Page 6 of Scarlet Vows
Working out is… Well, when I was young, I hated it. Hated the discipline of getting up and lifting weights, running, boxing, all the shit I have to do to attain fitness, peak condition.
It always seemed like a boring chore, something akin to punishment. But the longer I did it, the more I found a place of comfort in it. A way to work out anger and fear, to work off the shackles of a traumatic childhood.
It held and still holds a place of Zen.
When we do classes it makes me better, soothes the edges, just like us meeting to do our own free-style workouts.
For Isaak, I’m sure he finds the same thing, a way to work off the stress of his life.
Once I dreaded getting up before dawn to hit the gym or take a class in martial arts or defense. Now? I look forward to it all.
“Maybe I should call you out for missing our session last week,” Isaak says, starting up the treadmill. “Because fuck, man, you were grumpy the next morning.”
“That was out of my control,” I mutter.
I had an all-nighter staking out a warehouse where trouble had gone down. Merchandise going missing, books “balanced” but lighter than they should have been.
It ended in a 6:00 a.m. shootout and an interrogation that took up an hour more so we could root out the core of the problem.
Demyan’s in Russia with his young family for a couple of months. And the rats always think they can come out and play when he’s gone.
That’s stopped.
But yeah, I had to miss a day of working out. I had to break my routine.
And that drives me almost insane.
Like the other time I fucking got shot. Almost dying, hooked up to machines, and forced to stay in bed had nothing on the anxiety and irritation of not hitting the gym.
A disrupted routine is like being shot.
Fuck, me dealing with that probably makes most of those who have to put up with me wish I’d shoot them.
But if I’m not happy, why should they be happy?
I almost smile. Because yeah, I once heard one of the maids mutter she wished I’d just shoot her instead of snipe at her.
But…it’s something I’m working on.
The bonus of routine in the early hours is I get to spend it with Isaak. We don’t get to hang out as much as we’d like due to our super busy lives.
“Work,” I say, “sucks.”
“Same with me,” he says, huffing a little.
We lapse into banter, sporadic bursts of conversation that help the time pass until our two-hour gym session is up.
When I can’t meet him at the exclusive gym we’re members of, I’ll use the home gym at Demyan’s mansion.
Sometimes, I’ll do a lighter afternoon or evening session there just to keep an eye on Alina, Demyan’s sister, the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.
After our cooldown, I flick my towel and hit Isaak’s legs. “When are you going to find a girl, man?”
“Me? Too busy. What about you?”
Again, Alina appears in my head, that dark, long hair, like the color of wheat at midnight. The waves frame her face, and her summer-blue eyes sparkle when she’s happy, the hazel hidden there moving in like a storm when her mood changes. When her heart breaks.
“No time.”
