Environmental Variables
Riley
The environment was unsuitable for an experiment. Riley recognised that before she had fully crossed the threshold.
When she initially suggested a laboratory setting, Declan had laughed outright. At the time, she hadn’t understood the reaction. Standing in the middle of the space now, she did.
This gym was not designed for controlled observation.
The entire warehouse operated on a loose, instinctive system that seemed to function without ever becoming fully structured. People moved through the room fluidly, conversations overlapping beneath the constant pulse of music and shifting movement.
Riley adjusted her grip on her laptop and stepped further inside.
The equipment areas were only loosely divided; free weights occupying one side of the warehouse, resistance machines scattered across the other, open floor space stretching through the centre.
There were no enforced transitions, no visible sequencing, no consistent progression between stations.
People drifted wherever they wanted based on preference rather than program design.
To Riley, it looked more like managed chaos.
Even the lighting felt inconsistent beneath the exposed industrial fixtures, brighter in some areas than others.
Her shoulders tightened slightly before she consciously registered why.
Riley crossed toward the seating area near the far wall, setting her bag down carefully, pausing a moment beside the table.
The warehouse at least had air conditioning, though it did little to cut through the smell of old sweat and synthetic perfume lingering heavily through the room.
Her fingers pressed briefly against the edge of the table. Inhale. Hold. Exhale slowly. Again. The familiar rhythm settled some of the static beneath her skin, enough that the environment stopped pressing at her attention quite so sharply.
Only then did she open her laptop and pull up the spreadsheet she prepared the previous evening.
She reviewed every one of Declan’s client programs in detail, restructuring them into something objectively measurable.
Entire sections collapsed almost immediately under scrutiny; redundant exercise variations, inconsistent progression models, unnecessary adjustments disguised as audience engagement.
She had deleted those parts without hesitation. The process was deeply satisfying.
Riley let her eyes move across the spreadsheet once more, checking for inconsistencies, for gaps she might have missed the night before. There were none. She knew that she was thorough, but she had never trusted herself, she always felt the need to double check.
She began cross-referencing the first session against the clock on the wall, aligning projected start times with her schedule, adjusting by seconds where necessary. The ticking second hand became a fixed point: a reliable grounding sound in an otherwise wild environment.
A shadow shifted across the edge of her screen. “You reorganise active client programs without input before saying hello to everyone, or is that just me?”
His voice came from above her, close enough that it cut cleanly through the surrounding noise. Casual, almost conversational. But there was something under it, tightened, deliberate that made her think otherwise.
Riley didn’t look up immediately. She finished typing the line she was on, pressed save, and only then allowed her attention to shift. When she did, he was closer than she expected.
Declan stood beside the table, angled slightly toward her, close enough that Riley had to lift her chin marginally to meet his gaze.
He had already changed for the gym floor.
Dark training shirt, sleeves fitted tightly across his shoulders, the material dampened faintly at the collar from exertion.
One of his hands rested briefly against his hip before dropping again, fingers flexing absently like he had only just stepped away from a set.
There was something deeply unbothered about him.
While the rest of the environment pressed at Riley from every direction; the noise, movement, overlapping conversations, Declan seemed to exist within it effortlessly, as though the chaos reorganised itself around him instead of demanding adjustment.
It was inefficient, the way he occupied space. Too close. Too comfortable.
“Your programming lacked consistency in progression and recovery allocation,” she said, eyes still scanning her notes. “I corrected it.”
There was a soft thud as his gym bag hit the floor beside hers. The sound registered heavier than necessary. He didn’t move away. “And you don’t see an issue with doing that?”
The question made Riley look up. Declan was already watching her. His expression remained relaxed, easy in the way it always seemed to be, but something beneath it shifted subtly while she spoke.
“Not when it improves the outcome.”
Declan’s posture closed off slightly at the response, the openness from earlier replaced by something restricted, as if whatever reaction he’d been about to give was being held back behind his teeth.
“Well,” he said, his voice flattening just enough for the difference to register, “thank you for that, Riles.”
Riley’s fingers stilled against the keyboard. The nickname landed incorrectly every time, abrasive in a way she could not fully explain beyond the simple fact that it was not her name.
Her gaze sharpened immediately. “That is not my name.”
“It got your attention faster than your actual one would have.” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, faintly amused, like this conversation existed somewhere lighter for him than it did for her.
Like her irritation was interesting rather than corrective.
A small pulse of annoyance settled low beneath Riley’s ribs.
“It is still inaccurate,” she replied flatly. She tipped the laptop screen down slightly, a subtle adjustment that made it clear her focus was no longer fully on the work in front of her.
“A nickname functions to reduce complexity,” she said evenly. “Your variation contains one fewer syllable and the same number of letters as my actual name. It is therefore, inefficient.”
Declan blinked once. Then his smile widened. Arrogance, she realised.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s not why I’m using it.”
Riley held his gaze, her attention narrowing briefly as she searched for an alternative explanation.
Habit? Coincidence? Unconscious repetition? None of them fit. There was no communicative advantage to the nickname. She already established that she disliked it, which meant the continued use of it could not reasonably be interpreted as accidental.
The conclusion resolved itself a second later. He was doing it because she disliked it. The irritation sharpened immediately, cleaner now that she understood the intent behind it. An entirely deliberate choice to ignore a clearly stated preference simply because he found her reaction entertaining.
