“How long?”
Nate’s lips pressed together. “Three hours.”
I stared. “Nate.”
“I know!” He threw his hands up. “I kept thinking I was going to get hypothermia and die, and Gideon would just be standing there like, ‘The water will decide if you’re worthy.’”
“That man is a menace.”
“He’s… weirdly comforting,” Nate admitted, like it surprised him. “It’s not like he’s gentle, but he’s not… scared of it. Of me.”
My throat tightened before I could stop it. “Evan isn’t scared of you either.”
Nate’s gaze snapped to mine. “No.” His voice went quiet. “Evan’s not scared of me. He’s scaredforme.”
He said it like it was the difference between being loved and being tolerated.
I nodded once. “That’s love.”
Nate looked away fast. “Don’t start.”
“Start what?”
“The dad speech.” He shoved his mouth into a grim line, but his eyes were too bright. “I’m already in a ring. I can only take so much emotional damage before I tap out.”
I lowered my hands, pads hanging at my sides. “Your mom used to say something,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.
Nate went still. Like the gym had gone quiet around us.
I stared down at the scuffed canvas. “She said… people don’t fall apart because they’re weak. They fall apart because they were carrying too much alone.”
Nate swallowed hard. “That sounds like her.”
“It was always her.”
Nate rubbed his face hard, then tried to shake it off. “Okay,” he said, too brisk. “Enough. One more round.”
I stepped back in. Lifted the pads. “This time, you don’t get to be afraid of your own strength.”
He hesitated.
Then he nodded. Once. Like he’d made a decision.
He came at me harder—still controlled, but with more truth in it. The punches snapped into the pads with sharp, satisfying thuds, my arms absorbing the impact. He wasn’t holding back to spare me. He was learning how to carry what he was now without letting it carry him.
That was the point.
When I called time again, Nate’s chest was heaving, sweat slicking his hair back. He didn’t look calmer, exactly—but he looked less trapped.
I dropped the pads to my sides. “Better.”
He huffed. “I hate that you’re right.”
“That’s my job.”
He hopped down from the ropes, then stopped and looked at me with an expression that made my stomach sink. Not anger. Not panic.
Worry.
