Rhythm #2
Someone had anticipated movement through the room and designed around it. Her shoulders eased slightly.
“This work?”
Riley stepped further inside, taking a second pass through the space, slower this time. “Yes,” she said. “It is well organised. Thank you for adjusting it.”
Something softened in his expression. “Can’t take all the credit,” he said. “My niece helped.”
Riley glanced back at him. “How often do you see her?”
“Most days,” he said easily. “She’s usually around after school.” The smile deepened slightly, becoming less automatic. “Best part of my day, honestly.”
The admission sat between them for a moment. Riley found herself watching him instead of the room. When he was being genuine, she could see why he would have gained the social following he did. Declan gestured toward a quieter section near the far wall.
“I figured that spot might work for you. Good line of sight, but out of the way of everything.”
Riley followed the indication. It was exactly where she would have positioned herself.
“Yes,” she said. “That would work.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward her, like he was pleased he’d gotten it right. And when Riley moved further into the room, she realised something had changed.
The apprehension she’d carried with her into the house had disappeared somewhere along the way. For the first time since arriving, she wasn’t thinking about leaving.
?
A few hours later, the rhythm of the house had become familiar.
Riley had spent most of that time stationed just outside the active training space, laptop open, notes organised beside her with their usual precision. She observed each client session in sequence, documenting patterns in instruction, movement and response.
The environment wasn’t perfectly controlled, but it was consistent. More importantly, it made sense.
Declan adapted his approach constantly, but never without reason. What had initially appeared variable revealed itself to be responsive instead. He adjusted exercises, pacing and communication based on the person in front of him, yet the underlying framework remained intact.
There was structure beneath it, she could work with structure.
Her own session was scheduled for the end of the day at her request. Partially for continuity, partially because interrupting an observation sequence midway through had felt inefficient.
The rest of the reason was harder to quantify. It had given her time to prepare. But now, standing at the edge of the gym, that logic felt less convincing than it had earlier.
Nothing around her had changed. The equipment remained where it had been all afternoon. The lighting was the same, and yet after yesterday’s attempt, a low tension sat simmering beneath her skin.
Declan moved through the room with the ease of someone operating inside a system he knew intimately. He adjusted a bench that didn’t really need adjusting, checked equipment that had already been checked.
Small, habitual movements. Comfortable ones. When he glanced up and noticed the way she was standing, just a little too still, a little too composed, something knowing flickered across his face.
“Alright,” he said, clapping his hands together once. “Full transparency before we start.”
Riley looked up. Declan’s expression remained perfectly serious. “I peaked athletically about ten years ago.”
She blinked. “It’s been a steady decline ever since,” he continued. “The knees are questionable. My lower back makes sounds that concern medical professionals. So if anything goes wrong today, statistically speaking, it’s probably me.”
For a second Riley simply stared at him. Then, despite herself, she felt the tension in her shoulders ease by a fraction. Riley looked him up and down, a quick visual sweep, before raising one brow.
“That assessment is inaccurate,” she said.
Declan’s mouth tipped slightly at one corner. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she said, more certain now. “Your physical capability does not align with the limitations you described.”
A quiet laugh escaped him, low and unforced. “Alright,” he said. “Then we’ll call it even. You don’t trust my self-assessment, and I don’t trust your ability to go easy on yourself.”
The tension sitting between her shoulder blades loosened by a fraction. “Okay,” she said.
Declan nodded once.
“Okay. We start simple today with the baseline movements you’ve been watching the other participants do. And I’ll tell you what’s coming before it happens.”
That helped. More importantly, he followed through.
Every instruction arrived before she needed it. When he wanted her to adjust something, he explained why first, demonstrated it, then gave her the space to attempt it herself without immediately stepping in. Nothing changed halfway through an exercise. Nothing became something else without warning.
The contrast was impossible to miss. During their first session, he had seemed almost determined to disrupt her expectations. Today, he was doing the opposite. He was creating them, then meeting them consistently.
Riley found herself watching for the moment it would stop. It didn’t.
As the session continued, the vigilance she’d arrived with gradually became unnecessary. Her attention shifted away from monitoring him and onto the movements themselves. Instead of trying to anticipate what might happen next, she could focus on what was happening now.
Declan noticed the change before she did. “See?” he said as she reset her stance. “World-class instructor.”
Riley glanced at him. “That remains statistically unlikely.”
His hand went immediately to his chest. “Honestly, Riley, your lack of faith in me is devastating.”
The corner of her mouth lifted before she could stop it. The reaction was automatic enough that she barely registered it. Declan did. He went still for half a second, his expression changing so quickly she almost missed it.
“Okay,” he said quietly. The teasing disappeared completely. “You have a really nice smile.”
Riley blinked, heat climbing up her neck with startling speed. “I—”
Nothing followed. Her thoughts seemed to scatter the moment she tried to organise them. There was no prepared response for being looked at like that, no framework she could reach for that would allow her to categorise the comment and move on.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then, to her relief, Declan simply nodded. “Alright,” he said easily, stepping back into the rhythm of the session. “One more set.”
He didn’t linger on it. Didn’t repeat himself or attempt to extract a reaction from her. Somewhere beneath her embarrassment, Riley recognised the significance of that.
The old Declan would have pushed. This version had learned when not to.
By the time they finished, Riley’s breathing elevated and a comfortable warmth sat beneath her skin. The session remained consistent from beginning to end, following the structure Declan outlined at the start and never once demanding that she recalibrate around an unexpected change.
That, more than the exercises themselves, felt significant. Declan reached for the camera positioned near the edge of the gym and adjusted it until it framed both of them.
“How’d you go?” he asked. “First proper session.”
Riley’s gaze flicked briefly toward the lens before returning to him. “The exercises were effective,” she said. “The sequencing improved efficiency.”
“Anything you’d change?”
She considered the question seriously. “I dislike this shirt.”
His eyebrows rose. “Strong feelings.”
“The fabric adhered to my skin as my temperature increased,” she explained. “The change in texture became distracting.”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “Fair enough.”
His gaze dropped to his own shirt for a moment before he looked back at her. “I’ll give you one of mine next time.”
Riley studied him. “Are you certain?”
“Yeah. I’ve got plenty.”
She considered that for a moment longer before nodding. “That may be a more suitable option.”
A grin pulled briefly at the corner of his mouth. “Look at that. We’ve already solved one problem.”
Before she could decide whether the comment required a response, he reached forward and switched the camera off. The small red recording light disappeared. The session was over, and yet Riley found herself remaining exactly where she was.
There was no immediate urge to gather her things, no need to retreat somewhere quieter and reconstruct the experience from a safe distance before she could properly process it.
Instead, she stood there watching Declan move around the gym, resetting equipment and returning things to their usual places with the unconscious familiarity of someone who had repeated the same routine hundreds of times before.
For the first time since meeting Declan, the prospect of staying felt more appealing than the relief of leaving.