Coach Stone stopped the black car beside a narrow country road and switched off the engine.
Trey looked through the window at the enormous lavender field stretching across the hillside. Long violet rows rolled toward the horizon beneath the afternoon sun, moving gently in the breeze.
He turned slowly toward Coach.
Coach Stone sat behind the wheel dressed entirely in black: a fitted black polo, black trousers, and polished black training shoes. Nothing about him reflected the bright afternoon except the calm authority in his eyes.
Trey glanced at Wells in the passenger seat, hoping for an explanation.
Wells wore a fitted black athletic jacket with narrow gold piping along the shoulders, black trousers, and black sneakers marked with restrained gold details. He adjusted one gold cuff link and continued studying the field as though being driven into the countryside for mysterious botanical punishment was perfectly normal.
Trey pushed open the door.
He was already dressed for the massive workout Alton had promised: a fitted metallic-gold compression shirt, deep-gold athletic shorts, gold socks, and polished gold-and-black training shoes. A thin gold chain rested against his chest, and his famous gold sunglasses covered his eyes.
“Coach, Alton is waiting for me. He planned a massive workout.”
“He said shoulders, back, legs, and something he called the destruction circuit.”
“And you brought me to flowers.”
Coach finally turned his head.
“You’re too loud inside.”
Trey placed a hand against the gleaming gold fabric covering his chest.
“Inside here is excellence.”
Coach pointed toward a small stone building visible at the far end of the field.
“Walk to the barn. Alton will meet you there.”
Trey stared at the distance.
The car doors locked behind him.
Trey stood alone beside the lavender, shining like a misplaced trophy against the soft violet landscape.
“This better improve my hamstrings,” he muttered.
He removed his gold sunglasses, hooked them into the neckline of his compression shirt, and entered the first row.
At the beginning, the scent was pleasant but faint. Lavender warmed by sunlight, dry earth, leaves, and the clean sweetness of the open air.
Trey marched quickly, still carrying the aggressive rhythm of the workout he expected to begin. His shoulders were raised. His jaw was tight. The gold fabric stretched across his back as his arms moved with unnecessary force.
He checked the time twice within the first minute.
The lavender rolled around him in a single soft wave.
It filled his lungs, rested behind his eyes, and seemed to spread through his chest.
The tension in his shoulders loosened so suddenly that he stopped walking.
The word escaped him quietly.
The flowers brushed against his hands as he moved between the rows. Their purple tips trembled against his fingers. Bees drifted lazily from plant to plant, unconcerned by his bright gold presence.
For once, Trey did not try to outshine the landscape.
With every step, the world seemed to soften around the edges. The sun became warmer. The distant hills appeared impossibly smooth. Even the sound of his gold shoes against the earth seemed to arrive from somewhere far away.
Not his usual camera-ready grin.
He stretched both arms out and allowed his fingertips to skim across the flowers. Lavender blossoms brushed against the brilliant gold of his clothes, scattering tiny purple fragments across his shorts and shoes.
“This,” he announced to no one, “is extremely luxurious.”
He laughed at his own words, but the laugh faded into another long breath.
The lavender scent seemed to gather inside him until his body felt unusually light. His legs still carried him forward, but they no longer felt hurried. His thoughts drifted apart before they could fully form.
A cloud shaped like a shoulder muscle.
Trey stopped to examine the cloud.
“That cloud is absolutely built.”
Trey nodded respectfully to it.
He was not asleep. He was not exactly dizzy. Yet the field had placed him in a dreamy, floating state that felt dangerously close to being high.
His skin tingled beneath the gold compression fabric.
The lavender rows seemed brighter than they had before, their color deepening until violet light shimmered between them.
For one strange moment, the flowers appeared to lean toward him.
“Are you lot talking about me?”
The breeze moved through the field.
He continued walking, now almost gliding down the path. His golden clothes no longer appeared loud against the field. The violet light softened them, turning their sharp metallic shine into a warm, mellow glow.
Gold and lavender moved together around him.
At the center of the field stood a small pool of rainwater trapped between two stones.
Trey crouched beside it and caught sight of his reflection.
Not merely reflecting the flowers.
The irises themselves had changed into a pale, luminous violet. The color seemed to glow from beneath the surface, turning his familiar stare into something dreamy and unfamiliar.
He should have been alarmed.
Instead, he smiled at his reflection for far too long.
The lavender eyes looked unexpectedly striking above the rich gold of his clothing, as though the field had deliberately redesigned him.
When he finally stood, the path beneath him appeared to pulse gently with every breath. The lavender seemed to rise and fall like a sleeping ocean.
He walked more slowly now.
Each movement became deliberate.
His arms hung loose at his sides. His breathing settled into a perfect rhythm. The noise Coach had spoken of—the need to perform, compete, speak first, move faster—fell away until there was only the field, the scent, and the next step.
By the time Trey reached the stone barn, he had forgotten that he was supposed to be angry.
Alton was waiting outside.
He was dressed almost entirely in gold: a sleeveless gold training shirt stretched across his massive chest, dark-gold compression shorts, gold wrist straps, gold knee sleeves, and heavy gold-and-black lifting shoes. A wide metallic-gold lifting belt was fastened around his waist.
He looked less like a man preparing for exercise and more like an athletic monument someone had taught to shout.
A loaded sled sat beside him.
Battle ropes stretched across the yard.
Several enormous tires were arranged near a squat rack.
