The car’s interior smells like overripe bananas and the sweat from my palms soaking into the steering wheel. I’m parked at the far edge of the lot, boxed in by an Escalade on one side and a small electric coupe with the kind of matte finish that says, “I care about the world, but only after myself.” The gym squats at the end of the row, glass-fronted and glowing, every angle designed to display the people inside. From here, they’re mannequins, or the first wave of post-human androids: long legs, perfect arcs of muscle, the expensive invisibility of unblemished skin. Each one enters through the revolving door like it’s a portal to a better species. My hands shake on the steering wheel. I tell myself it’s because of the coffee, but it’s been hours since I choked down the last cup.
There’s still time to leave. I could reverse out, blame traffic, blame work, blame a dog that doesn’t exist. But the gym’s website made the promise clear: first visit free, no pressure, “a nonjudgmental space for transformation.” Like some sort of secular baptism. I try to remember why I signed up, but all I get is the sensation of my stomach cramping, the taste of old humiliation crowding my mouth.
Somewhere in the car’s undercarriage, a relay ticks and echoes. I’m hyper-aware of every minute sound: sneakers squeaking on glass, a passing cyclist’s laughter clipped by the wind, my own pathetic sigh leaking out as I stare at my reflection in the rearview. I look like a hostage. The only thing worse than staying is going inside.
I flick my thumb against the seam of the steering wheel, then I see her again—my ex, contorted in the bedsheets, hair fanned out like a bonfire, her head tilted back in a way that used to moan my name. But not this time. That was the betrayal, the freeze-frame my brain can’t stop replaying. Her mouth opening for someone else’s fingers, her laugh going liquid and ugly when she finally noticed me standing there. The version of me in that memory is thin and slow, as if I’m watching through a Vaseline lens. My own voice echoes back—“Are you serious?”—pitched so high it almost cracks. She doesn’t even bother to cover up. The guy sits up, meets my eyes, shrugs like he’s bored. That’s the moment that sticks, not her betrayal, but the certainty in his face. A look that says: we both knew this was coming.
My shirt is damp under the arms, and my chest feels wrapped in baling wire. I have to move or I’ll drown. I yank the keys, shove them in my pocket, and open the door with more force than necessary. The parking lot air is thick and citrusy, already humid at 7:12 a.m. I shoulder my duffel bag and try to walk with the bored, unconscious confidence of the regulars. It’s all for nothing; the automatic doors see right through me.
The lobby is an architectural flex: floor-to-ceiling windows, polished concrete floors, eucalyptus hanging in a glass bowl by reception. The place hums with curated chill, the lighting so diffused and deliberate it might as well be mood stabilizers for the eyes. I follow the posted arrows to the locker room, counting the steps to keep from losing my nerve. Twenty-three steps, not counting the ones where I trip a little, catching my toe on nothing. Inside, a row of lockers like upright coffins, each one displaying a little digital keypad. There’s a man with his head draped in a white towel, flicking through his phone, his calf muscles flexing as he leans to pull something from his bag. I can’t tell if he even notices me.
Locker selected, bag stowed, I peel off my shirt and force myself to look in the mirror above the sinks. The skin on my face is already pinking up, and a bead of sweat is drawing a precise, humiliating line down my sternum. I see what anyone would see: a swimmer’s build, gone slightly soft at the edges, collarbones prominent enough to hang a coat on, dark hair cut too short to hide the nervous fidgeting of my scalp. My body remembers being in shape, but it doesn’t show it.
There’s no more stalling. Out in the main gym, the geometry of the place is overwhelming. Every machine is brushed steel and understated menace; the weights are racked in color-coded order, their numbers shining like highway signs. Even the treadmills are arranged in military rows, as if they might deploy at any moment and race each other into oblivion.
I clock the regulars immediately. The guy with the face of an aging child actor, blond hair held back by a bandana and a jawline sharp enough to threaten liability. The older woman in compression tights, her movements smooth and economical, like she was engineered for this exact purpose. A couple doing synchronized burpees, neither breaking rhythm, the woman counting out each rep in a voice that’s somehow both steely and maternal.
