"Morning." Careful. Measured. His eyes held mine for two seconds, then moved to Dec—bare-chested, the dark tan catching the fluorescent light, the new scar pale against it—and his throat worked as he swallowed.
Dec nodded at Nolan. Said nothing. Crossed to the bench press and started loading plates. One-thirty-five for the warm-up—a weight he could handle with his eyes closed, the bar moving in smooth, metronomic reps that were about waking the muscle, not working it. His chest expanded and contracted under the warm skin, controlled, the breathing measured.
I pulled my tank top off and tossed it on the floor. Started wrapping my hands. The tape pulling tight across my knuckles, the compression that turned a fist into a weapon.
"Tank. Hold pads?"
He crossed the room. Held up the mitts. I started with jabs.
Clean, fast, the snap of leather on leather echoing off the concrete. My rebuilt body moved the way Rosa's program had promised—fluid, responsive, the four months of recovery translating into a machine that worked. My leg held. My shoulders rolled into the combinations. The sweat came fast, running down my chest, pooling in the hollow of my collarbone.
"Harder," Tank said.
I threw a cross that rocked him back on his heels. Then a hook that he barely caught, the pad absorbing the impact like a gunshot. His eyebrows went up.
"You've been hiding that."
"Been building it." Hook, cross, jab, uppercut. The combination flowed without thought, my body running on muscle memory and the raw, restless energy that came from having too much feeling and nowhere to put it.
Tank dropped the pads. Nodded slowly, the approval of a man who understood what a rebuilt body meant. "You're back, Irish. For real this time."
"Told you I would be."
"You tell everybody everything. This time you meant it." He clapped my shoulder once—the weight of his hand like a sandbag—and went back to the heavy bag, settling into his own rhythm.
I moved to the bag next to his. Started working combinations alone, the leather cracking under my fists, the rhythm steadying my pulse. But my focus was fractured. I was aware of Nolan the way you're aware of a heat source in a cold room—constantly, peripherally, the warmth pulling at your attention even when you were looking somewhere else.
Dec had moved to two-twenty on the bench. The warm-up weight replaced by the real work, the bar bending slightly under the load, his arms thick and straining, the dark skin flushed with effort. Sweat traced the channel between his pectorals and ran down his abs toward the waistband of his shorts.
Nolan was watching him. Not staring—too careful for that—but watching, the way an analyst watches data populate a screen: absorbing, cataloguing, the information registering in layers. His eyes tracked from Dec's chest to his arms to the scar on his side, and there was nothing analytical about the way his lips parted or the way his breathing changed.
"Need a spot on squats?" Dec's voice, low and even, directed at Nolan as he racked the bar and sat up. Not a question about weightlifting. An offer of proximity disguised as gym protocol.
"If you don't mind." Nolan's voice was steady. Impressive.
They moved to the squat rack. Nolan loaded one-sixty-five—solid weight for his frame—and positioned himself under the bar. Dec stood behind him, hands hovering at his waist, close enough that I could see the heat between their bodies but not quite touching.
"Chest up," Dec said. Quiet. The same tone he used on tactical comms—calm, precise, the voice that guided men through dark buildings. "Drive through your heels. I've got you."
Nolan dropped into the squat. His form was clean—self-taught, textbook—his thighs parallel to the floor, his back straight. He drove upward. Dec's hands stayed hovering, close enough to catch, the trust of letting someone stand that close while your body was under load turning the air between them into a tangible, electric thing.
"Good," Dec said. "Again."
On the tenth rep, Nolan's legs trembled at the bottom. Dec's hands came to his waist—firm, steadying, the touch functional and devastating at the same time.
"I've got you," Dec murmured. "Push."
Nolan pushed. Racked the bar. Turned his head, and Dec was right there, their faces close in the way that only happens when someone has just spotted you through failure, and for a beat neither of them moved.
"Thanks," Nolan said. Low. The word carrying more weight than gratitude.
Dec nodded. Stepped back. The moment closed.
"You two need a room?" I called from the bag, grinning, my fists still wrapped, sweat dripping from my jaw. "Or should I keep pretending I didn't see that?"
Nolan's flush went nuclear. Dec gave me a look—flat, unreadable, except for the barely perceptible twitch at the corner of his mouth that eight years had taught me to read asshut up, but also, you're not wrong.
I went back to the bag. Harder. The sweat running freely now, my chest and shoulders slick, the tattoos on my forearm glistening. But my eyes kept pulling toward them. Dec was spotting Nolan on the rack again, hands at his waist, their bodies inches apart at the bottom of each rep. And Nolan—Nolan, who counted everything and controlled everything—was letting himself be held.
