“I’ll hold you to it.”
They walked to the glass together.The pool lay long and quiet, lane ropes trembling in the air from the HVAC.Hogan’s reflection looked like a man split in water and light.
“You want company?”Dale asked.
Hogan shook his head.“If you get in, you know it’ll turn into a fucking race.I need laps, not penance.”He glanced at Dale, something like apology tucking in behind the sarcasm.“I’ll be fine.”
“Be careful.”
“That I can do.”
Hogan headed for the locker room that connected the pool and the gym.The swing door flapped once, twice, and he was gone.
Dale leaned his shoulder to the glass and let the gym sounds find him again.He should have felt better.He didn’t.What he felt was the same itch he got when they were about to face the enemy, or when shit was about to hit the fan.
He walked over the padded mats in one corner of the gym, toed off his sneakers and dropped down into a stretch, buying himself a minute.Then he pulled his phone from his locker and opened a new note.
— Blake: Hogan is getting migraines, needs to be checked, don’t let him skate—
He hesitated, then added another line to his to do list for later that day.
— Bateman: drone rhythms—review gate approach, cross with fence walks, look for repeaters—
He slid the phone away.The bag waited, mute and patient.He almost went back to it but didn’t.Enough hitting things for one morning.The work wasn’t always about force.
The pool lights shifted as a body cut the surface—first stroke long and smooth.Hogan, no doubt already counting laps in his head, pushing for the kind of tired that could drown out his thoughts.Dale watched for a count of five, then six, until the need to stand and guard the water passed.
He grabbed his hoodie, looped the towel around his neck, and headed for the door.On the way out he flicked the sauna to cool, the same way he always set a room back to neutral when he left it.Habit.Or superstition.Or both.
He didn’t look back at the pool again.He didn’t have to.He’d check on Hogan later.He’d nudge Blake.He’d pin Bateman on the drones.And if the headaches were more than headaches, they’d handle that, too.
They always did, until they couldn’t, and then they found another way.
He left to walk back to his suite.Ty was cooking for them tonight, and he didn’t want to miss a minute of their time together
****
Ty’s drawings spokein the language of certainty.Every line had purpose.Every note sat where a foreman under stress would look for it.Oren checked the math in his head, not surprised when it all balanced.Steel behaves if you respect it.So does concrete.People—less so.
The half-built extension to the therapy wing was a thing of beauty in his eyes.Something that sparked all the senses.With it still being only about seventy percent done, wind found every gap and made a voice of it.Temporary lights hummed, casting shadows against the walls and floor.A length of chain bumped on a scaffold, and the ever-present scent of wood and steel filled the night air around him.
Oren rolled the tube of plans and started the walk-through he’d promised—eyes on spans, anchors, bracing, the small choices crews made when they thought no one was looking.It was hard to stay focused, especially as he knew that by now Ty would be in Dale’s kitchen, sleeves shoved up, telling Dale to sit and let someone else take care of dinner.Oren could picture the domestic hum and looked forward to being a part of it.
Halfway down a corridor framed in bare studs, the hair lifted on his forearms.
Watched.
He was being watched.
He didn’t turn fast.He settled into the stance that had kept him alive—weight centered, hands loose, breath open.
“Late night for an engineer to be out walking through the site.”
Carson stepped out from the bend of the hall.Boots scuffed, jacket creased like he’d slept in it.His insolent smirk ever present.
“You’re looking a little worse for wear there, Carson,” Oren said.
“You’re no oil painting yourself.”Carson’s glance slid along the studs, the corners, the angle of the temp lights.“Looks clean.”