I don’t see anyone like me, so I keep my head down and find the bench press. I have no plan, no program, just a vague hope that I can shock my body into a new reality. I slap on a pair of twenties, feel the adrenaline spike, then add another ten on each side. Seventy pounds total, which is either brave or stupid depending on who you are. I’m not sure what I am yet.
The vinyl on the bench is cold, even through my shorts. I grip the bar, try to center my hands on the knurled sections like they showed in high school. My breathing is uneven, and my right knee bounces under the bench. In my head, I’m already imagining the lift: the bar rising smoothly, the weights gliding upward like I’m transcending physics. In reality, the first unrack nearly pulls my arms out of their sockets.
I lower the bar, elbows trembling, and get it down to my chest with a noise like a punctured balloon. On the way up, the bar stalls six inches above my sternum. My arms shake so violently that the left side drops, tilting the bar dangerously toward my head.
This is the moment when I know: I can’t do it. I’m going to die here, crushed by my own stupidity, in front of the synchronized couple and the woman with the eucalyptus-scented sweat. My brain cycles through its last few regrets: not calling my mom last night, leaving the cat’s water dish half-empty, getting dumped by someone I wasn’t supposed to even care about.
I’m about to call out—some silent, pleading noise—when a pair of hands closes on the bar, steady as a metronome. They’re tattooed, dark ink threading over the knuckles and along the forearms, up to a rolled cuff of a shirt that doesn’t even try to hide them. The hands move with such surgical certainty that for a moment I think I’m hallucinating.
“Breathe,” a voice says, low and matter-of-fact.
I do. I inhale like I’ve never tasted air before, and my muscles obey, the panic draining out through my fingertips. The stranger guides the bar upward, but not for me—they’re making sure I do the work, but that I don’t die in the process.
“One more inch,” the voice commands.
I grind out the last effort, and the bar finds the rack with a satisfying, metallic click.
I collapse back, my vision a swirl of blue spots. I register, in pieces: the sweat matting my hair, the tremor in my hands, and above me, the owner of the voice.
He’s not one of the regulars. Early to mid thirties, maybe, with olive skin and hair clipped close to the scalp. The tattoos are a blackwork riot, geometric and almost ceremonial, stark against his forearms. His eyes are dark, not just in color but in how they watch me, like he’s taking inventory. He offers a hand and I shake it.
“You good?” he says. “I’m Roman.”
I nod, too winded to answer. My pulse feels like it’s being conducted by a toddler with a mallet. “Nate.”
He doesn’t smile, but the corners of his mouth twitch, as if he’s entertained but trying not to let on.
“Careful next time. Form before ego.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out as a cough. “Noted.”
He moves on, not in a hurry but with the economy of someone who knows exactly where he’s going. I sit up, still shaking, and realize I’ve just been rescued by the kind of guy I usually resent: muscular, self-assured, so at ease in his body that he could probably deadlift the building. Except there was nothing showy about him, no taunt or smirk. Just competence, pure and simple.
I wipe down the bench, avoid eye contact with everyone, and duck into the bathroom. In the stall, I count to sixty, willing my heart rate to crawl back below “ambulance.” The tile here is so clean it looks digital. I stare at the veins in my forearms, still thrumming, and try to remember the exact feeling of those hands on the bar. Strong, patient, completely in control. For one second, someone else had my life in their hands, and it was—relieving? Humbling? I don’t know the word. All I know is that I want it again, if only to prove that I’m not just a body waiting to fail.
When I come out, the guy is gone, like he was conjured for the sole purpose of saving me from myself. My reflection in the mirror is different now: wild-eyed and raw, but somehow cleaner, like the panic burned off the rest of the bullshit.
I re-rack the weights, this time using the correct amount. My second set is unremarkable, just controlled up and down, but the room seems quieter, the edges softer. I can almost imagine a version of myself who belongs here.
