25. Timothy
Chapter twenty-five
Timothy
Six a.m., and the gym is gray and empty, the only light the red glow of the emergency exit sign bleeding across the rubber floor. I like it this way. No witnesses.
My hands shake on the second set.
I blame the cold instead of Grant’s offer to Bethany, which has been sitting in my head since yesterday.
I catch my reflection between reps and don't much care for the guy staring back.
It is not a weight or rep problem. The empty room and I both know it.
I rack the bar and it clangs as metal hits metal.
The door opens. Shane walks in already strapped into his brace. One look at the overloaded bar tells him everything he needs to know.
He skips the greeting. "You're doing the thing where you lift until you can't hear yourself think, right?"
"Bethany?" he asks as a follow-up.
I grab my towel and dry off my neck.
“Grant offered her a real job,” I say.
Shane’s eyebrows lift. “A real job?”
I hear it after he does.
“You know what I mean. A steady position. Benefits. A title.”
“Bethany already has a job.”
“I know that. But it sounds like the kind of opportunity she should take,” I say.
The words sit badly in my chest despite being true.
Shane doesn't laugh.
"So talk to her," he says.
“I’m not going to be a human traffic cone standing in the way of her choices.”
Shane just looks at me. “Talking isn’t standing in her way.”
“It is if she starts weighing what I want against what’s best for her.”
“Supporting her and disappearing on her aren’t the same thing,” he says.
“I’m not disappearing.”
His gaze moves from me to the overloaded bar.
I move to strip the plates from the bar, putting steel between me and the rest of the conversation.
Maxon wanders in with his own water bottle and clocks the tension in roughly two seconds.
"Wow," he says. "Feels like I walked into group therapy."
"You discovered feelings two weeks ago," I tell him. "Sit this one out."
He leans against the rack, entirely too comfortable. “Anne says communication solves most things.”
“I have things to do.”
It is a weak excuse, but I use it anyway and make my escape.
The back door swings open on one of Bethany’s regular lodge mornings, cold air rushing in ahead of her.
Her smile arrives before the hello, and the tension in my chest shifts into something warmer.
We slip into the easy rhythm between us.
"You haven't been reorganizing my bins, have you?" she teases.
"Professional athletes require constant supervision."
For a minute, nothing feels complicated.
I catch myself grinning, and right behind it comes the ugly little question. How many more of these do we even get?
She spreads invoices across the counter. I lean in for the same folder she's reaching for, close enough to smell the cold still coming off her coat.
Our hands almost meet on the paper.
Then I take a tiny step back.
"Inspection's Thursday," she says, flipping pages, thinking out loud more than telling me. "Sign-off should follow pretty quick. Then the outdoor rink project will be officially done."
I nod in a convincing impression of a supportive adult male.
Pride and dread knot up in my chest.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and keeps her attention on the invoices.
I want to reach across the counter and ask what she told Grant.
Shane's voice loops uselessly in my skull. So, talk to her.
She gathers the folders and looks toward the rink.
“It’s going to be strange,” she says. “Not being here every day.”
Every selfish part of me wants to tell her twice a week is not enough.
“Whatever you decide to do next, you’ll be good at it,” I say.
It is true.
It is also carefully missing everything I want.
I gave her room to choose her future without worrying about me.