Alton bounced on the balls of his feet, his gold clothing flashing beneath the sun.
“There he is! Bro, you ready? I’ve planned the biggest session of our lives. We start with heavy squats, then sled pushes, then shoulders, then deadlifts, then the destruction circuit, then—”
Trey was standing in front of him with a peaceful smile, lavender dust scattered across his gold clothes, and glowing violet eyes.
“Why do you look enchanted?”
Trey placed one hand gently on Alton’s golden shoulder.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“The air is touching everything.”
Alton looked past him toward the field.
“Have you taken something?”
“That is not a normal walking face.”
Wells and Coach Stone approached from behind the barn, having apparently taken a much shorter route.
Against the brilliant gold worn by Trey and Alton, Wells appeared sleek and composed in black with gold trim. Coach Stone, dressed in uninterrupted black, looked like a shadow that had come to supervise the sun.
“Coach, his eyes are purple.”
“Lavender,” Trey corrected softly.
“That does not make it better.”
Coach Stone studied Trey for a moment.
Alton clapped his gold-wrapped hands together.
“Right! Heavy squats. Let’s wake him up.”
Trey moved toward the rack without urgency.
Normally, he would have demanded more weight before completing a warm-up. He would have turned the music louder, mocked Alton’s stance, and transformed the first set into a personal championship between two golden gods.
Instead, Trey positioned his feet carefully beneath the bar.
Then rose with flawless control.
The metallic fabric of his gold shirt caught the sunlight as every muscle moved beneath it.
“Why are you moving like that?”
Trey completed another repetition.
“The weight is already heavy. It does not require drama.”
Every repetition was smooth. His knees remained stable. His back stayed straight. His breathing never broke.
The lavender glow in his eyes remained bright, giving him the serene expression of a man experiencing a private revelation beneath several hundred pounds while dressed like a championship trophy.
Alton began his own set with far more aggression.
His gold shirt strained across his back as he dropped quickly, drove upward, and shouted through the final repetitions.
“You are fighting the bar.”
“The bar does not know you are angry.”
“Stop speaking like a sexy fortune cookie.”
Alton exploded forward, his gold shoes tearing through the dirt as he drove the loaded frame across the yard. He finished gasping but triumphant, sunlight blazing across his golden clothes.
He placed both hands on the bars.
Just a steady, relentless drive.
His gold-clad legs moved in perfect rhythm. His body remained low. His breathing stayed calm. He crossed the full distance without slowing.
Alton checked the stopwatch.
“That was faster than mine.”
Trey looked at the lavender field.
“Time is a frightened little concept.”
Alton turned toward Wells.
“On agriculture, apparently,” Wells replied.
They continued through deadlifts, presses, ropes, carries, and tire flips.
The yard became a collision of gold and lavender.
Alton attacked every movement as if trying to defeat it. His golden clothes flashed with every violent pull, press, and stride.
The more exhausted Alton became, the calmer Trey appeared. Sweat darkened the gold fabric across his chest and back, but his face remained peaceful. The lavender in his eyes slowly began to fade from luminous violet to pale lilac.
Wells observed from the edge of the yard, elegant in black and gold.
Coach Stone stood beside him in pure black, arms folded, unreadable.
By the destruction circuit, Alton’s massive energy had finally burned itself out.
He completed two rounds, dropped the battle ropes, and bent forward with his hands on his knees. His gold shirt clung to his chest, and even his metallic lifting belt seemed exhausted.
Trey stood beside him, breathing heavily but evenly.
“What happened to you in that field?”
Trey considered the question with complete seriousness.
“The flowers removed unnecessary urgency.”
“Most wisdom does at first.”
The violet color had almost completely left Trey’s eyes. Only a faint lavender ring remained around the irises.
Coach looked toward the weights, then at Trey.
Trey wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“That calm is not the absence of power.”
Trey looked at Alton, who was now laying on the ground beside the sled like a fallen golden statue.
“And that Alton’s destruction circuit is mostly poor pacing.”
Alton raised one exhausted finger.
“Lavender Trey is still a dick.”
The last trace of violet disappeared from Trey’s eyes.
His normal sharpness returned almost immediately.
He looked around the yard, noticed the sweat covering his gold clothes, the enormous weights, and Alton collapsed in the dirt.
Trey looked back toward the field.
The lavender moved peacefully beneath the evening sun, its strange hold on him finally gone. Against it, his gold clothing had regained its bold shine.
The scent was still beautiful, but now it was only a scent.
Trey placed his hands on his hips.
“I do feel incredible, though.”
Coach Stone turned toward the car, a solid black figure crossing the gold evening light.
“Are we coming back tomorrow?”
“You’d start selling tickets.”
Wells walked past them, black clothing edged with gold glinting subtly as he moved.
“He already has a name prepared.”
“Lavender Gains Retreat.”
Alton remained on the ground in a heap of exhausted gold.
Trey looked down at him, then offered his hand.
Trey pulled him to his feet with ease. The two golden men stood together before the endless lavender rows, one calm and victorious, the other barely upright.
“Next time,” Trey said, “you walk through the field.”
Alton glanced suspiciously at the violet landscape.
“Will it make my eyes purple?”
“Will it improve my squat?”
Trey placed an arm around his shoulders.
“Alton, those flowers are about to change your entire life.”
With @wells-gold58, @alton-gold77
Join the Golden Army. Contact our recruiters: @alton-gold77, @polo-drone-125
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