Chapter 11
Jamie
I hate the gym.
The ice has rules. Structure. Space. Lines. Purpose. Everything is movement and timing and instinct, and if I don’t want to think, I don’t have to. I can skate hard enough that thought becomes useless.
The gym gives me nowhere to go. It’s too musty, too crowded, too full of mirrors and bodies and noise.
Plates clanging. Shoes squeaking against rubber flooring.
Guys talking over music coming through the speakers.
The whole place smells like sweat and metal and disinfectant that never quite wins the fight against the sweat.
And Rhys Callahan is everywhere.
Not literally. Unfortunately, I am still sane enough to know that. It just feels like it. Like no matter where I stand, I know where he is. Without looking. Without trying. Like my body figured it out before my brain had a say in it.
He’s across the room with Bennett and Cooper, laughing at something, hands wrapped around the pull-up bar above him. His shirt rides up when he jumps, exposing a strip of stomach—the hard line of muscle there, skin damp, stretching as he pulls himself up.
I look away.
Immediately.
Too late.
The image sticks anyway. His body lifting.
Shoulders working. Biceps flexing. The easy, controlled strength of him.
My teeth grind hard enough to hear. I turn back to Kowalski, who is standing in front of me with a medicine ball tucked under one arm, watching me watch Rhys, looking at me like a disappointed father.
“Problem?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then move.”
He moves.
I make a mental note to be more careful and also to never stand near Kowalski again.
I put the team through the workout Fitch assigned, rotating between stations, correcting form, keeping time. This is easy. This I can do. Captain work. Structure. Rep counts. Push the pace, keep everyone honest, don’t let Cooper turn every water break into an hour.
For a while, it works.
For a while, I’m fine.
Rhys doesn’t make it easy, though.
He’s actually trying. That’s the problem. If he were being an asshole, I could focus on that. If he were late, lazy, dismissive, cocky the way that makes my blood boil, I could put him back in the box where he belongs and keep him there and say fuck you.
But he’s not.
He’s moving station to station without complaint.
Taking correction from Fitch. Encouraging Bennett when Bennett starts fading during sled pushes.
Making Cooper laugh while getting the work done.
He’s still cocky, yeah. Of course he is.
But he’s not careless. That’s becoming harder and harder to ignore.
“Again,” I call out as Cooper finishes his set too sloppy.
Cooper groans. “Captain, please. I have a family.”
“You have three roommates who lock their doors when you’re home and a plant you keep forgetting to water.”
“She’s recovering, she was going through something.”
“She’s literally brown.”
“Life comes at you fast.” Cooper says with a sigh.
“Again, Coop.”
Cooper points at me. “When I eventually quit hockey and become deeply famous online for exposing this program, I need you to know this moment will be included.”
“Great. Make sure they get my good side.”
“I have people who care about me, you know.”
“No, you don’t.” I reply immediately.
“What the fuck, that was so fast.” Cooper presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “You didn’t even think about it.”
“I did, actually. Again Coop, stop distracting me, go.”
He mutters something under his breath but does it.
Rhys laughs from the next station. He's bent over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath between sets, sweat dripping from the ends of his hair onto the rubber floor. His shirt is dark at the collar and between his shoulder blades. His chest is heaving. “You heard the boss. Again.”
I should tell him not to call me that. I should shut that down immediately. Instead I look at him.
He’s grinning at me, breathing hard, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling faster than it should be. His eyes are bright in a way that feels too direct, like he’s looking at me on purpose to see what I do. He keeps watching me as if he’s waiting for me to crack first.
My stomach pulls tight.
I hate that nickname.
I hate the way he says it.
I hate that my body hears it differently than it should.
It reaches lower. Tighter. Like a pull under my skin.
“Less talking,” I bark.
His grin widens. “Yes, sir.” Like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. The sensation moves through me so fast I almost drop the stopwatch. My fingers tighten around it instead.
Fuck.
No.
Absolutely not.
I turn away before he can see my face, before anyone can see my face, before my skin betrays me any more than it already has.
Heat crawls up my neck and I hate myself for it.
I hate that he can do that without even trying.
Hate that he throws words out like nothing and I’m the one who has to deal with where they land. Or maybe he does know.
Maybe that’s worse.
We move into weights after conditioning.