Maybe that’s the whole point. You get crushed, and if you’re lucky, someone pulls you back up.
I shower, change, and leave without looking back. In the parking lot, the world feels normal again, the car unlocked and waiting. I sit for a moment, hands steady now, and stare at the gym’s glass face. I try to picture the man with the tattooed forearms—his expression, the precision of his movements—but his features blur at the edges, a trick of adrenaline and memory.
I think about the word he used: ego. I carry it with me all day, heavier than any barbell. But not as heavy as the feeling that, for a few seconds, I let myself be vulnerable, and nothing terrible happened.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll see him again. Maybe I’ll even thank him.
Or maybe I’ll just keep showing up, one failed rep at a time, until I learn to spot myself.
I wake up two hours before my alarm, so restless that the sheets are twisted around my legs like I tried to Houdini myself in the night. I consider staying in bed, stewing in my own mental marinade, but every time I close my eyes I feel the barbell hanging over me, my arms failing, my whole body braced for collapse.
Instead, I get up, shower, and pace the apartment while the coffee brews. I tell myself that it’s not about seeing him again. That I just want to get the bench press right, avoid another public meltdown. That maybe, if I move fast enough, I can outrun the memory of that bedroom scene—her hair, his hands, the exact color of the sheets I still own because I can’t afford to replace them. But it’s a lie so transparent I don’t even bother finishing the thought.
It’s just past six when I park outside the gym. No banana stench in the car this time, just the faint ghost of my deodorant and the engine tick-cooling in the early chill. The place is quieter than yesterday, most of the spaces empty, the lobby half-lit like the set of a morning show before the anchors arrive. The windows are fogged a little, catching the neon script of the building across the street and stretching it into neon scars.
At the reception desk, the same guy from yesterday gives me a nod, eyes flicking up from his phone for barely a second. I wonder if he recognizes me from my dramatic almost-death, but if he does, he doesn’t let it show. I scan in, ignore the scale by the lockers, and change quickly, pulling on a faded university t-shirt and shorts I bought before college actually started. The shirt hangs looser than it used to. I can’t decide if that’s a victory.
Out on the gym floor, there’s a different ecosystem at this hour. The regulars are replaced by the truly committed: a sprinter doing treadmill intervals so violent it’s like he’s running from a murder, an older man doing slow-motion pushups with the eerie tranquility of a monk, and—at the far end, by the squat racks—him.
Roman. The guy from yesterday. He’s wearing a sleeveless compression shirt this time, which is probably illegal in three states. His tattoos are more visible now, running up from his wrists to disappear under the fabric, blackwork and bands and something that might be a caduceus or maybe just a snake. He’s got earbuds in, head lowered, but there’s nothing casual about how he lifts. Every rep is exact, almost angry, like he’s chiseling himself out of stone and resenting every flaw.
I try not to stare, but there’s a centripetal pull every time I look away. He racks the bar, wipes his hands, and for a second our eyes lock in the mirror. His expression is flat, unreadable, but the corner of his mouth twitches in a way that feels like punctuation: I see you.
I head for the bench, trying not to overthink it. I load up the same weights as yesterday—not as a challenge, just as a test of whether I can even manage it alone. The first set goes okay, but on the second rep my arms start to betray me. I’m halfway up when I feel the familiar wobble, my triceps shaking, my chest screaming at me to abort. For a fraction of a second, I picture the news headline: LOCAL MAN DIES OF EGO.
But before the panic can settle, he’s there. I didn’t even hear him approach, but his shadow blocks the overhead lights and his hands hover just under the bar, not touching but ready.
“Got you,” he says, not so much reassuring as inevitable.
With that, I can do it. He doesn’t intervene, just tracks the bar with surgeon’s precision as I finish the set. When I rack the weight, I’m soaked in sweat and breathing like I ran a 5k. He stands behind the bench, arms crossed, watching me with an intensity that makes the rest of the gym recede into blur.
