Raised in the life, he’d started tumbling at the ripe age of four and never, ever stopped. A brief foray into Men’s gymnastics proved uninteresting at which point he turned all of his energy into tumbling. Building an early career, competing in as many competitions as possible, and largely dominating all that he entered. He’d made several trips to the World Championships, his last one putting him impressively on the podium for bronze.

But watching him tonight, I couldn’t help but think he was maybe even better than third in the world. That he could achieve even better if he wanted to.

It was different, but not enough to not be the same. I felt like Nik knew where I was coming from in a completely different way than anyone I’d met before.

Which freaked me the hell out. Relating led to liking, and liking led to losing my mind—and a good chance of disappointment.

It was around the ninth full body shiver that I decided something had to be done. Something preemptive and preventative, and it had to happen now.

With two clicks of the mouse, I pulled up a picture of him and proceeded to pick it apart.

Lips—fucking awesome.

Eyes—unreal. So blue, so water-like, they invited you to dive right in.

Smile—to die for.

But his hair was kind of stupid.

No.

I strengthened my resolve.

Not kind of stupid. It was the epitome of stupid. All floppy and long and mop-like in structure. And the whole headband thing was a mockery against men.

Yeah. That was better.

And the motorcycle. That was stupid too!

What was he thinking taking chances getting hurt like that? They were deathtraps.

I mean, it was a little hot.

My fingers pinched close to one another in example, and one eye narrowed as I talked to myself.

A skosh.

Admitting to a skosh was totally acceptable, I reasoned.

My head tilted thoughtfully to the side, and the shape of my lips pursed into a heart.

His hair really wasn’t that bad.

Immediate realization of my backpedaling thoughts made my head snap back to straight.

Shit.

Exiting out of my browser quickly and shoving away from the computer, I hung my head in my hands.

I was just tired. That was all. It was going on one thirty in the morning, and my self-imposed bedtime was a memory.

I still lived with my parents, which, quite frankly, grated, but I knew they had been soundly sleeping for hours at this point. And that kind of ruled out slamming things around the kitchen in a confused rage while mixing a batch of cookie batter to eat straight from the bowl.

So sleep was the answer. Everything would feel normal again tomorrow, surely.

A team picture from my Level Seven days looked on from my dresser top as I let my freshly showered hair out of the confines of its ponytail, stripped off my sweatshirt, and climbed under the down, white comforter on my bed.

With nothing but a lean and a flick of my wrist, the light of my bedside lamp extinguished and plunged the quiet room into nearly complete darkness. The moon shone a sliver of light through my dormer window and settled it directly on the clasp of my hands.

Slowly, I turned them over and studied them, the angry red divots left in the absence of skin and the ugly yellowing of years worth of hardened callouses standing out against the rest of the pale expanse.

I tried to follow the lines of my palm prints, having read in an article online once that the shape of them said something about you as a person.

Try as I might, I couldn’t remember what the writer had said.

I imagined, though, for a woman like me, the lines broken by scars and bloody holes and the would-be curves covered by ugly, thickened, abused skin—the answer wouldn’t be good.

“Good morning, Callie,” my mom called from the sink as I entered the kitchen at the pace of a snail the next morning.

For having only completed what amounted to half of a normal workout for myself, I was worn the fuck out.

Apparently, a day and night full of foreign thoughts and emotions had worked all kinds of mental muscles I had no idea I had. And just like any change in routine, the aftermath was fraught with fatigue and sore.

“Morning, mom.”

She turned at the sound of my voice and immediately zeroed in on the dark, unflattering circles under my drooping eyes.

“You look tired.”

“Yep.”

“You sound tired too.”

Shaking my head at the ground, I sighed.

“That’s because I am tired.”

She frowned just as my dad came through the door behind me. He heard the conversation, just as it seemed like he always did, and saw it as his opportunity to take it in the direction that he wanted—another common theme for him.

“That’s not good, Cal,” he preached, moving toward the table and into my line of sight. “You know this is the homestretch. You’ve got just under six weeks before Trials and eight until camp.”

And ten before the Olympics.

“I know.”

I definitely fucking knew.

“You don’t eat the way you should,” he pointed out just as I reached for a plate with syrup-soaked french toast on it, “and you haven’t been putting effort into your conditioning like you should.”

“I know,” I said, stopping mid reach and retracting my arm obediently.

I always said.

“Frank—” my mom attempted to cut in, but he just kept talking.

“Hopefully Nik can teach you some work ethic in this short amount of time.”

I fought the downturn of my lips, but I sure as shit didn’t win.

“You should have told me you hired a new coach for me.”

He looked mystified. “I thought that’s what I did yesterday?”

My mom shook her head along with me. Men.

“Oh come on. It’s not like he’s some old guy. He’s a really talented tumbler. Maybe you’ll even become friends.”

I could practically hear the scoff of disbelief as he said it.

“Anyway, I didn’t seek him out.”

I looked to my mom in confusion, but she didn’t know what he was talking about either.

She shook her head before turning back to the sink.

“I don’t get it. Why’s he here then?”

“Friend of a friend thing,” he muttered, stabbing his own piece of French toast and bringing it to his mouth. A couple of chews cleared his mouth enough that he could talk.

“You know the Callhoun’s? They have the gym up in Moswego?”

Moswego Elite was a competitive gym about two hours north of Ringwood. More backwoods southern Georgia, less coastal small town. I’d been doing competitions with and against them since I was little.

“Yeah.”

“Well, they heard from one of their friends that Nik was looking to come on staff at a gym somewhere around here. Something with his parents and having to move or I don’t know. Like I said, kind of a grapevine of information.”

I wondered briefly at what the story behind all of that half information was, but my dad didn’t give me long to think on it, moving on swiftly to his next thought.

“But, anyway, they took him on for a while, said he had a real eye for all of the women’s apparatuses even without extensive hands on experience. They didn’t have a spot to keep him on permanently, so they called me to check in.”

That made my brows pull together too, the idea of a permanent position at our gym ridiculous too. Working with me, at least, would be a very limited time thing. I was already in the homestretch.

“We really don’t need anybody, but once I did the research on him, I couldn’t turn him away. He’s the third ranked power tumbler in the world, you know?”

My mom’s head whipped back to the conversation once more.

“I know,” I admitted sheepishly. My dad didn’t notice.