I yank the tire another ten feet.
She's at the window. I haven't looked directly but I know. She does it most mornings. Stands at the kitchen window with her coffee while we work out. She thinks being three steps away from the glass makes her invisible.
It doesn't.
I set my feet and pull again, shoulders burning. I'm performing for her and I don't care. If she's going to watch, I'm going to give her something worth watching.
"Thought you preferred running."
Owen says, mid-row on the TRX. He's watching me with the look that means he already has the answer.
"Felt like a change of routine. Expanding my fitness horizons."
He drops out of the straps, lands clean, reaches for his water. He looks at me. Then past me, past my shoulder, toward the cabin, toward the kitchen window specifically. Then back at me.
The smirk is small. It's still annoying.
"Anything to do with the audience?" he says.
I drop the rope. "So you've noticed too."
He drinks his water. Gives me nothing.
I pick up the rope. "I need to make sure I'm not falling behind. She spends half her time in your office. She even drew your portrait." I pull the tire forward.
He gives me the look. I pull the tire.
"It's not a competition." Reid lands off the tire stack, boots hitting snow, and straightens up. Of course he's been listening. "Leave her alone. She came all the way out here to find peace. She doesn't need three men deciding she's the most interesting thing in these mountains."
"We all came to the mountains to get away from something," I say. "All three of us. And we found what we needed here."
Reid says nothing. He doesn't disagree. He stands there with his water bottle and his jaw set and his eyes on the middle distance. He feels it too. He just hasn't decided what to do with it yet.
Owen sets down his water. "Maybe she finds what she needs and then leaves." Quiet. Like he's been sitting with it for a while. "Maybe we're part of her recovery and not part of what comes after. Are we ready for that?"
The cold fills the space.
I think about our mother. What her death did to each of us. Owen keeping everybody at careful distance since he was fifteen, making sure the loss can't reach him the same way twice. Reid locking down, building a life that runs on duty because duty is constant and reliable. And me, always moving. Always the next expedition, the next range, the next horizon. Chasing the next thing because moving felt like choosing and choosing felt like the opposite of having things taken without warning.
I was supposed to be planning the Amazon trip. Eight weeks, deep jungle, the kind of terrain that breaks gear and tests everything. I haven't opened the planning documents in three weeks.
I keep finding reasons to be here instead. Near her.
That's new.
"I'm willing to risk it," I say. "She's different. She's worth it." I look at Owen. Then Reid. "Tell me you don't feel the same."
Owen says nothing.
Reid takes a slow breath. "I think she's worth it. But she's dealing with something real and she needs room to do it. The last thing she needs is three men competing for her attention."
"I'll give her all the space she needs," I say. "I'll follow her lead. But I'm not going to pretend there's nothing there."
They're both holding themselves differently now. Reid's grip on his water bottle has gone white at the knuckles. Owen is still on the TRX handles, arms locked, holding a position well past the point where his muscles should have quit.
I yank the tire hard. The rope snaps taut.
"Or," I say, "she doesn't have to choose."
