shifted to glance at him. "Wait. Did you just realize I'm competent?"
"Did you just turn around and splash me again?" he asked, shaking the water off his sleeve. "Jesus Christ, Shap. I hope you're prepared for me to turn hypothermic back here."
I wagged a finger at him. "You just decided I'm not some random plastics airhead who only knows Botox and breast implants, didn't you?"
He crossed his (soaked) arms over his (soaked) chest and glanced at Storrow Drive to the right. "I've never suggested you aren't qualified."
I laughed. "You've suggested you're more qualified. Now, I don't have any med school ranking lists on me at the moment but I'm pretty sure the Hopkins surgical program has bested UCLA a few times. Columbia too. Does that sound right to you? What do you think, Stremmel? I'd really love your professional input. A real peer-to-peer moment if you could manage it for me."
And that was when I got wet.
With frigid river water.
"Shut up and row," he said.
"You're not going to toss out your residency stats? Not even trying to get back in the game, are you?"
Another bracing splash of water hit the side of my face and arm. It was awful and I was cold in my bones but I laughed as I shook it off because it was so much fun to harass this man.
"Unless you'd like to see how long it takes us to sink this boat, I'd like you to shut up," he said. "And I'd like you to do it now."
It took us more than three hours but eventually we made it to the boathouse, and we did it without getting completely soaked. Mostly but not completely.
"Never again," Sebastian said as he reached his oar to the dock.
"That group over there, the foursome, they left at the same time we did but they went in the opposite direction," I said, waving toward the other rowers on the water. "They're all the way down at the Longfellow Bridge now. I don't know much about this rowing stuff but I don't think we're very good. We might be bad at this."
Sebastian pushed out of the boat and stepped onto the dock. He reached back to help me but I waved him off. "We're tragic," he said, his hands perched on his hips as he scanned the water. "But those people"—he jerked his chin in the direction of the foursome—"they're professionals."
"You think?"
"Or collegiate athletes. These are not ordinary people who do this for fun or exercise, or, you know, sadomasochism. These are—oh, shit, that's Stanton from nephrology, isn't it?"
A displeased sound echoed in his throat, something resembling a bored snarl.
I brushed my hands together as their boat blew past on one perfectly coordinated stroke. Despite being terrible at rowing and weary from putting up with Sebastian's complaining, I was bouncing on my heels from all the endorphins. It'd been an intense exercise, physically demanding but also emotionally demanding. Rowing was complicated and moderately dangerous for people who didn't know what they were doing, and it required a ton of communication. We did this—together—and we didn't kill each other. That was a really big deal. We could've made quite the horror show of this.
My blood was humming, I felt like I could do any crazy team-building task, and I wanted to burn all this fizzy energy immediately.
"So, that was"— I gestured toward our boat.
"Yeah." He nodded, his hands still on his waist. "It really was."
"I think I deserve some kind of commendation for not cracking your skull with an oar."
He rolled his eyes, saying, "Then I deserve the same commendation and let's not forget about the hypothermia. You're lucky it's a warm day."
I pulled his phone from my bag, making a point to brush off any crumbs it might've collected. "Listen, I know you come by that thin blood honestly, being from Florida and all, but it's not that cold here. Buck up, buttercup."
He accepted his device from me, his gaze fixed on mine. "It's fucking freezing here most of the year."
I shrugged. "Then go back to Los Angeles."
He matched my shrug. "Can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I hate the cold and the forty-two different seasons this city experiences and the leaves"—it had to be noted that he said leaves with jazz hands, and I couldn't tell if those were ironic jazz hands or not—"and then cobblestones, which must've been invented by an orthopedic surgeon, and everything is old as fuck and that's supposed to be special, and the roads"—he cringed with his entire body—"the fucking roads look like a child with no object permanence drew them. They make no sense, none at all, and don't get me started on the sports. These people and their sports. My god. Do you know about the turkeys? There are turkeys here, Shap, they're all over the place, they don't appreciate that we're sharing their habitat, and they'll chase the fuck out of you if you're not careful. And then there's the coffee, which used to be the only part of my day that didn't piss me off but now I can't just order coffee, I have to also join a cult. And you can't park. You just can't park in this town. Don't try. Not worth it, but it means you have to walk on the danger rocks and you better believe they'll be slippery as hell because all the leaves came down between hot wind season and cold hurricane season so you'll roll an ankle just to dodge the turkeys and order a regular coffee which you must drink with cream and sugar by order of the cult but it's going to be free because one of the sports teams finally won a game—and thank fuck for that because they're not out driving drunk or beating on each other for one blessed night." He gave a brisk shake of his head. "That's why I can't leave."
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. "Because you hate everything?"
"Yeah. I hate it all so thoroughly that I'm sure I'd never find anywhere else to hate with such completeness. Without all of this resentment, I'd be empty inside."
"Oh, so that's what it is." I reached out, ran my hand from his chest to his waist. Blame the endorphins for this. "Resentment."