9 - Brock
Brock
"You aren't going to fail," I said, my pace steady. "You’re just sleep-deprived. Have a coffee and stop projecting your academic anxiety onto the sidewalk."
"Easy for you to say. You and the sun have a blood pact." He glanced at me, a spark of his usual mischief fighting through the haze of his mental load. "Though I suppose you have extra motivation to stay awake today. I saw the digital log before I left last night."
I didn't take the bait. It was barely five a.m. and he wasn’t going to get the better of me.
The glass doors of the gym appeared, a dark sanctuary in the gray morning.
My fob clicked, the lock disengaged, and the climate-controlled air hit us in the face.
A dry, sterile contrast to the D.C. humidity.
Inside, the silence was absolute aside from the constant drone of the HVAC system. I loved getting to work this early. Nobody clawing for my attention, and nothing but inanimate objects to keep me busy for at least another hour.
“Catch you later, man.”
But Hunter didn’t veer off to the protein bar to start his shift. He followed me into the Muscle Mansion, his sneakers squeaking against the rubber mats while I began the morning rounds.
“Anything interesting?” he asked, when I undocked the iPad.
I glared at him and said nothing.
The screen was a cold white flare in the dim light. I moved from rack to rack, my fingers checking the tension on the cables and the seating of the pins. It was a mechanical ritual, a way to ground the day before clients streamed in.
"So," Hunter said, leaning against a stack of bumper plates, his eyes tracking me. "We’re just gonna pretend you haven’t booked a new client for today? A hot new client who just happens to be the love of my life?"
I shook my head slowly, too tired to laugh. “I take private sessions. It’s my job. The love of your life is all yours.”
"Yeah, but she booked your last slot, Brock. The 'nobody else is in the building so we can actually hear each other breathe' slot."
I adjusted a bench, the metal clicking into place with a definitive snap. "Or maybe that’s the time that works best for her. Convenience. Nothing more."
"Convenience." He let out an incredulous laugh. "We’ve been friends for too long. You don’t get to use your personal trainer voice on me and expect it to work. Just tell me the truth.”
“What are you talking about?” I stopped what I was doing to look at him. The badgering was relentless and annoying. “What truth?”
“You think she’s hot.” He narrowed his eyes at me, willing me into submission with a look. “You had your hands all over her at the free weights.”
"I was thinking about her lack of core stability," I countered, sliding my hand over the knurling of a barbell to check for grit. "She’s a foundational challenge who could use some guidance."
"I’m gonna ask her out.”
“Then ask her out.”
“I don’t want you getting in the way,” he said, sounding whiney despite his efforts to play it cool. “Everyone’s always throwing themselves at you, and I just don’t want that happening with Jess.”
I turned to him, the iPad a heavy shield in my hand. "She has a lot of external pressure. The wedding, work stress. My job is to provide a neutral space for her to move weight. That’s it."
"Right. Neutral." Hunter pushed off the plates, a tired but triumphant grin touching his mouth. "Just remember, the neutral ones are the first to fall."
He walked toward the front desk, leaving me in the center of the iron.
I looked down at the iPad, at her name sitting in the final box of the day.
Hunter was a hopeless romantic with a head full of psychology, but he wasn't blind. I knew the weight of my own gaze. I knew why I’d cleared that specific hour after Jess said she’d be booking a class.
I just didn't need him to be right about it.
The morning rush was a cacophony of iron and the high-pitched whine of the cardio deck. By nine, the lobbyists and lawyers had filtered out, replaced by the secondary wave of the D.C. elite. The ones who didn't have to clock in.
Juno arrived exactly four minutes late, draped in monochromatic designer spandex. She always looked like she was in a hurry to get somewhere she didn’t want to be.
"Don't kill me, Brock," she said, dropping her quilted bag onto the bench near the pull-up station. "Don’t forget the gala on Thursday. My heels are five inches of expensive torture. If you make me do a single lunge today, I’ll have you fired."
"Upper body and core. Like we agreed," I said, giving her a scout’s salute. "But on Friday I’m all over those beauties until you can’t stand without holding onto something."
"You’re a lifesaver." Her hand lingered on my bicep, her fingers tracing the curve of the muscle with a practiced familiarity. "Maybe after the session, you could help me stretch out the... tension in my shoulders? It’s been a grueling week."
