30. Training Check
Chapter thirty
Training Check
Ronan
The house has been quieter for forty-eight hours.
Not quiet, but quieter.
There is a meaningful distinction.
Removing one party member changes the balance even when nobody is actually in danger.
Griffin left for work before sunrise. Cami spent most of the morning in her bedroom working. Micah was at the shop. I spent six hours at the library and another two working from home.
Under normal circumstances, that should qualify as a peaceful day.
Instead, I noticed Dex's absence approximately fourteen times.
There was no music playing in the kitchen when I got home.
The protein bars in the pantry are still exactly where I left them yesterday.
The house feels wrong.
I dislike that conclusion.
Mostly because I know exactly what Dex would do with it if I said it aloud.
So I don't.
Micah apparently has less self-preservation.
“This house is fucking weird without him,” he says from the passenger seat as I merge onto the interstate.
Cami looks up from her phone in the back. “Thank you.”
I glance at Micah. “You could have allowed me to continue pretending I hadn't noticed.”
He laughs. “You noticed?”
“Yes.”
“Me too,” Cami says. “But if either of you tell him that, I'll deny it.”
Her phone buzzes.
She immediately looks down.
Micah turns enough to see her.
“Dex?”
“Yes.”
He smiles.
I return my attention to the road.
Dex has been in Chicago for two days.
He has already sent forty-three messages to the group chat, six photographs of his hotel room, one video of the studio, and a picture of a sandwich with no explanation.
He is not suffering, and neither are we, but we are adjusting.
Fortunately, today my brain has something considerably more useful to occupy it.
Rope.
Or, more accurately, discovering how little I know about it.
The studio is in a converted warehouse outside Loveland, tucked between a climbing gym and a business that appears to manufacture industrial shelving.
I expected something darker and possibly more dramatic.
Instead, it looks like a movement studio with unusually interesting ceiling hardware.
There’s polished concrete in the lobby with hardwood beyond it.
I take in the mats stacked neatly along one wall, and the steel rigging points overhead.
There are framed photographs that are artistic enough I have to look twice before realizing several of the people in them are suspended.
Cami stops beside me. “Oh.”
Micah's gaze goes immediately upward.
Alexis waves from across the room. “You made it.”
She's wearing leggings and a fitted tank, her hair braided down her back.
Cami looks down at herself, noticing their similar attire. “We coordinated.”
“Obviously.”
Carter stands next to Jeremiah, who has a length of rope in his hands.
The man standing beside Jeremiah calmly takes the rope out of his hands. “No.”
Jeremiah stares at him. “I was looking at it.”
“You were twisting it.”
“I was feeling the construction.”
“You were twisting it incorrectly.”
Jeremiah blinks and then hands it over without argument.
“This is Drake,” Jeremiah tells us. “And Mara.”
Mara, who is apparently Drake's demonstration partner, gives us a small wave.
Drake gestures toward the studio floor. “Shoes off. Phones silent. Water stays accessible. If someone needs food, medication, a break, whatever—take it.”
His eyes stop briefly on Cami. “Jeremiah mentioned diabetes.”
She nods. “Type one.”
“We'll deal with that specifically before I put rope on you.”
Good, that’s one of the questions on my list.
Drake points toward a row of chairs. “Sit.”
Carter's eyebrows rise.
Alexis smiles.
Micah and I sit.
Drake appraises all of us.
“I understand all of you have experience topping in some capacity.”
Carter lifts a hand. “Some significantly more than others.”
“That does not matter today.”
Jeremiah nods.
I do too.
Micah leans forward, elbows on his knees.
“You are beginners,” Drake continues. “Not beginner Dominants. Not beginner sadists. Beginner riggers.”
There is something mildly irritating about hearing that. Which means I probably need to hear it.
“If any of you decide the experience you already have means the rules I'm giving you don't apply, you don't touch rope in my studio.”
“That’s fair,” Jeremiah says immediately.
Carter gestures toward the equipment. “Absolutely, we paid you specifically so none of us accidentally maim anyone.”
Drake's mouth barely moves. “That was the correct financial decision.”
Jeremiah glances at me.
I refuse to engage.
The argument over payment ended when he finally informed me that he makes seven figures and shares household expenses with three other men who also make seven figures, so I could please stop acting as though several private rope lessons were going to bankrupt him and that we needed the money more.
I stopped arguing—mostly.
Alexis leans toward Cami. “They fought about this for three days.”
“I know.”
“They're both exhausting.”
“I know.”
“I can hear you,” Jeremiah says.
Alexis smiles sweetly. “I know.”
Drake waits until we're quiet again. “The rope doesn't care how experienced you are.” He picks up a coil. “Neither does a nerve.”