“Form’s better,” he says. “You just need a spot on the last rep.”
I want to say something cool, or even just human, but all I manage is, “Yeah. Thanks.” My voice cracks on the word “thanks,” and I want to crawl behind the kettlebells and disappear.
He leans down, wipes a bead of sweat from his eyebrow with the back of his hand. Up close, he smells like clean laundry and cedar. His jawline could be used to calibrate scientific instruments. “Let me show you something,” he says, voice pitched so low that I feel it in my stomach.
He takes the bar, loads it with a plate, then demonstrates: controlled lowering, elbows tucked, feet planted. His muscles move like a slow-motion crash, nothing wasted. “You’re letting your back arch. Keep it flat. Tension in the glutes. Like this.”
He motions for me to try again, and this time he stands behind the bench, his hands bracketing the bar. As I lower the weight, I feel his palm brush my shoulder blade, adjusting me by millimeters.
“Good. Now breathe.”
The word hangs between us, thicker than air. I do as he says, filling my lungs, and the bar moves easier. There’s a weird relief in surrendering to his instructions, like my body wants to be told what to do.
We work through another set, and every correction is a new point of contact: his fingertips on my lats, the heel of his hand steadying my wrist, the heat of his knee nudging my stance wider. He doesn’t make a show of it—no lingering, no weirdness—but the effect is cumulative. By the end, my skin is a live wire, every muscle wound tight with something I can’t name.
“You’re getting it,” he says, and for the first time I catch the ghost of a smile, gone as quickly as it came.
He moves to a nearby machine, but after each of his sets he glances back, as if checking up on me. At one point, he brings over a battered water bottle, offers it without comment. I drink, and his eyes linger on my mouth for a split-second before he returns to his own business.
We don’t talk much, just exchange small nods and fragments of advice. It’s the opposite of the gym’s usual posturing—no peacocking, no condescension. If anything, it’s like we’re co-conspirators in some secret project, refining failure into something sharper.
When I’m finished, I head for the mats to stretch. Roman follows, sitting cross-legged next to me, arms draped over his knees. The tattoos make his skin look armored, and up close I can see the scars peeking through: old burns, little white lines, a crescent moon of raised flesh just above his left wrist.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, just watches the rest of the gym with half-lidded eyes. Then, quietly: “You’re coming back tomorrow?”
The question is casual, but the way he says it makes my pulse skip. I nod, suddenly shy. “Yeah. If you’ll spot me.”
He grins for real this time, and it transforms his face—not softer, but more human. “I’ll be here.”
We sit in the silence for a beat, the only sound the whir of fans and distant clank of plates. There’s a static in the air, a possibility I can almost taste.
When I finally get up to leave, he says, “Hey. Don’t load so much next time. It’s not about the numbers. It’s about control.”
“Yeah,” I say, wishing I had something better to offer. “I get that.”
He holds my gaze, and for a second it’s like the rest of the gym stops moving.
“Good,” he says, voice even lower now. “See you tomorrow, Nate.”
In the shower, I replay every detail, every touch and command, trying to decode what just happened. My body is exhausted but wired, my brain spinning with questions. Was this just him being helpful? Or was there something else under the surface, some current I’m too dense to read?
I leave the gym in a daze, the morning air sharp enough to shock me back into my skin. At work, I float through the day, every movement ghosted by the memory of his hands on me. I think about control, about letting go, about the strange safety of being seen and judged worthy—if only for a rep, a set, a few seconds at a time.
That night, I can’t sleep. I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, the phantom pressure of his grip still tingling on my shoulders. For the first time in months, I don’t dream about the bedroom, or the cheating, or the slow-motion collapse of my old life. I just dream of the gym, the barbell suspended above me and Roman’s voice in my ear.
“Breathe.”