Deeply immature behaviour.
Riley reopened her laptop with slightly more force than was technically necessary.
“Your first client is now scheduled for structured compound sequencing with fixed rest intervals,” she said, tone returning to neutral precision. “They are currently performing tasks that cannot be implemented until baseline data is established.”
Declan didn’t move. She could feel it, his presence still there. It was still directed at her, like he was waiting for something she wasn’t going to give.
“Riles,” he said, slower this time.
Riley didn’t look up, her jaw tightening slightly. “Stop using that.”
“No.” The response came immediately. Something sharp tightened beneath her skin.
Her fingers paused above the keyboard as the noise of the gym seemed to press abruptly louder against her awareness all at once.
A faint ringing started low in her ears, subtle at first, before building enough for her to consciously register it.
Riley’s grip tightened briefly against the corner of her laptop before she forced her fingers to loosen again.
Showing visible irritation would reinforce the behaviour.
Reverse psychology suggested that if she stopped responding to it entirely, the lack of reaction would eventually remove whatever reinforcement he gained from continuing.
Logically, he would grow bored of it. So she ignored him.
“Your current approach relies too heavily on extrinsic motivation,” she said evenly, refocusing on the spreadsheet in front of her. “Long-term adherence improves more consistently when motivation becomes internalised over time.”
There was movement beside her. Declan leaned down slightly into her space, close enough that Riley became acutely aware of him even when he wasn’t touching her. Intentional proximity, which felt entirely unnecessary.
“Or,” he said, his voice lower now, less performative than before, “people keep coming back because they feel encouraged.” His gaze stayed fixed on her. “Because they want to be here, and it’s nothing to do with science.”
Riley kept her attention on the spreadsheet in front of her instead, on the columns and metrics that remained predictable when he did not. “Want is not a stable variable,” she replied.
“Maybe not,” he said easily. “Still worked pretty well for me.”
There was no defensiveness in it, as if he was saying without the need to convince her. He spoke with the kind of certainty that came from someone who had already decided his methods worked long before she arrived to analyse them.
Something about that unsettled her more than it should have.
Riley shut the laptop. The sound cracked sharper than intended against the noise of the gym.
“Your definition of success lacks measurable consistency,” she said, finally looking up at him properly.
A slow breath left him, threaded with something almost like amusement. Not mocking exactly, but close enough to irritate her anyway.
“Alright,” he said. “You want to run this your way?”
“Yes.” The answer came immediately. For a moment, neither of them moved. The noise of the gym seemed to blur slightly at the edges while his attention held hers with frustrating steadiness.
Then Declan nodded once. “Good,” he said. “Then you can start correcting me tonight when we do your training.”
Riley stilled. The statement failed to align properly with the schedule she already finalised in her head. Her thoughts caught briefly against the inconsistency.
“I am not scheduled until tomorrow.”
“You are now.”
Her attention sharpened instantly. Riley pushed open her laptop lid and reopened the spreadsheet, scanning through the timetable until she found it.
5:30p.m. Her name sat cleanly inside a session slot that had not existed earlier. A variable altered without her consultation.
“I have not completed baseline measurements,” she said, her voice sharpening slightly around the edges. “And I did not bring appropriate attire.”
Declan looked entirely unmoved by either problem. “The first six to eight weeks are literally for baseline collection,” he replied. “That was your structure, remember?”
Riley opened her mouth, already preparing to explain that baseline collection still required appropriate planning, controlled implementation and…
“Also,” he cut in smoothly, clearly anticipating the objection before she could voice it, “reception sells gym clothes.” A smile pulled briefly at the corner of his mouth then, relaxed and infuriatingly easy. “So really,” he said, “I’ve solved both issues for you.”
Riley stared at him in complete disbelief. The pattern became increasingly obvious over the course of the conversation: disruption, provocation, removal of control before she could stabilise it again.
What unsettled her most was not that he kept doing it, it was how naturally he seemed to exist inside the chaos he created.
Declan stepped back then, already disengaging, already turning toward the gym floor as though the conversation had ended the moment he decided it had.
“First client’s here, Riles,” he called over his shoulder. “Let’s get started.”
Riley remained motionless for a second longer than necessary.
The ringing in her ears built again gradually beneath the sudden disorganisation in her thoughts.
Her schedule had already been finalised.
The session had not been planned for today.
She had not prepared for participation. Every adjustment he made seemed to happen without warning, without discussion, as though structure existed purely for him to ignore.
Her grip tightened once against the edge of her laptop.
Too many variables changing simultaneously.
A restless pressure crawled beneath her skin, jittery and unpleasant, while her thoughts worked rapidly to regain order around the disruption.
Declan, frustratingly, appeared entirely unaffected by any of it.
She forced herself to inhale slowly through her nose and exhale once, and then again. The pressure eased incrementally with the familiar rhythm, enough that her thoughts stopped splintering quite so sharply at the edges.
This was still her experiment. She could do this. Declan Montgomery was simply proving himself to be a far more disruptive variable than she had originally accounted for, but that wasn’t going to stop her.
Riley stood, smoothing a hand once down the front of her trousers before picking up her laptop.
Then she followed him onto the gym floor.