Ch. 42 – Prem
O n Sunday morning, Prem pushed through the door of the small, cluttered gym and shoved his workout bag into a cubby. He didn’t want to be here. Not really. But he wanted to be in his half-empty, miserable apartment even less.
So, gym it was.
On the main level, a few people maneuvered themselves onto machines, while a small cluster of men chatted around the lifting rigs in the back. The angry Green Day song blaring over the speakers abruptly cut out, replaced a moment later by a woman singing to a bubble gum pop beat.
“Let’s roar!” announced a woman on the second-floor balcony as she began enthusiastically marching side to side and clapping her hands. A motley crew of mostly women facing the fitness instructor began to emulate her movements, the clapping a little out of sync.
“Mom! No Katy Perry in my gym,” hollered Cam. The massive gym owner marched from the squat racks and stared daggers at the woman on the balcony. “We discussed this.”
“Can’t hear you, hon,” the lithe, black woman sang sweetly back. “We’re busy getting the eye of the tiger up here.”
Mom? Hon?
Prem looked from the frowning, pale-skinned Cam up to the fitness instructor with her rich, copper-toned complexion. The woman transitioned into bouncing air squats and whooped. Her students whooped in response.
Then, all at once, Prem realized he didn’t care about the question. As the two continued to squabble over the beat of the rock anthem, Prem avoided all eye contact with anyone else in the gym and shoved his Bluetooth earbuds deep into his ear canals. Not that he could focus at all on the veterinary science podcast he’d queued, but at least the inane chatter of the host and guest offered a nice wall of white noise.
Prem moved to the mats at the side of the gym and began his dynamic stretching routine. Every part of his body felt rusted, like an aging Dodge left for years on a front lawn. The clinic had been eating him alive, keeping him away from the gym.
Kate was picking up as many extra hours as she could. Layla too, but it wasn’t enough. Every day felt like bailing out a sinking ship with a teacup. They were chronically behind. Clients were having to wait up to 20 minutes for their appointments.
Prem had resorted to scheduling fewer appointments each day, which cut unnervingly into his profit margins. Even that desperate move wasn’t enough. Most days, he didn’t even have time to eat lunch. No wonder his body felt like a battered punching bag.
Had firing Deja been the right call?
Nope.
Not even remotely.
Prem had come to that genius conclusion roughly two hours after he’d sent Deja packing last week. It’d been exactly enough time to calm down and pull his head out of his ass. But the damage had already been done and Prem had felt obligated to stick to his decision.
He carefully switched to a runner’s stretch on the mats, grimacing as his hip barked in pain. The joint felt welded into place. Prem sucked in a heavy breath and held the stretch, willing his hip to loosen.
The utter stupidity of letting go of Deja had become ever more apparent when he’d started interviewing for her replacement. Candidate One, a ditzy young woman with ludicrously long fake nails that she’d tapped incessantly against his desk, had stated halfway through the interview, “By the way, I don’t like birds. They’re ancient dinosaurs, you know. I won’t work with them. Is that okay?”
Candidate Two, an impressively leathery man in his 40s, had demanded no more than 15 hours a week of work, no weekends, and two months of vacation each year to hit Hawaii for peak surfing season.
Not exactly a stellar lineup of possibilities.
Prem’s hip twinged painfully, and he all but collapsed out of the stretch. Great warm-up.
And then there was Layla.
He glanced at the treadmill. He usually started his workout with cardio, but today his gaze shifted to the rack of dumbbells stationed against the wall-to-ceiling mirrors. A dangerous urge bubbled inside of him. Prem needed to vent. He wanted to hurt. And the treadmill wasn’t going to do it.
Standing from the mats, Prem marched to the rack and grabbed two huge dumbbells that practically yanked his arms out of their sockets. Didn’t even read the number stamped on the weights. He just wanted something heavy.
Something punishing and painful.
He laid down on a padded bench, pressed his heels into the ground, and hefted the dumbbells overhead. They wobbled as his shoulders and pecs clinched to keep them steady. Sucking in a deep breath, Prem lowered the weights to his chest. Blowing out his breath, he grunted and pushed them back up into the air.
What the hell was he going to do about Layla?
He couldn’t fire her just because she’d tap-danced over his heart in her silly, glittery sandals. But every time she smiled at him from the reception desk, it felt like a sledgehammer slamming into his soul.
