Page 42 of Rock Pucking Bottom

"Do shifts in your sleep happen a lot?"

He shook his head. "Not too often. I used to have a lot more night terrors, and unfortunately, when I get too stressed out, I shift. If I'm not lucid and stop the shift in time, I go full wolf. One of my biggest fears was where I blow it and shifted against my will. It's one of the reasons I self-medicated so much on the ice. I wanted to be numb, so I didn't do anything stupid."

I frowned, but it made a lot of sense.

"What changed though? I know you hit rock bottom, but how are you controlling your stress now? I don't think we talked about that."

He scratched his beard and looked away. He was having some sort of mental debate about what he was going to say, which meant he was probably going to tell me something that shouldn't exist.

He sighed and pulled out the large chain that dangled on his neck. "Dino whipped this up to help to quiet the senses, and I decided I didn't care if guys thought I was weird for adorning my noise canceling headphones and earplugs. I probably should have done that a lot sooner. It's easier than the alcohol."

Guys liked to wear chains, so I never thought that could be anything more than a necklace.

"Yeah. Most things are easier in the long run."

Chapter 36

Eoghan

Walkingintothegym,I was struck by two things: the undeniable funk caused by body odor that only exists at gyms mixed with disinfectant and loud rap music. I'd grown to hate the music selections by the Spencers. Although given how extremely loud the bass was, this had to mean that Spencer Suzuki was at the helm.

"Yo! Look who's here," shouted Scuba from the squat rack at the far side of the gym.

In the corner, Spencer Suzuki spotted Scuba from the side, while Carter Carmichael sat on the bench to get his reps in. Spencer Levine would normally be with the four of us, but he was absent.

I didn't think he was leaving town so soon, since his trip was planned for next week. It was weird that he wasn't there, unless he was the getting surgery soon.

I did one of those lazy waves to acknowledge that I saw and heard them, but I needed to drop off my stuff first. I stuffed my gym bag in one of the cubbies but pulled out my towel and wrist straps. I looked at my noise cancelling headphones longingly, but stopped myself. If I wanted that A on my sweater this season, I needed to be social, which meant I couldn't be hiding all the time.

I learned from my time at the Wild, I could be quiet, but I couldn't be unapproachable. So I kept the headphones off.

I put on the wrist straps and walked over to the squat rack next to Scuba. I loaded up the plates with about 350 lbs of weight. It was a fair amount of weight for anyone who wasn't from the Wild.

Cartsy came over to help spot me. "Really. You're going to start with that?"

I shrugged and got myself lined up. I focused on my form to make sure that I was getting nice and deep into the squat and did a rep of ten before putting the bar back in place.

"Freaking show off. If you even try to insinuate that you're rusty or this was nothing, I'm going to smack you." Cartsy didn't let up.

I chuckled as I got out of the way. "Is this your way of saying that you want me to take off some weight?"

I waited at the side of the bar for him to say yes, but instead, he simply just grabbed the bar and got into position. His reps weren't quite as deep, and his breathing was labored as he did the last two squats. But he managed the full rep and racked the bar.

I immediately went to the bar to do my next set. I always liked to include a couple extra squats, so this time, I did fifteen.

Carter just shook his head as we swapped roles and said, "I'm only doing ten. This is almost my max weight."

"Never said you had to match me. This is my normal conditioning." Then I turned my head in a way that canines always do when they are thinking about something. I chided my inner wolf for showing off. "Ohhh. Your competitor is coming out to play."

Suzuki looked over at us, "Yeah, Cartsy can't pass up a challenge if he creates it in his own mind. Just do you."

I nodded.

I watched Carter with him doing his rep, but he lied. He went ahead and did the fifteen squats.

Not wanting to kill my captain, I stayed with the fifteen squats for the last rep for this set. It was quite easy, and my breathing stayed steady throughout.

Cartsy just shook his head as we swapped roles. I wanted to hold my hand out to actively squat, but I didn't want to offend him. So I just prayed I didn't have to show off my rapid reflexes. Thankfully, he just paced himself and cheated a little by not getting into that full squat.

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