The next morning is a crank-and-burn operation: alarm at 5:10, protein bar crumbled into black coffee, the world still stuttering into gear outside my apartment window. I barely sleep, and when I do, it’s a series of body shocks—leg cramp, jaw clenched, always the impression of Roman’s voice like a tattoo behind my eardrum. I count seconds as I brush my teeth. Shower in water cold enough to skin a fish. I’m out the door and parked outside the gym before the first city bus hisses past.
Inside, the lobby is almost tranquil: music low, nobody at the desk, the only light coming from a neon clock and the ambient glow of the vending machine. Roman is already there, of course. He’s prepping weights like a surgeon laying out scalpels—measured, symmetrical, weirdly elegant. He nods at me, says “Nate” like it’s a dare.
I warm up, do a few half-hearted stretches. The rest of the gym is a void, every sound muffled, until I hear the pop of Roman opening his water bottle. He’s waiting at the bench press.
“Go light today,” he says, but the weight is heavier than before.
He spots me through three sets, no commentary except the count and the occasional “Good” when my form doesn’t suck. Sometimes he adjusts me—pressure at the base of my spine, a flat palm guiding my elbow, fingers steady on my wrist. Each time, my skin lights up like a fire alarm.
We finish, both damp and buzzing. For a moment, I think that’s it, he’ll vanish back into whatever life exists outside these walls, and I’ll go home to marinate in my own thoughts until the next morning.
Instead, Roman jerks his head toward the door. “You want a shake?”
I want a lot of things I don’t have words for, so I say, “Sure.”
He leads me across the street, past the coffee place and down a block to a bar that looks like it’s survived at least three economic collapses and a minor shootout. “They open early for trades,” he explains. “Best shakes in town.”
The inside is nothing like I expect. There’s wood everywhere, not the IKEA kind but old, varnished and dark, scarred in places by what look like the boots of someone thrown out by the bouncer and through a table. The seats are worn leather, cracked at the seams but polished by a thousand backsides. Classic rock on the speakers, but low, so you can still hear the scrape of pool cues and the shuffling of newspapers. There are TVs over the bar showing looping highlights, sports memorabilia clustered behind glass, and the distant hum of traffic leaking through the double-paned windows.
Roman motions for a booth in the back, the kind where you can disappear for an hour and nobody will look at you twice. He sits on the inside, which means I have to slide in next to him or else make a big deal of walking around. I pick next to, but leave a respectful gap, afraid I’ll combust if our knees even graze.
He orders for both of us, which would piss me off with anyone else, but when the waiter brings two protein shakes in pint glasses—one tan, one opaque green—I realize he guessed right. Or maybe he just knows everyone’s order and played the odds.
We sit in the booth, the silence more companionable than awkward, at least until I notice the way Roman’s arm stretches across the back of the seat. His forearm, up close, is a roadmap of ink: parallel lines, geometric bands, a single wolf’s head half-hidden by his sleeve. I catch myself staring and snap my eyes down to the table.
“Drink,” he says, nodding at my glass.
I do. The shake is so cold it hurts my teeth, thick enough to qualify as food. It tastes faintly of peanut butter, or maybe something even more basic—like a promise that things will hurt less tomorrow.
Roman drains half his glass in one go, then sits back, observing me with a look that’s halfway between amusement and concern. “So,” he says. “What’s really going on?”
My hands go slick on the pint glass. I try to think of a joke or some piece of camouflage, but the words go right to the truth before I can reroute them.
“My ex,” I say. “I walked in on her. In our bed. With someone else.”
I don’t even hear myself say it, not really, until it’s out in the world. I expect Roman to recoil, or to give me some canned line about how it’s her loss, but he just sits there, jaw working behind a flat expression.
“Shit,” he says, after a beat.
“Yeah.”
“First time that happened?” His tone is neutral, just a data point.
“First time I caught her. I mean, I don’t think she was a serial cheater, but… I guess it doesn’t matter.” I stare at the glass, the condensation forming a perfect equator around my fingers.
Roman nods, like he’s confirming a theory. “That why you started coming to the gym?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think I just wanted to feel… something I could control.”
