𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 𝖕𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 ⋆ 𝕶𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓 𝖉𝖆𝖞

𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞 𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"Why does something always have to be wrong?" Daisy answers, meaner than she intended. "Can't I just exist?"

He gives her a scathing look, akin to the way he watched her play Exy when they first met. "Something's always wrong with you. What is it?"

"Fuck off," she replies casually. Her shirt comes over her head so that she's left in gym shorts and a high-necked sports bra, and she perches on the rowing machine. He watches her, and the black disdain in his eyes flares into something warm and red. "Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you want to bend me over the weight bench and give me the best twenty-five seconds of my life."

He scoffs. When he doesn't say anything else, Daisy finds herself grinning. She watches him pick up the plastic handle, drop into a gentle squat, and start pulling the weights from knee level up to his chest. The underneath of his arm is taut; his biceps flex every time he lifts the weight. He's not a bulky man by any means, and he doesn't need to be. Strikers need to be fast, powerful in their throws but never really aiming any further than the quarter of court they're on. But he's strong, and he's currently lifting twice what Daisy weighs. His sleeveless shirt leaves nothing to the imagination, and Daisy would be content to sit and stare at him his entire workout if she wasn't still a little pissed off with him.

"You're putting me off," he tells her finally, when she's been watching him instead of doing her own workout for at least five minutes. "Take a picture and you can stare at that all you want."

Daisy pulls her phone from beside her and snaps a quick photo. He blinks. "What? You boss me around day and night, and suddenly when I follow the rules, you hate me? Make up your mind."

He looks like he wants to speak, but says nothing. So she starts rowing, and he starts pulling up the weights and letting them go rhythmically. There's a few moments of silence. Mostly everyone in the house is still asleep, the sun is barely over the horizon, and Daisy highly doubts any of their teammates will even breathe in the direction of this gym during their stay. So, they're alone. Daisy gets up and moves to a stationary bike. It's beside him but facing away, and she makes sure to hover a little over the seat and lean a little further over the handlebars than she usually would.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he snaps finally, dropping the weights with a loud crack and walking over to her. Daisy drops onto the seat, looks up at him with an innocent smile. "No. Don't look at me like that. You know what you're fucking doing."

"Cycling?" she suggests. He narrows his eyes, sets his jaw. "It's not my fault you want to have sex with me every time I work out. Maybe you should talk to Bee about it, I'm sure she could-- Kevin!"

He grabs her around the waist, holds her body under his arm and carries her over to the middle of the room. She shouts, smacks her fists on his back, but he only drops her onto the padded floor. She rolls onto her back to look at him, but he's already dropped down to sit over her waist and pin her down. When she reaches up to hit him, he grabs her hand.

"Don't," he begins, holding her fist tightly to his chest, "do that shit again. If you want to keep your distance, fine. But don't pull that shit and expect me not to react."

"Okay," she whispers. She reaches up to try and free her hand from his grip, but he grabs that one too, and holds it down above her head. They're face to face now, and she can see the beads of sweat on his forehead, feel his heart pumping against her chest, smell the combination of men's three-in-one and the scent of his skin.