Chapter 12
Kas
Mari and I have managed to get a little routine going after five days of working together. It’s simple: I train, I rest, I loiter behind and watch her edit images and posts, she asks if I have anything better to do, I say no, I walk away. Repeat.
“You got anything better to do?” Mari asks.
The green bandana on her head flutters under the air-con and she twists her body to fix me with a firm, expectant glare. I shrug and look at the confusing interface of a photo editing software on her laptop screen.
Hovering around her and working together means that I’ve noticed things I didn’t before. She comes in early with a flask of herbal tea just so she can do a free social media management course without it interrupting her day-to-day work. She’s also started taking up some managerial tasks to help Davina.
Mari’s work ethic is quickly becoming something to admire.
“Nope.”
I smirk around the nozzle of my plastic water bottle and wander back to the gym floor to do some stretching. Mari closes her laptop only seconds later and heads into the back, probably meeting with Davina in the office like she does at the end of the workday.
After thirty minutes of loosening my muscles, my body is sticky with the day’s sweat, and I am desperate for a cold shower. I walk past the office and into the changing room to retrieve my toiletries, clean shorts, and a towel. With everything balancing in my arms, I head to the gym’s eerie, solitary shower. It’s separate from the other changing rooms and has a broken toilet nestled into the corner.
A few years back, Dash and Devon decided to start a rumor about it being haunted by a strongman from the 1800s who was crushed by his own barbell. The “ghost shower” name stuck, and some members are actually convinced they’ve seen a small mustached man in a singlet running through the gym.
Most members choose to use the other shower in the changing room, but I like the space of the ghost shower. What I don’t like is that Dash hasn’t fixed the jammed door in months and I have to use my shoulder to budge it open.
I do exactly that, only to be assaulted by a thick cloud of steam that billows out of the opened door. Through the steam, I spot long, dark brown braids, and a slender, half-naked figure encased in bright pink panties and a dark green bra—definitely not the ghost of a portly 1800s strongman.
I drop everything to do a poor job of covering my eyes. “Fuck,” I mutter, turning away and then looking back at her to explain myself. “I—I—” Now I’m fucking stuttering. “Sorry, Mari.”
“Kas!”
Mari covers herself with her arms and glares at me. I have to admit, I thought that dress she wore at Violet’s exhibition looked good on her, but these two colors are on another level.
“The door is fucked,” I say.
My throat goes dry, and my words spew from me in one weak huff as I attempt to discreetly cover the shape of my now-hard cock through my shorts.
“I know! That’s why I barricaded it!”
The steam continues to pour out through the half-opened door and Mari points at my feet where a tote bag lies with some of its contents strewn out in front of it. A bottle of hot sauce has rolled out and cracked, leaving an orange trail in its wake. It’s definitely hot sauce because the capsaicin merges with the steam in the air, sending a light, spicy tingle up my nose.
Mari looks at my half-naked body and down at her half-naked body. I guess she’s developed some confidence in the last few seconds seeing me in just shorts because she drops her arms and storms up to me in nothing but her mismatched underwear to yank up the toppled-over tote bag.
“That is a terrible barricade,” I say, looking down at her. “And why is there hot sauce in your bag?” Her braids smack me in the face when she flips her head up. I grunt. “Ouch.”
Mari presses a splayed hand against my chest and looks up at me through her long eyelashes. “Get out.”
The warmth of her palm against my skin is soothing and gentle, a contrast to her sharp tone.
“Why are you showering here?” I ask in an attempt to prolong her touch a little longer.
Her eyes narrow. “Mind your business,” she says defensively.
Her hands remain on my chest and curl slowly into fists. My heart beats just a little bit harder than it should at the feel of them on my skin.
“This shower is terrible,” I whisper.
“Go away, Kas.”
I step back to exit, preparing my next words to be another apology. “I—”
“Out!” Her shout reverberates against the worn tiles of the shower room and then quiets briefly before someone yells the same word from the gym floor. Mari looks past me, and I snap my head in the same direction. “What was that?” she asks.
“Get out of my fucking gym!”
That’s Bill’s voice.
I snatch a sundress Mari has placed on the hook next to the door and gently toss it at her. She catches it and starts hastily dressing.
“Wait for me!” she calls.
I slow my wide steps and enter the gym floor.
“Out!” Bill barks. His weathered hand points at regular gym member, Michael.
“What the fuck, Bill?” Michael puts his hands up in gentle surrender, and his thinning hair moves sharply with every defiant shake of his head.
“What the fuck is going on?” I call.
Bill angles himself toward me and that’s when I spot it: Michael’s opened gym bag is in Bill’s left hand, and a baggie full of steroids and needles is in the other.
Dash steps forward and places himself between Bill and Michael.
“There’s no excuse for this,” Bill says.
His face is so red with anger that it spreads to his bald head and makes his white goatee appear luminescent.
“I—” Michael starts, looking around desperately at me and Dash.
I guess he’s hoping one of us will defend him for bringing steroids into the gym.
“Don’t even think about lying. Why the fuck are you bringing Tren into my gym? And how were you stupid enough not to consider bag checks?” Bill shouts.
He’s implemented random checks ever since he caught another gym member injecting shit into his ass in the men’s changing room. I guess Michael thought he could avoid the check with an hour left of the gym being open.