The words come faster now, as if they’ve been fermenting inside me and are finally pressurized enough to escape.
“I never saw it coming. Not because she was perfect, but because I was so convinced I’d already lost. I thought if I did everything right, she’d just—stay. Like loyalty was this contract you could enforce, if you worked hard enough.”
Roman listens, head tilted, not interrupting. His eyes are dark and bottomless, but they’re locked on mine. I can’t look away.
“I get it,” he says. “That feeling. The whole time, you’re half-waiting for it to collapse.”
He flexes his hand around the glass, knuckles whitening. I wonder how many things he’s wanted to break.
I laugh, but it’s ugly. “I even kept the same sheets. Isn’t that pathetic?”
Roman’s voice is so low it’s almost a growl. “You keep what you survive.”
We’re quiet for a while. I finish my shake, then start picking at the seam of a napkin. The bar’s filling up, but nobody’s looking at us. We’re invisible, a couple of guys in gym clothes, talking like every conversation is a rep you have to push through.
Finally, Roman breaks the silence. “What do you want now?”
I blink. “What?”
“Now,” he repeats, like it’s obvious. “You said you can’t control what happened. So what do you want to control now?”
I want to say “Nothing,” but my body betrays me. My leg bounces under the table, and my mouth moves before my brain is ready. “I want to not think about her. I want to not feel like I’m just the guy who got dumped.”
Roman nods, but he doesn’t look away. “You want to be someone else, or you want to be you without the bullshit?”
I don’t know. “Is that a trick question?”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t have to be. You’re already you. Nobody can take that.”
I look at him, really look, and the sensation is like stepping out on a ledge. There’s no judgment in his face, only a kind of open challenge—if I want to be different, it starts with what I do next.
“Okay,” I say. “I want to get strong. I want to not feel like a walking apology.”
Roman’s mouth quirks at the edge, almost a smile. He pushes my empty glass toward me, the motion sending a ripple through the napkin I’ve shredded.
“Start with this. Give your body something true to do. The rest follows.”
The lights in the bar shift, going warmer as the sun comes up through the window. The noise in my head dims, and for the first time since the breakup, I’m not cataloguing all my failures.
Roman taps his glass against mine, just once, then sets it down. “Tomorrow, same time?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll be here.”
We walk out together, the world louder but somehow lighter. As we cross the street, Roman glances at me, and for a second I think he’s about to say something else. But he just nods, the smallest acknowledgment that I’m still standing, and that’s enough.
At home, I strip the bed. Dump the old sheets in the hamper. I breathe.
Tomorrow, I’ll show up again.
If you do anything enough days in a row, it stops feeling like choice and starts to calcify into something harder, more essential. This is how the next two weeks go: I wake up, I eat, I lift, I sweat, I go to work. I don’t look at her Instagram. I don’t text her, even when my thumb hovers over the last message for an entire bus ride.
The gym is always the same, but also not—the constellations of regulars shifting with the phases of the day. Roman is there every single morning, already warmed up, already locked in. Sometimes he’s working legs, sometimes pull-ups, sometimes just sitting on the stretching mat, hands laced behind his head, breathing slow. He never looks surprised to see me. If I’m late, he clocks it, but never says anything. Just gestures to the bench with his chin and gets into position to spot me.
Our rhythm establishes itself quick, like muscle memory. Roman always loads the bar for me, never too light, never enough to crush me. He adjusts my form with these tiny touches—a fingertip at the small of my back, a knuckle pressed into my lat, the dry scrape of his palm correcting my grip. The first time he brushes the sweat off my brow with the hem of his shirt, I almost drop the bar. It takes a full minute for my heart rate to settle back below “critical.”
He’s not much of a talker during reps. Just counts, one-two-three, sometimes a “steady,” sometimes a “good.” It’s only when we’re walking laps or resting between sets that he opens up a little. At first it’s just gym stuff: how to eat for recovery, tricks for better sleep, what supplements are bullshit and which are only half bullshit. But then he starts telling me about other things—his construction job, his car that’s older than I am, the time he took apart a fridge because the landlord was slow to fix it and ended up putting it back together with parts from an air conditioner.
