Mish watches him go past. “He’s not awful.”
“No,” I say.
“You sound annoyed.”
“I’m revising expectations.”
She smiles into her clipboard.
AJ completes another lap. He is breathing harder now, the colour higher in his face beneath the helmet, but he isn’t struggling the way he clearly expected to. Or the way a small, ungenerous part of me may have wanted him to.
That part of me is not in charge.
Usually.
“Keep going,” I call as he slows.
He glances at me, then carries on.
The third time he passes, there is less performance in it. No lifted hand, no quick line. Just focus. His mouth is slightly open, his attention on the ground ahead, and for a moment I can see what he probably looks like out on the fells: lean, determined, irritatingly capable, the sort of man who thinks suffering counts for more if there’s a view at the end of it.
I do not need to picture that.
I especially do not need to picture him in running shorts.
“Pip,” Mish says.
I look at her.
Her eyebrows lift.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It was clearly something.”
“No. Just checking you’re still revising expectations.”
I give her the look that works on most of the crew and almost never on my sister.
Mish only smiles and returns to her clipboard.
After another half lap, I lift a hand. “Bring it in.”
AJ slows to a walk, then comes over to us. He doesn’t bend double, which I can tell costs him something. He rests his hands on his hips instead and takes a few controlled breaths.
“Not bad,” I say.
He looks at me. “Was that praise?”
“Don’t get carried away.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He is out of breath, but not badly. Warm, a little flushed, sweat beginning at his hairline. The kit has taken the polish off him, which is an improvement. He looks less like a man arriving to manage a situation and more like someone who has realised the situation has its own plans.
Kev walks over, wiping his hands on a cloth. “If he wants to know what it’s really like, he should do that with a set on.”