He couldn’t stand any of it: the faint whiffs of strawberries when she passed him, the sound of her gentle humming in the back when she worked with Sunny, even the damn Come to Llama mug that stared at him whenever he opened the cabinet in the breakroom. Hell, like the pathetic sap he was, he hadn’t even been able to throw out the roses she’d brought to his apartment last month. They leaned, bent and wilted from his mother’s teapot in the middle of the kitchen table, a painfully obvious metaphor that kicked him in the balls every time he returned home.
The dumbbells went up and down again. Prem’s grunts grew in volume. His arms shook. His pulse drummed in his ears.
What was so damn wrong with him, that she’d rather go back to an asshole who’d cheated on her? Every time he saw her, it was a reminder.
You’re not good enough.
The weights came down hard against his pecs.
No matter how much he tried, he could never earn the love he sought.
Prem pushed against the weights. They inched upward, then stopped. Prem gritted his teeth. A bead of sweat ran into his eyes. The dumbbells began to sink. He pushed with all his might. The weights hit his chest, pressing the breath from his lungs.
Shit, he thought simply.
And then, magically, the dumbbells floated up.
“Easy, Doc,” said a voice muffled beneath a mattress ad on his podcast.
Prem’s eyes popped open—he hadn’t even remembered closing them—and fixated on a pale, freckled face looking down at him.
The man was huge and wore a battered ball cap over curling orange hair. His large hands easily plucked the massive dumbbells from Prem’s grip.
Prem sat up and pulled out his earbuds. “Uh, thanks.” Recognition tickled his brain. “Janet the basset hound,” he said, snapping his fingers.
“That’s my girl,” the big man confirmed. “Hue Cairn.” He stuck out his large hand.
Prem shook it. “Ah, yes. Sorry. I’m good at remembering my patients. Not always their humans,” he confessed.
Hue laughed. “I get it. I’m not so good with humans myself.” He scratched at his jaw. “You shouldn’t be pressing up big weights like this on your own, Doc. If you need a spot, just holler.”
Prem swallowed. “I guess I wasn’t really paying attention.”
Hue stared at him for a moment as if weighing his next words. Finally, he seemed to reach an internal conclusion. “Hey, me and a few guys lift together.” He rocked on the balls of his worn tennis shoes and jerked a thumb over to the back corner. “You’re welcome to join if you want. But, fair warning, every one of ‘em’s an asshole in his own unique and special way.”
“We heard that, you dick,” shouted a man with perfectly styled dark hair.
“Come on over. We don’t bite,” called another man with sandy hair and glasses.
“But we do talk about feelings,” added the massively muscled gym owner.
Prem quailed. Feelings were the things he was adamantly trying to burn out of his brain through reckless, gym-related self-endangerment.
“Come on.” Hue clasped Prem’s hand and jerked him to his feet. “I’ll protect you if they start getting too nosy.”
Without exactly making a decision, Prem found himself following the red-headed giant to the back of the gym.
“Guys, this is my vet,” Hue said, jerking his head at Prem. “He keeps Janet in good working order. Doc, these are the assholes.”
The man in the silver-rimmed glasses rolled his eyes and stuck out a hand. “I’m Sully. You’re Dr. Dhawan, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Prem shook his hand.
“I’m dating Layla’s sister, Alanna,” Sully continued.
“Oh.” Prem’s stomach dropped to somewhere near the region of his left kneecap. How much did this Sully guy know about his messy relationship with Layla? And, unrelated, would anyone notice if he sprinted full tilt out the front door of the gym?
Before Prem could make good on his escape, the dark-haired man grabbed his hand in a firm grip. “I’m Rico, but you probably already know that.” He offered a wide, pristine smile.
“Um.” Prem frowned. “Have you been to the practice?” He tried to pair the chiseled face with an animal patient but came up empty.
“Channel 7, evening news?” the man prompted.
“What? Someone in the world doesn’t recognize you?” Hue said, feigning shock. “Somewhere a fairy just lost her wings and developed gout.”
“Why gout?” Sully asked.
“Come on.” Rico stared intently at Prem and framed his face with his hands. “I just broke a major story about an unscrupulous waste treatment plant sending sewage into the ocean.”
Prem shook his head. “I don’t really watch the news. Don’t have time.”
Rico’s mouth pursed in befuddlement. Then he shrugged. “Your loss.”
A huge hand walloped Prem on the back, and he stumbled forward a step before turning to take in the blonde giant who towered over him. “I introduced myself when you signed up, but I’m Cam.” The man was even bigger than Hue, his muscles more defined. The two of them could have been two Viking brothers of yore.
“We’re doing back squats this morning,” Cam said. “You want in?”
Prem looked at the semi-circle of men. Was this what it felt like to be pressured to take drugs? Prem had never had enough of a social life to find out. “Sure. I guess?”
