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With the uneven numbers in each shell, it just made sense that coxes would room together - at least, Bobby thought so. Sure, he wasn't about to say a word (or at least a kind one) to any of Al’s other babies, but George Morry was a different story. The Lund brothers were allowed to cross battle lines to talk now and then, and in a way, coxswains were a brotherhood of their own.
He'd liked Morry since he'd shown up for turnout the year before, and now that he was an official VBC member this year, he'd been Bobby's first choice for a roommate.
He was fun, a good cox, and as relations between varsity and JV deteriorated over the months, seemed to agree with Bobby that at least the two of them could have some kind of truce.
Chuck didn't see it that way, however. "Don't see why you've got to room with him again this semester..."
"What, you want me to pull my mattress down the hall to sleep between you and Jim every night?"
"Might be better than sleeping in the same room as Morry."
"Shut up, Day. It's not like you're going to stay up and talk strategy and diet with me."
"I'm just saying. If you've gotta room with a cox, does it have to be him?"
"Well, maybe if you pulled hard every practice and not get upset, we could finally put this rivalry to rest, and it wouldn't matter."
“Fuck you.”
Bobby looked over at Jim for support, but he wasn't looking at either of them, gaze fixed firmly ahead.
Bobby wasn't letting it go, however. "What about you, Jim? You mind my rooming situation?"
"I don't love it, I guess. But you've gotta sleep somewhere. Though there are other coxes."
"Gee, thanks."
When they reached the club house, Bobby left the pair of them downstairs and stomped up to his room, flinging his bag onto the bed as Morry barely looked up, used to his dramatics by now.
"My boys are all pissed again that I'm rooming with you."
"Eh, they'll forget about being mad at you and go back to being mad at me themselves by tomorrow."
"Yeah…”
"Come on, it's not as if you aren't going to start calling some clever new insult as a cadence as soon as we're in the shells again next practice."
"Glad you think they're clever," Bobby snorted, but he was a bit selfishly pleased.
George rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna finish this reading and then get some sleep. That fine with you?"
They couldn't have had the lights off for more than half an hour, however, before there was a strange thud against the wall outside beneath their room and then a noise that sounded almost like a whimper.
“What the hell?”
"Someone getting mugged out there?" Morry asked sleepily, sitting up and looking equally confused.
Bobby flicked on his lamp as Morry pried open the window, both of them sticking their heads out to see -
What the hell?
Dick Ballard and Don Hume sprang apart at the sound of the window, but it was plenty obvious what they'd been doing.
Dick rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and then sprinted away, though where he planned on going, Bobby wasn't sure, seeing as he also lived in the house, leaving the freshman stroke oar staring up at them, mouth pink and glistening, eyes wide like a spooked deer.
"Hey, uh, sorry, bud," George said down to him when it was clear Bobby was lost for words. "Our mistake - thought you were down there getting robbed or something." He gave a small wave before shutting the window, climbing back into bed with a little laugh. "Whoops."
Bobby got back into bed as well, silent and shocked, and soon Morry's breathing deepened and slowed into sleep, leaving Bobby to toss and turn alone, mind racing over what he'd just seen.
It wasn't as if he didn't know a thing about homosexuality, he wasn't an idiot, and it was amazing what all you could learn from years in a locker room. Though, he'd have a hard time figuring out what of all that talk was actually true or not if it came down to it.
It was that fact that it was his own former freshman stroke and the current one down there.
He'd been somewhat enamored by Dick Ballard since he'd walked into the shell house their first year looking like he'd come straight off a film set and then getting plunked right in front of Bobby. The fact that he didn't give Bobby, or any other cox, the time of day outside the boat only made him frustratingly want his attention even more in a way he didn't quite understand. And even now, when it was clear that things besides rowing had begun to take priority in Dick's life - his stroke no longer consistent enough to get him into either of the top two boats - Bobby still found himself passing him in the club house wanting some kind of acknowledgement and getting none, which was humiliating to even want to say the least when he was the varsity cox of all things.
