Page 131 of Knot So Fast
Because this time, I’m not facing it alone.
This time, I’m home.
TRAINING TENSIONS
~AUREN~
"TO WORK AS A TEAM, YOU NEED TO TRAIN AS ONE! ONE MORE LAP!"
Terek's voice carries across the track with the kind of authority that makes grown men whimper. His military background shows in moments like this—when he transforms from slightly neurotic team manager into drill sergeant who probably ate nails for breakfast and washed them down with the tears of underperforming athletes.
We groan collectively, a symphony of suffering that would be comedic if we weren't all dying. My legs feel like someone replaced my muscles with molten lead, each step sending shooting pains up through my calves and into my thighs. The Spanish sun beats down mercilessly, turning the track surface into a griddle that I swear is cooking us from the feet up.
"Why am I here?" Katie pants beside me, her strawberry blonde hair plastered to her head with sweat, those perfect blue eyes looking absolutely murderous.
I laugh, though it comes out more like a wheeze. "Because Terek hates us all equally?"
Katie is a sight to behold even when she's suffering. She's got that typical tomboy appearance down to an art form—cargo shorts that sit low on her hips, a tank top that shows off arms that could probably bench press me without breaking a sweat, and an expression that suggests she's calculating exactly how many ways she could murder Terek and make it look like an accident.
The Alpha energy pulses off her in waves, that particular brand of dominance that comes from being a woman in a designation typically associated with men. She has to be twice as strong, twice as assertive, twice as everything just to be taken seriously. And from what I've seen in the past week, she accomplishes all of that while making it look effortless.
"I didn't expect you to be joining today," I manage between gasps for air.
She grimaces, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "I came to give you your press conference schedule. Also, we need to discuss the social media tour they're planning—photoshoots that'll help create enough content backlog so you don't need to be 'present' online once we have sufficient material."
"And Terek decided you needed team bonding?"
"Terek decided I 'deserved' to join the team effort," she says, putting air quotes around 'deserved' with enough sarcasm to kill small animals. "Apparently standing on the sidelines isn't conducive to understanding team dynamics."
"So here we are," I agree. "Suffering together."
"If I die," Katie pants, "I'm haunting his ass. I'll make every piece of technology he owns malfunction at crucial moments."
"That's oddly specific."
"I've had forty-five minutes to plan it in detail."
We're on the final stretch now, the finish line both tantalizingly close and impossibly far. My lungs burn with eachbreath, the air too hot and too thin to provide actual oxygen. But there's something about suffering alongside others that makes it bearable—that shared misery that bonds people faster than any team-building exercise.
"You know," Katie says, her breathing slightly more controlled than mine despite her complaints, "most celebrities just do Pilates."
I snort. "My mother would be so proud."
"Pilates is for people who want to look fit," she continues. "This is for people who want to be fit enough to survive a zombie apocalypse."
"Or a Formula One season."
"Same thing, really."
We finally—finally—cross the finish line, and I immediately bend over, hands on my knees, trying not to vomit. The relief of stopping is almost orgasmic, every muscle in my body screaming thank you even as they continue to burn.
Around us, the rest of the team is in various states of collapse. Dex is lying flat on his back on the track, spread-eagle like he's making tarmac angels. Caspian is walking in small circles, hands on his hips, muttering what sounds like mathematical equations—probably calculating exactly how many calories we just burned. Kieran is stretching against the fence, his flexibility both impressive and slightly concerning.
And Lachlan... Lachlan looks like he just finished a light warm-up rather than the death march the rest of us experienced. His shirt is soaked with sweat, sure, but he's not gasping for air or looking like he's reconsidering all his life choices.
"I hate you," I tell him when he walks over with water bottles.
"No, you don't," he says with that insufferable confidence that would be annoying if it wasn't so accurate.