He never asks about the ex. Not directly. Instead, he asks what I’m doing after, or if I’ve tried the new ramen place, or if I’ve ever been to the weird indie movie theater by the park. Half the time, I don’t know if it’s an invitation or just conversation, so I say no and hope he’ll elaborate. Sometimes he does, sometimes he just files the answer away, expression unreadable.
It gets easier, being there. My posture straightens out—I’m standing taller without even thinking about it. The shakes in my arms start to fade, replaced by this slow-building charge that feels like voltage in my bones. The sore is still there, but it’s a better kind. Earned. When I look in the locker room mirror, I look less like a disaster and more like a person who could survive one.
By the end of the second week, we have our own language. Roman tosses me a towel, I catch it left-handed; he grins like that means something. He snags my water bottle and takes a sip, wiping the rim with his thumb before handing it back. When I get a rep clean and perfect, he slaps my shoulder—a quick, affirming shock that buzzes for minutes after.
There are other people, obviously. A couple of powerlifters who treat every set like the Olympics; a trio of grad students who rotate between machines in a precise, possibly erotic formation; a woman who does yoga on the mats and never wears headphones, content to listen to the gym’s weird soundscape of clanking metal and panting. At first, I’m invisible to all of them. But when Roman and I start working together, the orbit shifts.
I notice glances. Not judgment, exactly—more like curiosity, the way you’d study a dog walking on two legs. The powerlifters nod at Roman, but they watch us, especially when we’re doing anything that requires more than just hands on metal. I caught the yoga woman once, watching us in the mirror. When Roman adjusts my hips during a deadlift, she grins to herself and goes back to her stretches.
There’s an intimacy to it, a choreography that doesn’t have a name. When he corrects me, I flinch less. When he spots me, I let myself trust his hands, let the tension drop from my shoulders and back. Some mornings, it feels like the only time I’m not braced for something to go wrong.
Once, between sets, I make a joke about how the gym is starting to feel like home. Roman doesn’t laugh, but he holds my gaze for a beat too long, like he’s testing to see if I mean it.
“You show up every day,” he says, voice soft but with this undercurrent of gravel. “That’s more than most.”
I shrug. “It’s easier when there’s someone keeping score.”
He looks at me, then away. “You don’t owe me shit. You want it, you work for it. That’s yours.”
I should let it drop, but I don’t. “What about you? Why do you show up?”
Roman’s mouth twitches at the edge. “Same reason as anyone, I guess. If I don’t move, I go crazy.”
The way he says it, I know it’s true. I want to ask more, but the silence that follows feels right, like a space for something else to grow.
The days blur together, in a good way. Every session, a little more trust, a little less noise. By the third week, we’re synced up. We start spotting each other, trading off on sets. If I mess up, Roman corrects me with a look, or a word, or just by showing me how it’s done. I’m getting better at reading him, the way his focus sharpens when he’s in the zone, or how he gets this restless energy after a tough day.
The gym becomes less of a battleground and more of a place I can breathe. It’s not about my ex anymore. I’m not even sure when the thoughts of her stopped being a constant loop, replaced by the discipline of movement, by the heat in my chest and the ache in my arms. And maybe by Roman’s approval, which is a drug I never expected to want.
One night, as we’re winding down, I catch a reflection of us in the glass wall. Roman is stretching, arms overhead, shirt damp and clinging to the planes of his back. I’m next to him, not even pretending to stretch, just watching him in the mirror. He sees me and doesn’t look away.
“Last set,” he says.
I nod, trying to ignore the flush creeping up my neck. “Yeah.”
We finish up, and as we walk out, Roman bumps my shoulder with his. Not hard, just a signal. I don’t even know what it means, but I feel it for hours after, like an aftershock.
