Page 12 of Lord of the Lock

“Mum will be home in an hour, and you said you were fine with me going out when I mentioned it yesterday,” I rebutted.

Logic didn’t matter. My father just rolled his eyes and looked back to the TV. “Who is it you’re going out with anyway?”

“I’m training with Finn. He’s helping me get fit.”

“And Finn is…” my father asked, still not taking his eyes from the TV. “Five, SMILE.”

“Finn is…” I hesitated. Surely it couldn’t hurt to spread the white lie exactly as we’d intended to. “Finn is my boyfriend. And there are two S’s on the board. You’re missing an easy six. SMILES.”

“Typical.” He tore his eyes from the TV again. “So that man is your…boyfriend?” he asked. “How come we’ve never met him properly?”

“Because Mum works ridiculous hours, and you’ll only leave the house to go to the Eagle,” I said, not exactly lying. “Anyway, it’s early days. I don’t want to jinx things.”

“Well don’t mess up like you did with the last rugby player,” he said.

That stung. Thatreallystung. “Bye, then.”

“GROPES, six letters,” was the only reply.

I grabbed my bag from the hallway and left through the front door. My arms still hurt from the workout two days before, but the exercise with Finn had got my endorphins running. I had so many bad memories of PE in school, and so few happy memories of exercise, that it genuinely surprised me how good it could feel to get a sweat on.

I was nervous about Finn’s insistence on showering afterwards, and the thought had brought back some less happy feelings from my school days and beyond, and all the crap that had caused me to want to leave Pont in the first place.

The mixture of feelings, good and bad, followed me all the way to Pont’s ground. I didn’t have as many reservations about this place as I did Pandy’s. Pandy’s had a whole other side to it that I’d be happy to never see again.

“You came back!” Finn shouted from across the gym as the door closed behind me.

“Didn’t think I would?”

“I once had Rhys Prince, rugby star, on the ropes after a tough session and he said he never wanted to see me again. So you’ve got more staying power than the Welsh Prince of Rugby.”

“What of Welsh rugby are you, then?” I joked as I got closer to Finn’s massive frame. He was wearing a tank top with deliberate ragged rips down the side which did very little to cover him up in any way, but if I had a body like his I wouldn’t be covering up either. He wasn’t as ripped as I’d expect from all the exercise, I knew that from accidentally walking in on him in the changing rooms — but he had broad shoulders, arms that could crush boulders and thighs and calves that wouldn’t be out of place in a watermelon-crushing ASMR TikTok video.

“I’d be the…clown of Welsh rugby, I guess,” Finn said. “I just want to see people smile. And I fucking clowned my way out of a career too. Oh well. Shit happens. Oh, and they used to call me Lord of the Lock. Because I’m fantastic in the air.”

He smiled then, but it didn’t crinkle the sides of his eyes like I’d seen them do before. I understood then how people talked about smiles that didn’t reach the eyes.

“What’s the order of the day then?”

“Well, I’m going to make you wish you were never born,” replied Finn with a devilish smile. Something like that might have made me run for the hills before. But Finn was the first valleys rugby player I’d ever met that made me feel more safe than intimidated. The fact that he could turn any sadness into a joke, or that his innuendos seemed more equal-opportunity than predatory, just drew me in.

He turned to an intimidating looking machine and laid down on it before bunching his legs up to press against a plate. I could see he’d set the scales at 250kg and started pushing his legs outward. “The one thing you don’t want to do…” he started, sweat beading as he pushed his legs forward and back, “is lock your legs. That could hurt. So just bring your knees back to your chest, and push forward until they’re almost straight, but not quite. OK?” He jumped off the machine and gestured for me to get on. He was smiling, but his legs were already shaking.

I nodded, and got into the seated position with my legs up like he had. I pushed hard, temples popping, and couldn’t move the plate an inch.

“Whoops, let me just…” Finn moved the pin upward. “Let’s try 80kg, ten reps, and we can move on up to see if we hit your limit.”

With a little strain, I got ten reps done. And after Finn had another go with his colossal weight I managed another ten on with an extra ten kilograms of weight. Finally, I strained my way through 100kg, sweat beading up on my forehead even faster than it had on arm day.

“Well done!” Finn held his arm up for a high five and I had to jump to reach it. What followed was less fun — as it turned out, leg day could be very,verypunishing. But an hour later as we finished a ‘gentle’ ten minute walk on a stair machine, with my legs like jelly, I was glad I’d done it. Because my body felt energised, my mind clear.

“Good job today, mate.” Finn stepped forward for a hug and I took a step backward to avoid him. Much as he was feeling like a safe space, there was something that still made me feel uncomfortable in a situation where I couldn’t escape.

Finn, as always, was completely unaware of my panic, and he just sniffed at his armpit instead. “Oh yeah, good call. No hugs ‘til we’ve showered, ey. And no hugs in the shower. You might be my fake boyfriend but I don’t want you trying it on!”

He laughed and walked over towards the changing rooms, yanking his vest off before he’d even gotten to the door. I steeled myself for a second before following. School had left me with some stupid insecurities, but I could do it. I could face up to a shower with a man who so far hadn’t judged me at all.

When I stepped into the changing rooms, the shower was already running and the shower block was filled with steam. Despite the modern facilities everywhere else, the shower block was the old fashioned open kind with no cubicles or privacy. I could see Finn in one corner through the steam, and as far as I could see he was facing away from me. I took my glasses off which blurred things just a little bit more, and stripped before I could change my mind.

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