And then Hume - he'd been a mystery Bobby had wanted to crack since the start of the year. He told himself it was nothing to do with the fact that once more there was an unfairly handsome oarsmen sitting in the freshmen boat stroke seat and only because he pulled like a perfect metronome, like any cox's dream, and if Bobby was ever going to have the chance to cox him in the future, it'd be better if he knew a thing or two about him. But that itself felt almost impossible. The kid was so shy and quiet, he only ever seemed to say anything to White and Adam, which wasn't saying much as Adam himself barely talked, and even when Bobby did catch him speaking, he spoke so low and soft that he could never make out a word. To be so utterly perfect on water and for Bobby to know so very little about him made him feel crazy every time he saw him.
Except now he did know something, and it was that Dick Ballard and he had been kissing under Bobby's window.
---
They didn't have practice the next day, it being a Sunday, and so Bobby had all day to stew over this new knowledge without seeing either party involved, until late in the afternoon, when there was a knock on his door, and he opened it to find a terrified-looking freshman stroke.
Usually he liked when the oarsmen seemed a little scared of him, but it didn’t feel so good now.
"Hey," he said, stepping back.
Hume shoved his hands into his pockets. "I just, um... if I need to quit crew, I'd rather know it now, before you tell Bolles."
"What?"
"Unless you've already..."
"No. Why would I -" he hadn't even thought to tell anyone, hadn't thought that a different guy might. Morry had seemed so unconcerned anyhow, it just hadn't occurred to him. "I'm not gonna tell."
"Oh," he blinked. "And Morry?"
"He's in the library, but I'll talk to him. Though I don't think you have to worry."
"Okay."
Hume chewed on his lip, and Bobby wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to do now, but he asked what he'd been wondering all morning. "Is he nice to you?"
"What?"
"Ballard. Is he nice to you? He was always kind of a… well a dick to me.”
Don's mouth fell open. "What? You two -"
"No! Not like that. Just, in general."
"He's - fine."
"Fine?"
He looked frustrated. "Not like I have a lot of options."
"Lack of options is a dumb reason to kiss someone who's not even nice."
And then Hume just looked slightly mortified to be talking about this at all. "Well... thanks for not saying anything."
Bobby huffed. "Sure."
---
"I'm not gonna tell," Morry said later when Bobby told him Don had come by. "I don't care. My oldest brother's that way."
"What?"
"Yeah. I don't go around telling people 'cause I learned pretty fast other people care, but I don't. So what if they don't want to kiss girls - more options for me."
"Oh." He wouldn't have thought of it that way. He didn't go around kissing many people - had never found it that nice.
"You're usually not this quiet, you know."
"I've got a lot to think about…”
"I don't see why you've got to think so much about it."
The problem was, neither did Bobby.
---
Something about the whole thing had him so angry - Don Hume going around kissing assholes he thought were just fine because he didn't see any other options. He felt himslef glowering at practice, and after a few days, it was apparently obvious enough that Chuck asked him about it, bumping his shoulder in the locker room with a look towards Don's boat.
"We hate the frosh now, too, or what?"
"No."
"What's got you looking like you want to kill their stroke, then?"
"Nothing."
"Huh."
After another week of glaring, however, Don also seemed sick of it. He ran up beside Bobby on the path back to campus and tapped his shoulder.
"Can we talk?"
"Fine."
Don looked around and then put a hand on his bicep and pulled him off into the trees.
Bobby shivered.
"If you're so bothered by me, I don't see why you don't just tell the coaches and get it over with."
"I'm not."
"Then what is it?" he said, sounding almost desperate. "It's not like I'm in the sophomore boat, and neither is Dick actually, so could you stop glaring at me in practice? People are noticing, and I don't know what to do."
"Sorry."
Don just sighed.
"I wish you'd be with someone who was nice to you."
"He's not mean."
"But he isn't nice."
Don crossed his arms, his frown deepening, though mostly he just looked kind of sad. "Well, let me know when you find this guy..."
Bobby felt bad, then. He shouldn't be meddling. "I'll cool off at practice."
"Right."
"And out of it."
"Okay," Don nodded, and before Bobby could say anything else, he walked off, leaving Bobby to lean up against a tree, his head pounding.
---
Later, when he recounted all of this to George, figuring there was little harm done at this point, Morry just looked at him strangely.
"Are you sure you're not this nice guy?"
"What?"
"You can't stop thinking about him, he drives you crazy, you're mad that he's been kissing someone else…” he said, counting off on his fingers.
Well, fuck.
"Bobby Moch, I think you have a crush."