The endearment hits me right in the throat.
I step closer, voice low and lethal. “Do not call me sweetheart.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then back to my eyes. “Right. Sorry.”
“Again.”
“Still sorry.”
We’re called to lane four before I can decide whether to stab him with grammar.
A staffer clips monitoring bands to our wrists and points us toward the start platform. Up close, the course smells like rubberized flooring, steel dust, sweat from previous runs, and the faint ozone snap of active sensors. The metal under my palm is cool and dry when I test the first wall hold.
Bron steps up beside me. “All right, commander. What’s the plan?”
I glance at him despite myself.
He says it lightly, but there’s no mockery in it this time. He’s giving me lead.
Interesting.
Annoying, but interesting.
“You take the right wall,” I say. “Longer reach at the top. Do not overpull. If you throw the timing off, we lose more on recovery than we gain in speed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Balance section: match my pace. Not yours.”
He smiles. “That slow, huh?”
I don’t even look at him. “That was your one.”
He chuckles under his breath and falls quiet.
The trainer raises a hand.
“Lane four. Ready.”
My pulse sharpens. The world narrows down to texture, distance, sound.
Bron beside me.
Wall in front of us.
Timer above.
Air in my lungs.
“Go.”
We move.
The climb wall is exactly what I expected—awkward spacing, holds that reward precision over brute force. I hear Bron’s breath to my right, steady, controlled. Good. He listened. At the top, our timing nearly slips when one foothold shifts, but I compensate fast and drop to the platform first.
“Left beam,” I snap.
He’s already moving.
