Page 64 of Heat Clickbait
I turned to face her properly, letting her see what I'd been hiding. The exhaustion from fighting my instincts, the barely controlled need to claim her, the deeper fear that kept me from acting on it. "You know what everyone says about me, right? The himbo. The thirst trap. All muscles, no substance."
"That's not?—"
"It is, though." I grabbed a twenty-pound dumbbell, needing something to do with my hands before they reached for her. Started doing bicep curls out of pure nervous habit. "Seven years of content. Hundreds of thousands of people who follow me for abs and ass shots. Even my charity work gets reduced to 'look at the hot guy being sweet.'"
"You're brilliant," she said firmly, moving closer. "You have a business degree, understand biomechanics better than some doctors—" She'd already given me this rundown before and I didn't want to hear it again. Not when my mark still wasn't on her skin.
"But that's not what people want from me." The weight moved in perfect form, muscle memory taking over while my mind spiraled. "They want the performance. The flexing. The empty-headed positivity. And I've gotten so good at giving it to them that sometimes I forget there's more to me than that."
She reached out, stilling my arm mid-curl. The contact sent electricity through my system, my alpha instincts roaring at her proximity. "Is that what you think I want? A performance?"
"I don't know what you want from me." The admission cracked something open. "Milo feeds you, literally and emotionally. Nova organizes your life and gives you structure. You haven't chosen me for anything."
"You're right." The agreement hit like a punch, but she wasn't done. "I haven't chosen you yet. Because you haven't let me see what I'm choosing. You're still performing, even now. Even with me. The closest I got to seeing the real you was at the beach when we were just being goofy, and I loved that side of you." She grabbed the dumbbell, setting it aside with surprising strength. "Show me Eli, not Blitz. Stop performing and just... be."
"I don't know how," I admitted, the words barely a whisper. "It's been so long since I've been real with anyone except the pack."
"Start with this." She pulled me down to sit on the workout bench, straddling it to face me. "Tell me about Sofia. The real story, not the inspiring content version."
So I did. Told her about the terror of watching my sister waste away, the helplessness that drove me to the gym at 4 AM every day. How I'd learned to count macros because it was the only control I had. The way she'd tease me about getting "too swole" even from her hospital bed. How her survival had become so tangled with my content creation that I couldn't separate them anymore.
"She watches everything," I said, voice cracking slightly. "Comments on every stream with these terrible muscle puns. Says I saved her life, but really, she saved mine. Gave me purpose beyond just... existing decoratively."
"You're not decorative," Callie said, her hand finding mine. "You're functional art, at the very least. Beautiful and useful."
I laughed, but it came out watery. "That's the nicest way anyone's ever called me furniture."
She frowned when I took her teasing seriously. "You know what I mean." She shifted closer, her scent intensifying. "The workout streams aren't just about your body. They're about discipline, dedication, the joy you find in movement. You make fitness feel achievable, fun, not just another way to hate yourself."
"Is that how you see it?"
"That's how I've always seen it. Even before the convention, I'd watch your streams when my imposter syndrome got bad. Seeing you work that hard, that consistently, reminded me that success isn't just talent. It's showing up."
The compliment hit deeper than any comment about my abs ever had. "I want to bite you."
The admission hung between us, raw and honest.
"I know," she said simply. "What's stopping you?"
"What if that's all it is? Physical attraction, biological compatibility? What if you wake up bonded to the himbo and realize?—"
She kissed me quick, leaning in before I realized what she was doing, cutting off the spiral. It tasted like certainty. When she pulled back, her eyes were dark with want and something deeper. "You want to know what I see when I look at you?"
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
"I see someone who turned trauma into purpose. Who broadcasts joy even when struggling. Who treats his body likeart but his heart like a gift." She stood, pulling me up with her. "I see someone worth choosing. Worth claiming."
"Callie—"
I stood there, heart hammering against my ribs, watching the way her eyes tracked over my body. Not with the usual hungry appreciation I got from viewers, but with something deeper. Like she was cataloguing every insecurity I'd just laid bare and filing them away as things to protect rather than exploit.
"So show me," she said, the challenge clear in her voice. "Show me who Eli is when he's not performing."
The words hung between us, heavy with possibility. I set the dumbbell down with careful precision, my hands trembling slightly. "I don't know if I can just... turn it off. The performance. It's been my armor for so long."
"Then let's do something where performance doesn't help." She moved to the center of my streaming room, pushing equipment aside to create space. "Dead hang challenge. See who can hang from the pull-up bar longest."
I blinked at her, surprised. "You want to challenge me to a fitness competition?"
