Holland
Remy talked me into taking a whole week off.
He didn’t demand; he negotiated like a man who knows how to make a point sound like care. “Let me and Jacek cover the counter,” he’d said, palm warm at the small of my back, tone maddeningly reasonable. “Give Todd one week where training is the only thing on your calendar. Then we’ll taper to an hour before work and an hour after—steady, not punishing. I want your body to learn this, not hate it.”
I argued for maybe thirty seconds. Then I looked at the quiet in his eyes when he said please, and something in me that used to flinch chose to open instead.
Day one started at nine a.m. in the east gym of the packhouse, the one tucked down a hall that smelled like cedar and bleach and good sweat. The room wasn’t fancy—mats, mirrors, a rack
