Chapter 51: Session Done?
Mike let him go somewhere around the forty-five minute mark with the reluctant energy of a man releasing something he fully intended to recapture next session.
"Same time Thursday," Mike said, closing his notebook with a finality that suggested this was not a question.
"I’ll think about it," Liam said.
"Thursday," Mike repeated, and walked away before Liam could negotiate.
Liam sat on the edge of the bench and did nothing for a full two minutes. Just breathed. In through the nose, out through the mouth, letting his heart rate descend from something alarming back toward something merely elevated.
His forearms rested on his knees, his head hung at a comfortable angle, and he focused on the middle distance with the serene emptiness of a man whose body had temporarily outrun his thoughts.
It was good, actually.
That was the thing he kept arriving at despite every complaint, every sarcastic remark, every moment of genuine suffering on that squat rack. When it was over and the noise cleared, there was something underneath it — a clean, quiet feeling, like a room after all the windows had been opened at once. He understood now why people did this voluntarily. He didn’t fully respect it yet, but he understood it.
He lifted his head and looked around.
The gym was small. He had clocked that the first time but he appreciated it differently now — the way the space was used deliberately, every rack and machine positioned with intention, nothing decorative, nothing redundant. The people here moved with purpose, not performance.
There were no mirrors positioned for vanity, no one filming themselves between sets. A woman in the corner was working through deadlifts with the focused quiet of someone who had been doing this for years and had nothing to prove to anyone in the room. Two men at the cable station spotted each other without speaking, communicating entirely in nods and loaded glances.
It was a community. Small and self-contained and completely indifferent to anything outside its walls.
Liam looked across the room.
Mike was wiping down a barbell on the far side, moving with the unhurried efficiency of a man entirely at home. He looked up, caught Liam’s eye, and raised one hand in a wave. Big smile, it was genuinely warm.
Liam raised two fingers back.
"The man tried to kill me for forty-five minutes and now he’s waving at me like we just had brunch," Liam thought. "Absolutely unhinged. Completely sincere. Somehow both at once."
He was still watching Mike when the voice arrived from behind his left shoulder.
"I think he likes you."
Liam didn’t startle. But it was close.
Sophia Reyes stepped around into his peripheral line of sight and stopped approximately two feet away, which in the context of a gym bench meant she was closer than the words implied. She was still in the dark green set, and the workout had done what workouts do — her hair was still pulled back but looser now, a few strands coming free around her face, her skin carrying the high colour of someone who had genuinely pushed themselves. The fabric of her top pressed flat against her and Liam kept his eyes at a responsible altitude, which required a small but definite act of will.
He rolled his eyes toward Mike, then back.
"You think?" he said.
"He looked genuinely proud when you finished that last set."
"He looked proud the way a zookeeper looks proud when the animal doesn’t die. I’m the animal in this scenario, of course."
Liam shifted slightly on the bench, tilting his head up at her — she was shorter than him even standing while he sat, which meant the angle was barely an adjustment. "Break or done?"
Sophia pulled her ponytail tighter. "Break. Few more minutes on the treadmill."
"So dedicated." Liam said sarcastically.
"Some of us don’t get carried in over someone’s shoulder," she said, completely straight-faced. She wasn’t present when it happened but somehow knew about it which meant it was being discussed among the others.
Liam opened his mouth and closed it.
"The whole gym saw that," she added.
"The whole gym should serve as a witness in my lawsuit on Mike."
Sophia smiled and said nothing, which was worse than if she’d laughed.
"I’m honoured," Liam said, recovering, "that the great stylist decided to spend her break over here."
The laugh came fast — unguarded, genuine, her hand coming up half a second too late to catch it. It escaped anyway, bright and uncontrolled, and she pressed her fingers over her mouth with wide eyes like she was mildly surprised at herself.
Liam watched it happen with quiet satisfaction.
Up close her eyes were darker than he remembered. And she was looking at him with an expression he recognised — the slight recalibration of someone whose mental image of a person has just been updated without their permission. Her gaze moved briefly, involuntarily, and he caught it.
"Please..." Liam said, "... don’t tell me you’re using my eyes as a mirror to admire your own reflection."
Sophia’s expression collapsed completely. The laugh that came out this time was loud and sudden and entirely beyond her control — she clasped both hands over her mouth, shoulders shaking, head dropping forward, making the small helpless sound of someone trying to contain something that had already escaped.
When she looked up her eyes were bright.
Liam had a quiet smile on his face. He hadn’t moved.
"You’re cute when you laugh," he said.
The brightness in her eyes shifted into something else. Not retreat exactly — more like a woman deciding how much ground she was willing to give in a single conversation. She held his gaze for exactly one second longer than she needed to, then broke it cleanly.
"Am I now," she said.
She turned and headed back toward the treadmills, ponytail swinging, and Liam’s attention dropped for approximately three seconds down to her beautiful buttocks before he caught himself and looked at the floor instead.
He became aware that he was being watched, seeing something at the edge of his vision.
He glanced left.
Mike was standing across the room with his arms folded, notebook under one arm, shaking his head slowly from side to side. Not angry nor amused. The specific disappointment of a man who had expected better and was not entirely surprised.
"I promise," Liam thought, meeting Mike’s eyes briefly before looking away, "I’m not a pervert."
Mike shook his head one more time and went back to his barbell.
