You’re working with Holly? Brave.
The implication hadn’t been subtle then. It wasn’t subtle now.
Nate took in the tailored shirt, the watch that probably cost more than his first car, the practiced smile dripping privilege and condescension. Holly had stiffened even more beside him, and when Lars clocked it his grin widened like a predator closing in on the kill.
“Always liked this routine,” Lars smirked, his gaze pinned on Holly. “Takes real… coordination.”
Nate didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But his fists curled at his sides, slow and deliberate, knuckles whitening like he was squeezing a confession out of his own restraint. Familiar heat climbed his spine. Fight-or-flight, blood calling for blood. For a second, he couldfeelthe weight of his suspension like a collar around his throat. One wrong move, one impulse, and he’d prove everyone right about him.
Still, he stepped half an inch closer to Holly without thinking, a quiet, territorial shift. Not touching or claiming. Just… available. His eyes stayed on Lars’s face, flat and cold, daring him to take another step.
“You here to spectate or gloat?” Holly asked, her voice flat.
Lars shrugged, playing casual. “Just passing through. Thought I’d see how the competition was shaping up.”
The tension coming off Holly was a live wire. She wouldn't look at either of them. “We’re good,” she said. “Better than last time.”
Lars chuckled. “That wouldn’t take much.”
Fuck this.
Nate shifted barely a step, but it put him between Holly and Lars like a line drawn on the floor under the studio lights. His expression didn’t change. If anything, it sharpened.Say it again, his body language begged.Try me.
“You know,” Lars said, looking him square in the eye, “she doesn’t warm up easily. Took me weeks to get past those walls.”
“Maybe you weren’t worth melting for,” Nate said, his voice low and flat.
That wiped the smirk clean off Lars’s face.
Before anything else could spark, Holly shoved herself between them like a damn wrecking ball in yoga pants. “We’re rehearsing, Lars. You can leave now.”
Lars held Nate’s gaze just long enough to make it a challenge, a smirk behind the eye contact, then flashed a smile that didn’t touch a single inch of sincerity.
“Break a leg,” he said to Nate, his tone coated in faux charm and European superiority. “Or, you know…both.”
The door clicked shut behind Lars, smugness trailing like smoke curling into the silence he left in his wake. Nate didn’t trust himself to speak. If he opened his mouth now, he’d absolutely say something dumb.Something he couldn’t take back.The only thing keeping him grounded was the tight lock of his jaw and the dull ache in his clenched fists, so he leaned into it for a moment.
Holly grabbed her towel from where she’d draped it over the barre and wiped her face as if nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just gone statue-still at the sight of that prick. Her movements were brisk. Controlled.
Too controlled.
“My ex,” she said, offhand, like she was commenting on the weather. “Kinda.”
Nate’s throat tightened on the word like it had teeth.Kinda.What the fuck did that mean? Some messy, unresolved, almost-thing? A hookup that turned into heartbreak, a heartbreak that turned into a headfuck?
Questions crowded his mouth, sharp and frantic, each one begging to be asked and each one held back by sheer force of will. And God, he wanted to smash something. Preferably Lars’s perfect, smug, punchable face. But he didn’t ask. He just exhaled slow and sharp through his nose, like he could bleed the fury out through his teeth before it escaped him.
“Let’s take it from the top.”
He spoke quietly, but his voice was solid enough to anchor them both. Holly paused mid-motion, turning to look at him.Not just a glance but a full-body assessment, as though she was searching his face for cracks in the mask he always wore.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t offer comfort. Didn’t smirk to defuse the moment. His gaze held hers steadily, his jaw tight, his voice quieter this time but no less firm.
“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s give ‘em something to stare at, Martinez.”
And when he reached for her hand, there was no performance in the gesture. No finesse. No seduction. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet.
It was grounded, possessive in a way that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do withintent. It was a grip that said:I see what just happened. I’m not walking away. And I won’t let him shake you.