Fitch has us paired off. And somehow I end up near Rhys, like the space between us keeps closing and getting smaller and smaller whether I want it to or not.
Rhys is benching with Ben spotting him, the bar loaded, and I'm supposed to be watching across the whole group, but my eyes keep finding him regardless of where I stand.
The bar comes down.
Slow. Controlled. His back arches slightly off the bench, shoulder blades pressing into the padding, chest opening up to receive the weight. His hands are wide on the bar. The veins in his forearms standing out with the grip.
Then he presses up.
The breath leaves him sharp on the exhale. His arms shake on the last rep — not failing, just at the edge of it, that tremor that shows the real effort underneath all the ease. His eyes are on the ceiling. Totally inside it. Focused.
He racks the bar and sits up. Pushes his hair back with one forearm, the motion pulling his shirt tight across his chest for a second. He says something to Bennett that makes him laugh. Then his eyes lift above Bennett's shoulder and find mine in the mirror.
I freeze.
He caught me.
His mouth curves.
Not a full smile.
Something smaller.
Something that says he knows.
My pulse kicks and I look away too fast.
Too fucking obvious.
I grab my water bottle from the bench and take a drink even though I’m not thirsty. My hand is wrapped too tight around the plastic. It crackles under my grip.
Get it together. He’s your teammate.
He’s your teammate and you’re his captain and this team is finally starting to respond because you stopped treating him like a problem and started treating him like a person.
That’s it. That’s all this is. But my body doesn’t care about logic.
I can’t talk my body out of it. My traitorous body keeps tracking him.
The way his shirt sticks between his shoulder blades when he bends to pick up a plate.
The way his forearm flexes when he tightens a collar on the bar.
The way he jokes with Bennett, then sobers immediately when Fitch demonstrates the next circuit, eyes locked in, focused.
It’s the focus that gets me more than anything. The rest I could dismiss.
The body, the mouth, the cocky grin, the tattoos, the way he looks at me like he’s daring me to do something about it.
But the focus? That’s the part that makes it harder to hate him.
That’s the part that makes it dangerous.
Because I know focus. I trust focus. I understand what it means when someone can lock in like that.
It means there’s something underneath the bullshit.
Something real. And I want to know what it is.
The thought hits suddenly. Hard enough that I stop moving. The realization so sharp I almost throw up, so I push it down hard enough it almost hurts. I need to get myself together. This sudden peace we found is really fucking with my head.
“Captain?” I turn and Bennett is looking at me from the squat rack. “Can you check me?”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds normal. Good. “Set up again.”
I make it through the next fifteen minutes by sheer force of will. Then Rhys ends up beside me at the dumbbell rack. He reaches for a weight at the same time I do. Our shoulders brush. His arm against mine. Bare, damp, solid.
Skin against skin.
The whole gym keeps going around us. Plates dropping somewhere. Music through the speakers. Cooper's voice. None of it touching the inches of space where his arm is pressed against mine and neither of us have moved, even dared to breathe.
“You okay, Captain?” he asks. There’s humor in his voice, but not as much as usual.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
My grip stiffens on the dumbbell.
He’s close enough that I can see the sweat caught at his temple, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his eyes aren’t black exactly, but dark enough to feel like standing too close near the edge of something.
“I’m watching everyone,” I respond tightly.
His mouth tips up, that cocky grin of his, a quick flash of white teeth. “Sure.”
Something in me snaps.
I should step away.
Again, I don’t.
"Maybe," I say, very low, "stop giving me reasons to look at you."
His smile fades.
Not completely. Just enough.
Enough that I know he heard it the way I didn't mean to say it.
Or maybe exactly the way I did.
For one suspended second, we’re both held captive to this moment, where I let my guard down and let Rhys get another tiny glimpse.
Then Cooper drops a plate somewhere behind us with a crash loud enough to make half the gym yell, and the moment breaks so violently I almost flinch. I step back, harshly.
“Careful, Coop,” I bark, severely.
“Sorry, Captain.”
"Come spot me, Nash."
Rhys is already lying on the bench, arms spread wide, fingers wrapping the bar. His shirt's crumpled up, exposing a strip of stomach, the snake's tail curling low toward his waistband. I swallow hard and step in behind his head, hands hovering, ready.
He lifts the bar off the rack. Steady. Controlled.