I looked back at his face.
His gaze pinned me like a target. “Again.”
I finished the set.
I completed the next task he assigned because that’s what I did. I endured the pain he doled out.
Ben made me run the shuttle drills he’d devised across the garage, heel-turning on the tape lines he’d laid down months ago. He made me hold a plank until my shoulders shook so hard I thought something in me would tear. Then wall sits with a weighted plate on my thighs, staring straight ahead while my legs lit up like they were being cooked from the inside.
When I finally faltered—just a fraction of a second, a tiny drop in my posture—Ben’s voice cut in with surgical precision.
“Again.”
I hated him.
I loved him.
Both feelings lived side by side inside me, fighting for dominance.
The timer beeped again.
“Hydrate,” he said.
I reached for my water bottle with trembling hands that barely held on, then lifted it up and drank eagerly. The cool water was like heaven to my parched mouth, bringing instant relief.
Ben didn’t drink. He wrote.
I watched him. The line of his jaw. Shoulders back. He never relaxed, ever, even at home, even with no one watching. He carried himself like he was always waiting for something to go wrong.
Maybe he always was.
He was in his late forties but kept himself in excellent condition. His workouts were twice as hard as mine, and that was saying something. Brooke had called him a ‘DILF’ (Dad I’d like to fuck) once. She didn’t do it again after I tore into her. I shuddered with disgust.
“What did the school call about?” Ben asked, not looking up.
Shit.
“Nothing,” I tried desperately to hide the shaking in my voice.
Unlike ninety-nine percent of the world, we still had a home phone with an answering machine. I’d damn near wrecked in my desperation to beat him home to erase the call.
How did he know?
His pen stilled.
I could feel my heart beating in my ears.
He finally lifted his gaze. “Is that your final answer?”
“Yes,” I repeated, because I was stupid, or brave, or desperate—pick your poison.
He didn’t blink. “Lying is a habit. Habits get you killed.”
The words weren’t dramatic. They weren’t spoken in anger. They were just… facts. That was his favorite weapon: certainty.
I held his gaze in challenge for a moment before I dropped my eyes.
I wanted to be the girl at home that I was at school.