He stepped up to the loaded barbell.
“Nope,” Cam informed him curtly. “You’re warming up first. I want to see 20 good air squats, and then I’ll have you use an empty bar.”
Sully gave Prem an apologetic look. “Cam is very adamant about a good warmup.”
“No one is throwing out their back on my watch,” the blonde man confirmed before stepping up to a barbell ludicrously packed with weights.
Prem watched in awe as Cam racked the barbell and dropped into a perfectly executed back squat. The fair-skinned gym owner’s face flushed red as he continued pumping out four more squats, each accompanied by a heavy grunt.
Prem went just an itty-bitty bit gay for the man.
Cam re-racked the bar and turned to Prem, his face gradually returning to its normal color. “So, what’s got your panties in a bunch, Doc?”
Overhead, Pink sang about trust falls while the class on the second floor groaned through a set of burpees.
“Who says I’ve got something on my mind?” Prem answered as he slowly performed a set of 10 air squats, his hip barking with each rep.
“Well, seeing as you almost committed suicide by dumbbell, I would,” Cam shot back. “Looks like you’re favoring your right side. Got an injury?”
“It’s a girl, isn’t it?” Rico asked.
Prem wobbled as he stood from another squat. “What?”
“I sense a female hand bunching your doctor panties,” Rico said with a smirk. “I’m a reporter. I can always tell these things. By the way, do you treat pet rats?”
“Anything you want to share?” Sully said. “We might be able to help.”
“And whatever is said at Bro Lifting Sesh stays at Bro Lifting Sesh,” Cam added as Sully stepped up to a barbell in a second rack loaded with roughly half the weight on Cam’s bar.
“God, leave the poor man alone,” Hue groaned.
“But it’s a woman. Am I right?” Rico pressed.
Prem swallowed hard. He’d come into the gym to work out alone. His entire goal had been to punish his body into exhaustion so he could pass out at home without having to think of Layla. And now, a bunch of strangers wanted him to carve out his heart and dissect it for their amusement.
Hell no.
Double hell no.
Triple hell no.
“I’m in love with a woman who’s unavailable,” his traitorous mouth blurted. Prem was tempted to punch himself in the face.
How could he confess something so intimate, so horrifically embarrassing, to a pack of muscled bros at the gym? Surely, they’d all burst out laughing at him. Cam would probably revoke his gym membership and his man card at the same time.
But, to Prem’s amazement, Cam and Sully nodded with encouragement.
“Define unavailable,” Rico nudged.
“She’s engaged,” Prem answered. In for a penny, in for the full patheticness of his current existence, apparently.
The men groaned.
“And her fiancé’s a complete asshole,” Prem added.
“That’s rough,” Cam said.
“Engaged doesn’t mean married.” Rico wagged his eyebrows.
“I’m not breaking up her engagement,” Prem answered. “And, for the record, I do treat pet rats.”
“Sweet.” Rico grinned at him.
Sully racked the bar after his final, well-executed back squat. He frowned but didn’t say anything.
“Girl’s engaged, huh?” Hue slid off a slab of weight from each side of Cam’s bar, then re-affixed the bar clamps. “Probably dodged a bullet.”
“Here we go,” Rico groaned. “The red-headed sage of relationships wants to share. Please, enlighten us, O wise one.”
“Women are always trouble,” Hue answered defensively. “Look at this poor sap.” He beckoned at Prem. “Man’s a wreck.”
“Thanks,” Prem grumbled.
“Not worth it. Not a one of ‘em.” Hue stepped under the barbell and racked it on his back. “They’ll break you, then walk away laughing.”
“You’re a sad, sad man, Cairn,” Rico said.
“You know, it’s a miracle you even found a woman who puts up with you,” Hue shot back.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty easy to love.” Rico flexed a well-defined bicep in the mirror and winked at his reflection.
“We’re getting off the point,” Cam spoke up and turned to Prem. “If you really think this engagement is a mistake, have you told your girl how you feel?”
“She knows,” Prem answered, his throat tight.
The men murmured in sympathy.
“Well, there’s one thing you can do,” Sully said.
“What’s that?” Prem asked morosely.
“Lift heavy shit with us.” The man in the glasses gave Prem an understanding smile.
Rico chuckled. Hue guffawed.
“Tell me what’s going on with your hip,” Cam added. “I might have some rehab protocols to help support the joint.”
Prem nodded as a slight smile found his lips. Even if these men couldn’t solve his problem, they’d listened. And, shockingly, hadn’t laughed. His heavy heart felt just a little bit lighter.