Real life becomes unbearable.
I arrive at Iron Hour late, hoping to avoid him. Eleven-thirty at night — late enough that the gym should be empty, late enough that any sane person would be home.
No such luck.
Danny is already there. Working the heavy bag in the corner, sweat darkening his shirt, muscles shifting beneath skin I should not be noticing.
I claim a treadmill on the opposite side of the gym and fix my eyes on the wall. West Side. Motorcycle club. Everything my father warned me about.
I should not even be in the same room as him.
I run until my legs burn, until my lungs ache, until the pounding of my feet drowns out every other thought. The rhythm becomes meditation — left, right, left, right, breathe, forget, repeat.
When I finally slow the treadmill, my shirt is soaked and my head is blissfully empty.
Empty is good. Empty is what I need.
I move to the weight rack and he is there too.
Of course he is there. Because the universe has decided that Danny Vega is my personal punishment for every rule I have ever followed.
He loads plates onto a barbell, his back to me, tattoos peeking from his collar. I grab a set of dumbbells and settle onto a bench, determined to ignore him. Determined to pretend he does not exist.
When he glances over his shoulder, and that infuriating grin spreads across his face. "Need a spot?"
"From you?" I do not look up. "No."
He shrugs, turning back to his weights. "As you wish. But I won't be present at your funeral."
My jaw tightens and I start my set, counting reps in my head, forcing my attention anywhere except the man working out ten feet away from me.
He does not leave. He works out nearby — close enough that I can hear him breathing, smell leather and sweat and something underneath that makes my stomach clench. Close enough that every time he exhales, I seem to feel it in my own chest.
Third set. My mind drifts to his words. Funeral. Like I am some fragile thing that cannot handle a barbell. Like I need a West Side biker to protect me from—
Suddenly, my grip slips and the bar tilts, weight sliding toward one end, momentum carrying it toward my throat. I gasp, arms buckling, muscles screaming. The metal presses against my collarbone, heavy and unforgiving.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
Danny appears above me, arms crossed, looking down with that insufferable smirk. He does not touch the bar, just stands there and watches.
"Still don't need my help, princess?"
I cannot speak. Not with my arms shaking as the bar presses harder.
"What's that?" He tilts his head, cupping a hand to his ear. "I can't hear the princess admitting she was wrong."
Rage floods through me — hot and blinding. Making my vision blurs when the bar digs into my chest.
"Danny!" The scream tears from my throat.
He moves. One fluid motion — hands catching the bar, lifting it like it weighs nothing, guiding it back to the rack. He is not even breathing hard.
I scramble upright, gasping, my chest aching where the metal pressed. My hands shake and eyes burn.
"You…" I cannot find the words. "You could have—"
"Could have what?" He leans against the rack, still smirking. "You said you didn't need help. I was respecting women’s boundaries."
"I could have died!"
"But you didn't." He shrugs. "You're welcome, by the way."
The rage crystallizes into something cold and sharp.
Every complicated feeling I had about him — the confusion, the unwanted awareness, the softening I did not understand — burns away in an instant. There is nothing left but hatred. Pure, clean, uncomplicated hatred.
He is not misunderstood. He is not secretly decent. He is exactly what everyone warned me about — cruel, arrogant, dangerous.
I grab my bag and shove past him, shoulder checking him hard enough that he stumbles.
"Goodnight, princess," he calls after me.
I do not turn around.
In the parking lot, I sit in my car for ten minutes, hands shaking on the steering wheel. The engine is off. The windows are fogging with my breath. My chest still aches where the bar pressed and I will probably have bruises tomorrow.
He watched me struggle. He stood there and mocked me while I could barely breathe. And waited until I screamed his name before he helped.
I hate him. I hate him more than I have ever hated anyone.
My father was right. West Side is trash. Danny Vega is trash. And I will never make the mistake of thinking otherwise again.
Echo loads around me that night, familiar and safe. Ghost is waiting by the stone bridge, but something is different.
His avatar stands too still and when I approach, his greeting is short. "Hey."
"Hey yourself." I settle beside him on the stone railing. "Ready for the quest?"
"Sure."
We move through the level in near silence. He calls out traps without his usual commentary. He solves puzzles without the jokes that normally make me laugh. His responses are clipped, distracted, his mind somewhere else entirely.
Finally, I stop walking. "What's wrong?"
A long pause. His avatar turns to face mine. "Nothing. Just thinking."
"About what?"
Another pause, longer this time. The forest hums around us, artificial wind stirring artificial leaves, and I can feel the weight of whatever he is carrying. "About whether any of this is real."
My heart stutters. "What do you mean?"
"Us." The word lands heavy in the dark. "This. Whatever we are. I keep wondering what would happen if you knew who I was. If it would change anything."
The question wraps around my chest and squeezes and I think about the Love Room. The lights. His mouth on mine. The way he held me together when I fell apart.
"Would it change anything for you?" I ask instead. "If you knew who I was?"
Silence stretches between us. The kind that holds its breath and waits for someone to break first.
"I don't know," he finally admits. "That's what scares me."
I want to tell him it would not matter. I want to believe that is true.
But I think about the rules I have followed my whole life — the right school, the right people, the right side of the city. I think about my father's voice calling West Side trash, calling anyone outside our circle beneath us.
I think about Danny's hands catching the bar, and the way my body responded, and the shame that followed.
Would it change anything? I do not know either.
