Page 24 of For All It's Worth
Chapter Ten
Charlie
WasIdoingtheright thing by working with Max? Would Evan’s words change the way I acted around him?
Keeping away from Max until I had my head sorted out had been my only plan, but out of habit, I’d found myself texting him. I hadn’t meant to offer to come and work for him but Max needed the help and as usual, I just had to be the one to do it. There was no way that I could see him needing something without stepping up to help him out. We’d always been like that. In fact, it would be out of the ordinary if I hadn’t volunteered, or at least that was how I was going to justify my impulsive actions. I could have at least waited until he’d asked for help.
Would it be weird between us, though? Had things changed? We hadn’t been in the same room for three months, since I’d been in the hospital, and that visit had been slightly strained.
Though physically I was now pretty much fully healed, there were mental scars I hadn’t taken into account.
Walking the city had been no problem to me before, but now I was more cautious. I found myself flinching at noises that probably wouldn’t have bothered me before. Instead of putting my earphones in and listening to something as I walked, they were tucked away in my gym bag and I stayed alert. Scanning faces had become a habit when previously, they’d have blurred together. I was fearful where I’d been confident before. Evan had explained that this was a natural reaction to trauma, but I hated it.
Life was separated into before and after, and I knew I had to be grateful that there was an after. I’d nearly been denied that. It didn’t stop me from feeling angry at having my feeling of safety taken away from me.
Forcing my thoughts away from morbid subjects with the notification on maps announcing that I was nearly there, I noticed that I was coming up to the building that housed Henry’s gym that he ran with his sister, Holly. I’d heard some stuff about him and Andy’s other friends in our calls while I was away, but had never had the chance to meet any of them.
The calls with Andy were a real surprise. He was acting as a bridge between me and my brother, but I honestly felt like I could count him as one of my own friends. I had so few decent ones these days, so God knew I could do with more, especially ones who were as sweet as Andy.
Now that he and Will were engaged, I knew that Andy had asked Pete, another of his gym friends, to be his best man. There’d be no chance of meeting Pete soon since he was away traveling. I recalled that there had been some sort of issue between him and Henry after the engagement party and decided to keep my nose out of that. My life had enough drama without borrowing someone else’s.
Andy still went to the gym, and as far as I knew, the issue between Pete and Henry hadn’t moved into the other friendships in the group aside from some minor tension.
There’d been a bio about the trainers at Henry’s place, Farmer’s Fitness, and I’d read about Henry being in the army and losing half his leg. Due to that, they had focused programs on rehabilitation after injury, which was ideal for me. While the wound was closed, the muscle around it wasn’t quite finished healing. I’d thought that I’d brush it off after a week and be done, but apparently, stab wounds took longer than that to properly heal. Plus, I’d had cracked ribs to baby. Recovery had been hampered by my malnutrition and blood loss which also took time to get over.
Months in the center, decent food and light exercise had done wonders, but I was sure I’d pulled something or just not been ready when I’d used their gym facilities, because even though I’d had visible changes, I had aches and pains that I didn’t think I should have.
Approaching the reception desk, I caught the attention of the woman there. Objectively, she was beautiful, all dark curls and tawny skin with stunning warm brown eyes and a dusting of freckles over her nose, though she did nothing for me. Women, in general, didn’t. She must have caught my lack of interest and she gave me a pleasant, welcoming smile as she flipped her braids of dark hair over her shoulders, her long bangs were unbraided, leaving some curls to frame her face.
“Welcome to Farmer’s Fitness. I’m Holly, how can I help you today?”
“Hey Holly, I’m Charlie, Will’s brother. I think there should be a booking in the system for an orientation with Henry for me.”
“Will’s brother? Yeah, he called to say you’d be coming in. He wanted to check that you’d noted the recent injury on your application.” Holly looked at the screen in front of her, clicking away and then scanning the information there. “I see that you did note it, that’s great.” She gave me an approving smile. “It’s not just for insurance reasons. We can’t do too much with you at first if there’s still healing going on. It could set you back otherwise.” Her explanation made sense and was probably the reason that I was feeling achy after the center’s facilities. No one had been on hand to make up programs. I’d learned how to use the machines by using YouTube on my phone once it had been returned to me.
I wondered vaguely if they had a feedback process because someone needed to monitor their gym there, ideally someone that knew their shit.
Movement from the gym floor caught my attention. A man with similar golden brown skin to Holly approached and I guessed that he was Henry. He wore his hair close-cropped, similar to what it would have been like in the military. His uniform was a black tank and shorts with the gym’s logo on, his gait slightly off with the prosthesis that replaced his lower right leg. I noticed some scarring on his right side, along his arm and hand. When his tank gaped open, I could see some tattoos going up along his ribs and I wondered if those were to cover more marks from his injury.
It was pretty cool to me that he had an air of confidence about his leg and scars and didn’t seem to care if anyone was looking at him. I wasn’t sure how much of that was bravado; it must have bothered him at some point if he’d gone to the trouble of covering some of the scars with tattoos. Still, though, I respected the hell out of him for it.
As a teen, I’d had a teacher that had lost his arm and I’d been fascinated with the different options he had as a replacement. The prosthesis that he’d favored hadn’t been nearly as cool as Henry’s leg. It had been heavy and uncomfortable with how it attached to what was left of his arm, he’d admitted. Taking it off was similar to taking off an ill-fitting bra, he’d joked to our class. We’d laughed at the time, not knowing much better, but I could see how he had put up with it to attempt to look “normal” in passing as parents and classmates had made comments about his other, lighter, prosthetics. He had probably put up with a lot of discomfort and some pain in order to keep his job.
Henry caught the direction of my stare and frowned. Shit. Hardly the impression I wanted to be making. I decided just to own it. “Sorry man,” I shrugged. “I think your leg is cool is all. I had a teacher with a prosthesis and it wasn’t nearly as badass looking as that.”
My words must have caught Henry off guard as he seemed to be ready to go on the defensive. He stuttered for a second, chuckling briefly, and gave me a “Thanks?” before pasting on a professional smile. “You Charlie?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Great, let’s go get you through the paperwork, and then we’ll go over some of the equipment and some useful exercises for you.”
Holly handed him over a folder with the freshly printed documents I’d filled in online. It didn’t take us long to go through them with Henry warming up to me as we chatted. He took me through some stretches before starting a basic routine that he thought would suit me well.
I laughed at his stories of Will and Andy, even when I didn’t need to know the details of my brother’s sex life, and soon I felt at ease with Henry, like I’d known him a long time.
My muscles burned by the time we’d finished up and Henry encouraged me to make use of the steam room and sauna at the back of the building. The place was pretty well kitted out with a wide variety of machines and a separate area for women to work out. I was more than a little impressed and a tad intimidated by the guy with such a great setup.
Taking him up on his suggestion, I found myself sitting surrounded by steam, letting the warmth soak into me. It was relaxing for sure but it was also giving me too much time with my thoughts. I wondered how the next day was going to go with working for Max. I knew he was an easy-going boss, one of those that wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. He hated to be stuck in the office, opting to do paperwork at the book counter or taking it home.
