Page 282 of What We Burn

My bar, bench, plates, and heavy bag are still at my apartment. Now that we’re living here permanently, I need to organize movers. But in the meantime, Holden’s setup will do. It’s enough to train. Not enough to disappear into.

Odin benched us. The Kennel went dark. Stephen could be dead or watching us right now, and all I’m allowed to do is wait.

So I slow every rep until my arms shake.

Fury finds me between sets.

I hear her before I see her—the soft pad of bare feet on concrete. She appears in the doorway in a flannel shirt that isn’t hers—Eli’s, I think, based on the size—shorts, hair piled up, a glass of water in each hand.

She holds one out. I take it. Drink. Set it on the floor.

She lowers herself onto the mat beside me, cross-legged, her knee touching my thigh. She smells like Holden’s soap and Milo’s shampoo.

“You’re hiding,” she accuses.

“Training.”

“Same thing.” She sips her water. “You’ve been out here since lunch.”

“Needed the quiet.”

We sit. The garage is dim. Late-afternoon light comes through the high window, throwing a bar of gold across the concrete.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, shifting on the mat.

“Mm?”

“Are you okay? With everything that’s changed?”

“What do you mean?”

“With Eli and Micah,” she adds. “And Milo and Holden.”

Yesterday changed the house twice. Eli and Micah finally stopped pretending. Then I came home from the auto shop and Milo declared Holden his boyfriend while they were still naked on the kitchen floor with Fury.

She thinks I’m out here because I feel left out.

“I’m fine.”

“Regular fine, or Knox-fine?”

“Fine fine.”

She studies me. “Knox. The house sounds like a hotel on prom night. Some people would have feelings about that.”

“I’m not some people.”

“I know. That’s why I’m asking if you’re okay.”

I wipe my hands on the towel. Take my time choosing my words.

“I’m straight. That’s not a wall I’ve put up. It’s what I am. Them being together doesn’t change what I have with you.”

“And it doesn’t bother you? Watching?”

“Watching you with them, or watching them with each other?”

She flushes. “Both?”