Between Sets

By James Harlow

David hasn't slept through the night in years.

He lies awake beside his wife, staring at the ceiling fan, counting the distance between the man his family needs him to be and the man he actually is. Twenty-two years of marriage. Two kids. A clean bench. A sealed deck. A life maintained with the same quiet discipline he brings to his morning workouts.

Then he notices Claire.

She's forty-four, divorced, and putting herself back together one deadlift at a time. She has a scar on her knuckles from punching a wall, a son at college, and a way of looking at people that makes them feel like the only person in the room. She doesn't know David's name. He doesn't know hers. But something passes between them at the water fountain, in the space between sets, in the three-second glances across a gym floor at six in the morning -- something that begins as a harmless fixation and becomes the most dangerous thing in his life.

Told in alternating voices, Between Sets follows two people as a small, ordinary connection pulls them toward a collision that will crack open everything they thought they knew about love, honesty, and the lives they've built. David must confront the difference between wanting out and wanting more. Claire must decide what she's willing to risk for a man who isn't free. And the question neither of them can answer -- the one that haunts every sleepless night and loaded barbell -- is whether being truly seen by the wrong person is better than being invisible to the right one.

A novel about the weight we carry, the weight we lift, and the unbearable lightness of being known.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GNNCL5Y6
• ISBN13: 9798248385249
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"