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money.
    Well, not unless they’re me.
    Something must have gone really wrong in her life. She seemed smart and organized and she was driven as hell. She should have been studying to be a lawyer or something and instead she was preparing to fight for her life. It wasn’t right.
    She inhaled, then blew it out and pushed the bar up again. It was heavily loaded now, a real struggle for someone her size. Teeth gritted, forearms shaking, she heaved it up towards the top of its path. I put my hands gently under the bar in case her arms gave way.
    “Don’t...fucking...help me!” she managed.
    “I’m not,” I said. And I wasn’t—my fingers were just barely brushing the underside of the bar. “It’s all you.”
    She pushed...and pushed and got it back up onto the supports. She lay there panting and grinning in satisfaction. It was the first time I’d really seen her smile and damn, the sight of it hit me right in the chest. Then she caught my eye and I found myself grinning, too.
    Smiling wasn’t something I did often. I’d forgotten how good it felt.

 

     

Sylvie
     
    Aedan told me to grab a shower, because he was taking me to lunch. This being a man’s gym, the women’s changing room was kind of an afterthought, grudgingly added in what might well have been a former broom closet. The sign on the door said WOMAN and I wasn’t sure if that was because they’d misspelled it or because they really didn’t want to encourage women to show up in numbers and dilute the testosterone.
    The shower worked, though, and soon I was in the street clothes I’d brought with me, hurrying along the street beside Aedan. “When you say lunch,” I said, “you mean, like...a coffee, right?” I was watching him carefully, alert for any sign of that smile coming back. When he’d grinned down at me by the weights bench, it had felt like my whole world had brightened. The memory was burned into my mind—the white teeth, that full lower lip, the way his cheeks dimpled...when he smiled, he went from broodingly handsome to drop-dead gorgeous. I wanted— needed— to see that smile again, because it was proof that I was right—that there was something gentler hiding underneath the muscles and scars.
    “I mean lunch.”
    “But it’s only just noon! I’m not hungry yet.” I normally didn’t eat lunch for another hour or two, maybe grabbing a sandwich if I remembered.
    “You’re in training, now. You need protein.” He turned to look at me. “We need to get some meat on those”—he stared at my arms, then at my legs, which took longer—”bones.”
    He showed me into a diner that was practically next door to the gym. The walls were covered in photos, many of them black and white. Every one of them showed a boxer.
    “Aedan?” A waitress in her fifties bustled over to us. “Aedan, my sweet Irish boy.” She gave him a hug. “We don’t see you in here enough. And who’s this?” She gave me an appraising look, which was roughly comparable to being inside an MRI scanner for an hour.
    “Just someone I’m helping,” Aedan told her. “Could you do us a couple of your boxer’s breakfasts?”
    She showed us over to a booth, grinning the whole time. When she’d left, I asked, “Your mother?”
    “No. She just thinks she is.”
    “What’s a boxer’s breakfast?”
    “You’ll find out.”
    I looked at him across the blue and white tablecloth. “Where is your mom?” Then I paused. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”
    He looked at me. “I do.”
    “You do mind me asking?”
    He nodded.
    I felt crushed. “Oh. Sorry.”
    He sighed and shook his head. “ I’m sorry. It’s just something I don’t talk about.” He looked at me and then around at the room. “And I’m not good at...this.”
    “Lunch?”
    “Talking.” He rubbed his face and then gave a wry smile. “I’ve got a brother, Carrick. He’s the talker. He’d talk your knickers right off.”
    “He wouldn’t,” I said quickly. Because,