Instead of accepting that he’s been caught out, he snaps his head to each of us. “Bag checks, still? This place has changed,” he sneers. “You’ve all fucking changed!”
He makes a point of glaring at Mari who has now inched closer to my side.
“Changed? What’s the number one rule here?” Bill asks. Michael looks between all of us, the tattoo on his temple bulging from the angry vein traveling through it. Bill doesn’t fight in his older age, but right now, he looks ready to choke out Michael. “Look at me,” Bill hisses. “What rule?”
“No gear,” Michael submits with an angry growl.
“There you go. Now get the fuck out.”
Michael’s chest heaves with fury, his face turning beet red by the second. He pins me with a hateful gaze. “I’d recommend you do more regular bag checks. I wouldn’t be surprised if golden boy over there is injecting shit too, everyone is.”
“Oh, give it a fucking rest, you roid-head,” Dash says.
Michael’s always been a jealous fuck. Envious of strength that is much more natural than his.
“I’d be happy to do a drug test right now, and if you’re suspicious of me, you’re more than welcome to watch me piss in the sample tube too,” I shout.
Mari whips her head to me and curls her lip so violently, I can almost feel how disgusted she is at my crudeness.
“I told you to get the fuck out!” Bill shouts, urging Michael back to the doors with his body.
Michael bares his teeth at all of us and leaves, kicking the door in the process. He sends several webbed cracks through it and one large hole where his foot penetrates the glass.
We watch him speed out of the parking lot with a screech moments later, and when his car is out of sight, Mari and Dash turn to me.
“Watch me piss?” they say simultaneously, Mari in disgust and Dash in amusement.
I shrug; the words felt natural in the moment.
“Two. That’s two people I’ve had to kick out of my gym in two months for taking steroids. Are they in the fucking water or something?” Bill fumes.
His reaction seems dramatic, but many fighters he used to train with throughout the ’80s and ’90s ended up passing away at a young age thanks to unregulated steroid use and naive desperation to be the biggest and strongest in the room.
Davina emerges from the back ready to leave for her final in-state prenatal appointment, completely oblivious to the argument with Michael until she takes notice of the shattered door.
“What is going on here?” she asks. She flings her head back to move some hair away from her eye.
“Bill found Michael with gear,” Dash explains. He walks back to an area of the gym with weights dotted around the ground—his messy way of reorganizing them.
“Was that what the shouting was? I thought you boys were messing around again.” She nods to the entrance. “Is the door guilty of doping too?”
“Collateral damage,” Mari says.
The sundress she’s changed into adheres to her back where she hasn’t dried off properly. I don’t know what I prefer, her in a sundress or mismatched underwear.
“Okay, well, Dash can sort it out. Oh, and the speaker, remember? I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” Davina waves dismissively over her shoulder and uses the non-smashed-up door to exit.
Dash jogs up to her, his shoes crunching on the glass as he sticks his head out of the remaining gym door. “Sort it out? I clock out in an hour!” he shouts into the parking lot.
“I’ll pay you overtime!” Davina calls back.
“With what money?”
Dash’s snarkiness is met with Davina’s loud laugh and a middle finger out of the roof of her old convertible as she drives out of the lot.
Bill doesn’t speak for the next few minutes, silently fuming as Mari packs up her laptop and I help Dash tidy the weights.
“Kacper.” Bill beckons me to the reception desk with his gold signet ring glaring regally under the gym’s lights. It’s hard to know how Bill feels because most of his expressions merge into one cryptic frown. “When you came into this gym, you were dealing with grief and you weren’t taking care of yourself. You needed direction and I gave it to you.”
I nod as I stand in front of him, the worry lines on his forehead deepening.
When I met Bill at nineteen, the first thing he said to me was to fuck off or stop taking anabolics. At his request, I fucked off and stopped using. A couple of weeks later, I returned with a training plan so abysmal, Bill rectified it to the point of asking Davina to come up with a meal plan for me too. Other than Devon, BD GYM saved my life following my mom’s passing.
“What’s wrong?” I ask Bill.
“This whole Michael thing has pissed me off, so I’m only going to say this once.” He places his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly grasp. “This fight isn’t an excuse to start doping again. Do you understand?”
I hate when Bill brings this up. He’s old school and likes to keep us members in check with firm reminders and age-old rules stuck on the reception desk for all to see. I make sure to appease him quickly with the answer he expects so this topic can be dropped immediately.
“I understand, coach. Haven’t touched that shit in years.”
“Good man.” Bill smacks my back and starts walking to the office. “Proud of you,” he calls.
Mari’s hanging around the reception desk. She places a water bottle into her tote bag a lot slower than necessary and looks away when she notices me watching her.
I never get embarrassed, and I don’t particularly give a fuck about what others think about me. So why do I feel so self-conscious knowing that Mari has overheard that entire conversation? It was no more than a few exchanged words, but they were vulnerable words.
She hooks her bag onto her shoulder and takes a small step toward me. “Kas, I didn’t mean to overhear.”
Mari looks at me with a gaze so soft, I feel completely exposed to her. My neck heats, and I turn my head so that she can’t see my reddening cheeks. I’m already heading back to the ghost shower to wash away the hot sauce on the floor, my vulnerabilities, and the lingering feeling of Mari’s empathetic gaze on my skin.