That gets everyone's attention.
What follows is less a lecture than an extended explanation of everything that can go wrong when someone assumes pretty rope equals safe rope.
Pressure matters. Placement matters. Nerves matter more than whether something looks symmetrical.
Numbness, burning, electrical sensations, weakness, unexpected loss of movement—none of those get negotiated around because a tie is almost finished.
“If your bottom tells you something feels neurologically wrong,” Drake says, “the answer is not, ‘Can you give me thirty more seconds?’”
Carter laughs.
Drake looks at him. “I wasn't joking.”
The laugh dies.
Cami covers her mouth to conceal her own laugh.
Drake finally lets the corner of his mouth lift. “People make remarkably bad decisions when they're horny.”
“That is also fair,” Carter admits.
Emergency planning comes next.
Rope doesn't go on anyone unless it can come off quickly.
Safety shears stay within reach.
Not in another room.
Not in a drawer someone has to find while panicking.
Drake holds up a pair.
Cami looks at me.
Micah puts a hand on her thigh and reassures, “Griffin already gave Ronan trauma shears.”
Drake looks our way.
“He did,” I agree.
Micah smiles. “Pretty much said if we're putting rope on people in the basement, they're staying where we can reach them.”
“That sounds like Griffin,” Cami says.
Drake nods. “He is correct.”
I make a mental note to tell Griffin.
He'll pretend not to care, but he will.
We spend some time handling different rope—cotton, hemp, jute.
They feel dramatically different in my hands, but Drake makes his point before I have time to develop preferences.
Traditional does not mean safer.
Expensive does not mean appropriate.
And if you don't understand how the material in your hands behaves, you have no business putting it around somebody else’s body.
Then he gives us cotton. “You'll start here.”
Carter glances at the jute. “The fancy pictures use that.”
“The fancy pictures aren't lesson one.”
Alexis leans toward Cami. “Pinterest lied.”
“I feel betrayed.”
Drake looks toward them. “Pinterest also doesn't show you the years of practice before the photograph.”
Alexis straightens. “Yes, Sir.”
Jeremiah's head turns slowly.
Drake looks between them. “I am not participating in whatever that was.”
Even I laugh.
Then he pairs us off—Micah with Carter and Jeremiah with me.
Cami and Alexis are just observing.
Drake demonstrates one foundational tie on Mara's forearm, focusing more on what the rope should do than making us memorize choreography.
Then it's our turn.
My first attempt looks correct.
It is not.
Drake slides a finger beneath one section. “You lost your tension.”
I frown. “I thought it was even.”
“You thought wrong.”
Behind me, Cami makes a suspicious choking noise.
I don't look at her, but I start over.
Micah finishes before the rest of us.
Drake checks his work, then looks at him. “You've done this before?”
“No.”
“Textile artist?”
“No,” Micah corrects, “Tattoo artist.”
Drake pauses and looks at the rope on Carter's arm again.
“Ah.”
Carter looks down. “Good ah or nerve-damage ah?”
“Good.”
Micah's gaze tracks one of the rope lines, and he points. “If this moves, that one is going to pull tighter.”
Drake looks at him again. “Yes.”
Micah nods like that was obvious.
Drake gestures toward the rope. “He is seeing structure.”
Micah immediately looks uncomfortable with being singled out.
Drake doesn't appear to care. “Rope is line, tension, negative space, and three-dimensional geometry before it's erotic.”
Micah's whole attention changes because that language makes sense to him.
When we practice again, I watch Micah.
He doesn't memorize it faster, but he sees it differently.
By the time Drake tells us to stop, I've done the same basic exercise enough times to determine two things.
One: I dislike being mediocre at this.
Two: pretending I am better than I am would be considerably more dangerous than tolerating that feeling.
Then Drake looks at Cami. “Ready?”
Her eyebrows rise. “For?”
“You volunteered.”
“I did.”
“Still volunteering?”
She smiles. “Yes.”
He nods toward the mat. “Mara stays with us. You're the only new bottom I'm putting rope on today.”
Alexis makes an exaggerated sad face. “I dressed for nothing.”
“You'll survive,” Jeremiah says.
She smiles at him.
Cami steps onto the mat.
My interest changes immediately. It’s still technical, but also personal.
Drake asks about old injuries, shoulders, joints, numbness, altered sensation.
Then he gets to the part I've been waiting for.
“Devices.”
Cami turns so the back of her upper arm is visible. “Dexcom.”
Drake doesn't touch it, but he looks at it.
Then gestures for Mara to look too.
“And insulin?”
Cami lifts the edge of her tank enough to show the Omnipod on the right side of her abdomen.
“Current Pod is here.”
“How often does that one move?”
“Every three days.”