Chapter 94 Back to the Boathouse

Chapter 94 Back to the Boathouse

Max

I stayed at the kitchen table after Chloe and Daniel left, staring at my phone without seeing the dark screen.

The room looked ordinary. Billy’s abandoned toast still sat on the counter, the refrigerator hummed behind me, and the glass of orange juice someone had poured earlier remained untouched near the sink. Nothing around me reflected the fact that a secret I had spent years protecting had almost been broadcast to the entire campus before breakfast.

Someone had emailed the podcast.

Someone had decided my life belonged to them because they were tired of waiting for me to make a choice.

Chloe had refused to expose us, and I believed her. The fear on her face had not come from being caught. It had come from finally understanding what the podcast could have done if she had pressed one button. I was grateful to her for stopping, even though gratitude felt strange when attached to the person who had built the weapon in the first place.

None of that changed the question clawing through my head.

Who had sent the email?

There were only two people who knew Liam and I were together.

Liam.

And me.

I picked up my phone and opened his contact. My thumb hovered over the call button while part of me searched desperately for another explanation. Maybe someone had seen us at the boathouse. Maybe we had become careless somewhere along the way. Maybe a teammate had noticed the looks we tried to hide or the nights Liam slipped into my room after everyone else went to sleep.

Possible did not mean likely.

If someone else had discovered us, the email could have contained suspicion. Chloe had described certainty. It had explained that Liam was tired of hiding and wanted the podcast to force me into the open.

Those were not guesses from an outsider.

Those were Liam’s feelings. I just knew it. 

The call rang four times before he answered.

“Hey.”

His voice sounded cautious, which only tightened the pressure in my chest. Liam usually answered me warmly when we had not argued, teasing me about calling instead of texting or asking whether I already missed him.

“Meet me at the boathouse.”

Silence followed.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Max, I’m supposed to—”

“Now, Liam.”

I ended the call before he could offer another excuse.

The moment the screen went dark, anger surged through me, followed closely by guilt. Liam had spent months asking for more than stolen hours and locked doors. He wanted to sit beside me without checking who might walk into the room. He wanted to call me his boyfriend without lowering his voice. He wanted a relationship that existed somewhere beyond the private spaces where I felt safe enough to admit how much he meant to me.

I understood why hiding hurt him.

Understanding did not make betrayal acceptable.

I left the house through the front door and headed toward campus on foot because I needed the movement. The morning air was cool enough to raise goose bumps along my arms, but I barely noticed. My mind kept circling the same pieces of information, trying to arrange them into an answer that did not end with Liam knowingly handing our secret to a stranger.

The boathouse sat beyond the athletic fields at the edge of the lake, weathered and quiet beneath the pale Sunday sky. It was where this had started, before either of us had known what to call it.

Almost two years ago, Liam had followed me inside after a party because he thought I was angry with him. We had stood between stacked paddles and overturned canoes, arguing in whispers until frustration stripped away whatever restraint remained between us. He had kissed me first. I had kissed him back harder, then spent the rest of the night pretending that moment had not rearranged my entire life.

We kept returning after that. We became exclusive eight months ago.

The boathouse became ours because no one else came there after dark. It held our first kiss, our first confession, and the first time Liam asked whether I could ever imagine telling anyone about us.

I had told him I needed time.

Apparently, time had run out.

My pace quickened as the lake came into view. Anger kept trying to take over, but beneath it lived something more frightening. If Liam had sent the email, I did not know what that meant for us. I loved him. That truth remained brutally intact even while I imagined him typing our names into a message and asking an anonymous stranger to rip my life open.

My family’s reaction was not some vague fear I had invented to avoid commitment.

My father had stopped speaking to a cousin for bringing his husband to a family wedding. My mother had called it embarrassing and blamed the cousin for making a private matter public. Their money paid my tuition, my housing, and almost every expense attached to the future they expected me to follow. They had already warned me that anything capable of humiliating the family would have consequences.

Coming out could cost me all of it.

Liam knew that.

He also knew losing my family terrified me, even when I hated myself for caring about people whose love came with conditions.

By the time I reached the boathouse, my hands were shaking.

I shoved them into the pockets of my sweatshirt and waited near the doors.

Liam appeared several minutes later, walking quickly along the path from campus. He slowed when he noticed my expression.

“What happened?”

I opened the boathouse door and stepped inside without answering. Liam followed, and the hinges groaned behind him as the door swung closed. 

“Max?”

I turned to face him. “Did you email the podcast?”

The question hit him hard enough that he stopped moving.

“What?”

“Did you send an email to Penalty Box Transgressions telling them about us so they would expose me?”

His eyes widened, but instead of answering, he took a step back. “How would you even know about an email to the podcast?”

The deflection cut through the last of my hope.

I laughed once, but there was no humor in it. “Because I found out who was behind the podcast, and they told me.”

“Who is it?”

“That’s none of your business.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “You know who has been doing this to everyone, but you won’t tell me?”

“No, because I’m not interested in revealing other people’s secrets.” I held his gaze, letting the meaning settle between us. “But I’m starting to think you are.”

“Max, that’s not fair.”

“Then answer me.”

He looked toward the windows, his jaw tightening as though he needed time to invent a response I might accept.

I stepped closer. “You’ve been sidestepping me since you got here. I asked you a direct question, and the first thing you cared about was how I knew.”

Liam finally looked at me again.

My chest hurt so badly that anger was the only thing keeping my voice steady.

“Did you send the email?”