The room smelled like effort—sweat, rubber mats, and something sterile that clung to the air vents. I stood at the edge of the training grid, focusing on my foot like it was the only thing keeping me upright. My breath came slow, controlled, the kind I’d trained myself to keep steady even when everything else was shaking.
But today… today something shifted.
The weight in my knee felt different. Stable. The kind of stable that had felt impossible a few weeks ago. I bent, cautiously, then pushed forward—and my foot landed without wobbling. Just one clean, steady step.
“Come on, Lucas, you’re so close,” Riley said from behind the clipboard, but I could hear it in her voice—something real. Hope.
Another breath. Another step.
I moved. Slow. Focused. Solid.
By the time I took a full stride, my chest was burning. I looked up, and she was smiling. Beaming. Like she believed in me more than I had the nerve to believe in myself.
“You did it!” she laughed.
I didn’t think. I just crossed the space between us and pulled her into a hug.
Her body tensed in my arms, caught off guard—but she didn’t pull away. Not right away. And the second I felt her hand settle lightly on my back, I almost forgot how to breathe.
It wasn’t about boundaries. It wasn’t about therapy. It was instinct. Memory. Home.
“Boundaries, Rivera,” she whispered.
I stepped back just enough to flash a smile, playful, a little guilty. “Right. Forgot you laminated those.”
She laughed, shaking her head, but I could see it—the way her eyes dropped, the crack in her mask. That moment had shaken her. The same way it shook me.
***
Later that night, I lay on my back in my suite, staring at the ceiling like it had answers. My knee still ached, but I barely noticed.
All I could feel was her.
Her arms around me.
Her breath against my collarbone.
The way her laugh had turned into silence that wasn’t cold. Just… uncertain.
Matteo FaceTimed me, sipping a drink from some rooftop bar in Milan like he didn’t know I was falling apart inside a training compound.
“Why do you look like a kicked puppy?” he asked before I even spoke.
I groaned. “I hugged her.”
His brows shot up. “Riley?”
“Yeah.”
He whistled. “Risky move, Casanova.”
“She didn’t pull away.”
“That’s not the part I’m worried about,” he said, serious now. “It’s the part where you don’t want to let go.”
And I knew he was right.
***
The next day, I pushed harder. Harder than I should’ve. Riley was watching, shouting corrections like a drill sergeant with a doctorate. I couldn’t tell if she was mad at me or mad at herself for not being mad at me.
“Faster. Engage the core. Don’t stop now,” she barked.
I flashed a grin through the pain. “You think too highly of yourself.”
She shot it right back. “And you think too much. Period.”
For a second, it felt normal. That familiar rhythm of snapping back and pushing forward.
But the moment cracked near the end of the session. When we were both packing up and the room went quiet.
I sat down slowly, the ache settling in, and the weight of everything finally spoke through me.
“The media’s been brutal lately,” I said. “Fans are already calling me washed up.”
There it was. Out in the open. Not bravado. Not sarcasm. Just the ugly truth.
She knelt beside me, her face softer. “You’re not. And even if you were, I’d be the first to say it. Loudly. With charts.”
That made me laugh, even if it caught in my throat. “They want to tear me down before I can prove them wrong.”
She placed her hand on my knee—barely a touch, but it grounded me like nothing else had in months.
“Then let’s prove them wrong,” she said. “But we do it my way. Smart. Slow. Solid.”
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Her hair pulled back, her eyes tired but steady. She didn’t flinch from my gaze.
“Whatever you say… bossy.”
Her fingers twitched like she wanted to say more with that touch. But then she stood fast, already turning toward the door.
“Same time tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
I leaned back, watching her go. “You’ll miss me if I am.”