I caught her wrist and redirected her toward the mat. "The foam roller handles the tension, Juno. I handle the reps. Let’s start with thoracic rotations."
Her pout was a choreographed expression of disappointment, but she dropped to the mat.
This was the dance. I played the part of the unattainable pillar, and she played the part of the tireless huntress.
It kept the contract active and the checks clearing.
To Juno, I was a physical achievement she could purchase by the hour.
To me, she was a series of kinetic missteps that kept the lights on.
Once she finished her final set of eccentric chin-ups and disappeared toward the steam room with a suggestive wink, Hunter was across the floor.
"Three years, and I still don’t know how you do that," Hunter said. I couldn’t tell if it was awe or judgment in his tone. Maybe a bit of both. "The woman’s all over you. You’re all over her, as a matter of fact. And you want me to believe it’s strictly professional?"
I wiped down the bench, the disinfectant cutting through the air of the weight room. "Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. Juno’s a high-maintenance client who enjoys the theater of a crush. It’s part of the service."
"Unless you’re holding out for someone else." Hunter stepped into my space, his arms crossed over his chest. The half-smile was only partly a sign of light-hearted humor. I knew him well enough to know where this was going. Who this was actually about.
"For someone who knows me better than anyone, you’ve got it all wrong.” I gripped the cleaning rag, the fabric bunching in my fist. "You’re with me all day at work. You’d know if I ever crossed a line with my clients, which I haven’t. And I’m not gonna start now."
The teasing grin vanished, replaced by the clinical, piercing focus of the counseling student. He stared at me for a beat, the silence between us growing thick and crowded.
"So you’ll be okay if I asked Jess out?”
“Knock yourself out,” I said, entertaining the absurdity with a deep bow. The surprise wasn’t my best friend falling in love at the drop of a hat. But if she said yes to him, I’d admit to being shocked.
The glass doors at the gym’s entrance hissed open. Mrs. Gable, a regular who required a very specific brand of hip-stabilization work, marched toward us.
"Brock! My gluteus medius is acting up again," she called out, her voice echoing off the high ceilings.
I exhaled, the tension in my chest refusing to dissipate. "I have a client, Hunter. Back to work."
"We aren't finished," he whispered, a smirk playing on his lips as he retreated. "Not by a long shot."
The hours after the morning rush blurred into a mechanical rhythm of plate-loading and postural corrections.
The gym transformed from a high-voltage arena into a mid-afternoon lull, the light through the floor-to-ceiling windows turning from a harsh white to a long, honeyed amber.
I moved through my roster with the detachment of a man on autopilot, my body performing the labor while my mind remained anchored to the final hour on the digital log.
Every time the doors opened, my head turned with a reflexive, unwelcome hope.
By eight-thirty, the floor was nearly vacant.
The persistent hum of the treadmills had died down to a single, distant drone.
Hunter caught my eye from the front desk as he prepared to close out his till, his expression a mix of exhaustion and that lingering, knowing smirk.
I didn't give him the satisfaction of a glance back.
I headed for the private training room at the rear of the facility, a space of rubber, steel, and a silence that felt heavy with anticipation.
I spent ten minutes meticulously organizing the equipment, resetting the bench and checking the tension on the resistance bands, my movements precise to the point of obsession.
They had to be. Because if I stopped moving for even one second, I’d start thinking about her.
Then, just as I was dragging my mind out of the whirling cloud that looked a lot like Hunter’s greatest love—
"I'm not late, am I?" Jess’s hair was pulled back, exposing the elegant line of her neck and the flush already blooming on her cheeks.
The air got sucked clean out of the room.
She wasn't in the oversized, defensive layers of her first day testing the waters.
Tonight she wore those same high-compression tights and an armored sports bra that left nothing to the imagination.
The dark fabric highlighted every curve, the strategic ruching of the leggings defining the rounded, athletic span of her hips.
"You're exactly on time," I said, my voice sounding rougher than it had all day. "Put your bag in the corner. We’re starting with a mobility screen."
My professional mask was already beginning to fracture under her curious gaze.
As she moved toward the center of the mat, the light catching the slick texture of her clothes made it impossible to look away.
We spent the first twenty minutes on the fundamentals, but the tension in the room was a third person, uninvited and overbearing.