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And I was pretty sure I stopped breathing.

Green eyes. Mossy green eyes.

They had haunted me since I saw them.

He couldn't be...

Every memory crashed into me at once. His smile, walking together to the parking lot, his motorcycle…

The guy from the beach.

It was him.

Rove.

Why was he here?

My body forgot how to function.

I just stared, desperately trying to put the puzzle pieces together into something that made sense.

“Ladies, can you all come over here for a sec?” Caldwell called, stopping us a few minutes short of finishing warm-ups.

I stood in an almost zombie-like fashion, uncertain whether I was dreaming or not.

Surely he couldn't be the scout.

I eventually joined the edge of the circle around Caldwell—and Rove, who remained at his side.

It couldn't be.

Then I remembered his handshake.

The roughness of his palm had surprised me when I first met him. At the time, I'd figured it was from working with his hands.

Now I pictured him swinging around a high bar, years of ripped calluses hardening into the exact same roughness that mirrored my own.

Oh my gosh. He was a freaking gymnast.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Caldwell said, “but I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

He gestured toward the man beside him.

“This is Eero Rove. Some of you may know him. He competed in the last Olympics for Finland. He’s an Olympic gold medalist on rings and high bar.”

Rove.

Eero Rove.

Holy crap.

The fact that I hadn’t recognized him made me feel like a complete idiot. But to be fair, I think they usually called him by his first name, and I’d only ever seen him for a few minutes on the terrible TV in the locker room.

And never in a million years did I expect to run into an Olympian randomly on a Sunday morning at the beach. My brain hadn’t even gone there.

He’d competed in the last Olympics. So many people had speculated he’d compete again in 2028.

Why was he scouting for Vanta Elite?