Page 19 of The Prime-Time Experiment

The transition was seamless enough to feel intentional. “Have you ever done a PT session before?”

“No.” Her answer came clipped and immediate. “It is not conducive to my current work schedule.”

“Right,” he said easily. “Then today’s the beginning of fixing that.”

Before she could respond, he reached over and hit record on the second camera. Riley felt it instantly, not the movement itself, but the awareness of it.

Another thing to account for. Yet another point of observation sitting just outside her focus, impossible to deprioritise once noticed. Declan stepped back in front of her, but his attention never stayed in one place. It shifted to the camera, back to her, over her shoulder toward movement on the gym floor, then back again. Small adjustments. Casual ones.

Riley tracked every single shift automatically. Camera. His face. Someone moving behind him. The metallic crash of a weight resetting somewhere to her left.

“Alright,” he said lightly. “We’re gonna start simple.” Simple, the word scraped somewhere in her head instead of settling properly.

“Feet here,” he said, demonstrating quickly. “Hip-width.”

Riley mirrored him exactly, adjusting the angle of her stance with precise alignment. That part, at least, made sense. Defined position, clear instruction.

“Good. Down.” She followed the movement. Immediately, the fabric shifted against her skin, the shorts tightened across her thighs as she lowered, riding slightly with the movement instead of staying still. The shirt dragged across her shoulders when her posture changed. Every adjustment created another point of sensation demanding her attention.

The feedback felt wrong, then the music surged louder overhead. At the exact same moment, a weight crashed somewhere behind her. Her concentration split, her balance correcting half a second too late.

“Too far forward,” Declan said. “Sit back.” She adjusted immediately.

“Relax your shoulders.” Another correction.

“Stop overthinking it.”

“I am not—”

“You are,” he said easily. “I can see it.”

Her movement faltered. She reset her stance and tried again, but the inputs no longer separated cleanly. They layered. Noise stopped sounding directional. It compressed inward, music and voices and metal striking metal collapsing into one continuous pressure she couldn’t filter fast enough. Movement kept catching at the edges of her vision: people crossing behind cameras, trainers walking between machines, reflections shifting unpredictably in mirrors.

And Declan kept talking. Sometimes directly to her, sometimes toward the camera. Sometimes half-turned away so she had to work harder to track the words properly.

Her focus narrowed further.

“Riles,” he said, half-laughing now, “it’s not that complicated.”

Her jaw tightened hard enough to ache. “It is not a matter of complexity.”

“Then why are you struggling with it?”

The question landed wrong instantly. Too broad, no stable entry point to answer from.

Her breath shortened. “I am compensating for environmental inconsistency.”

“Or,” he said, glancing toward the camera again like this was entertaining somehow, “you’re making it harder than it needs to be.”

The dismissal hit like static under her skin. “The environment is directly impacting execution,” she said, faster now. “The music lacks consistency, the layout lacks sequence, the clothing is—”

“The clothing is fine,” he interrupted. “You’re fine.” Then he paused, expression shifting slightly like he thought he’d finally figured out the issue. “You look cute, if you’re stressed about being filmed.”

Something in her chest tightened sharply. That wasn’t what she meant, it wasn’t even adjacent to what she meant. The entire conversation kept missing the point by fractions that somehow made it worse.

Her hands lifted before she consciously decided to move them, fingers pressed first against her temples, then higher, palms flattening hard over her ears. The pressure dulled the noise enough for her thoughts to stop scattering quite so violently, to think for half a second.

Across from her, Declan finally stopped smiling.