At home, I realize it’s been days since I checked her Instagram. Weeks since I thought about the way she looked at me in that last moment. The memory is still there, but it’s not everything. There’s other stuff now—more recent, more alive.
On the last morning of the third week, I wake before my alarm. I lie there in the dark, every muscle a catalog of aches, the anticipation already dialing up my pulse. It’s not just the lift I’m looking forward to. It’s the way Roman will meet me at the door, the way his eyes will flick down my body—appraising, never predatory, but always with this controlled hunger. If I had to name the feeling, I’d call it voltage.
I push myself harder than ever, every set a dare. When I go to the bench, Roman is already waiting, loading plates with the meticulousness of a scientist prepping an experiment. He nods at me, then at the bar. “You up for it?”
I want to impress him, so I lie: “Always.”
The first rep feels easy, the second a little less so, and by the third my arms start to quiver. Roman doesn’t help, not yet. He just counts, slow and steady, his voice a tether. At the last rep, I nearly lose it, the bar dipping before my chest, but his hands are there—steel and certainty, the weight redistributing until I can breathe again. He lets me struggle, but not fail. The lesson is in the difference.
“Good,” he says, and the word lands somewhere deep. “You’re getting stronger.”
I grin, dizzy and shaky, and for a split second I wonder if I’m in love with the pain or just the person who witnesses it.
Today, he’s more physical than usual. He demonstrates a glute bridge, then positions my hips by gripping them in both hands, his thumbs pressing into the bone. It’s not sexual, not overt, but my heart slams so loud I think he can hear it.
We finish the routine, both out of breath. I know I should leave, get to work, but I stall by refilling my water bottle, wiping down the bench twice, stowing and unstowing my bag. Roman stands at the front, arms folded, watching me with that impassive expression.
“Locker room?” he asks.
I nod, suddenly aware of the sweat clinging to my shirt, the salt-sting in my eyes.
The fluorescent lights in the men’s locker room are always too bright, making the air seem even colder. The place is half-empty; only one other guy, who’s already toweling off and getting dressed. I find my locker, dial in the code, and sit on the bench for a minute to catch my breath. My hands are shaking, but I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or adrenaline.
Roman appears at the other end, silent as a ghost. He strips off his shirt in one fluid movement, revealing shoulders broad enough to cast their own weather. His tattoos are even more dramatic in this light—inked shields and runes, a compass, a feathered spine down one arm. He glances at me, then drops his gym shorts, standing there in compression briefs, utterly unbothered.
I look away, only to find myself looking back.
He comes over and sits beside me, not quite touching, but close enough that I feel the heat. For a long time, we just sit. The tile echoes the smallest sound—a zipper, a snap, the breath we’re both holding.
Roman turns, his profile sharp against the cinderblock wall. He looks at my face, then down to my hands—my left, which is still trembling.
“You okay?” he says.
I nod, then shake my head, then laugh. “I think I overdid it.”
He grins. “You’re allowed. You earned it.”
The silence reestablishes, heavy but not uncomfortable. I hear the other guy leave, the door sucking shut with a little pop. We’re alone. My heart does a slow backflip.
Roman leans forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. He doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares at the row of lockers like he’s waiting for them to reveal something. When he speaks, it’s softer than I expect.
“I get if you’re not ready,” he says. “But you ever want to hang out outside this place, I’d be into it.”
I want to say yes so bad it hurts. But there’s a flicker—an image of my ex, her mouth open in laughter, the way she pulled away in the end. I worry for a moment that I’m a rebound even to myself, that this is just a way to fill the vacancy. I don’t want to fuck up whatever this is by wanting too much, too soon.
Roman must sense it, because he gives me a half smile, one corner of his mouth ticked up.
“No rush,” he says. “Just thought I’d put it out there.”
He stands, stretches his arms overhead, and heads for the showers. I watch the muscles move under his skin, the tattoos shifting with each breath. My hands finally stop shaking, replaced by a slow-burn warmth that settles somewhere between my ribs.
I shower and change quick and consider leaving. But I don’t. I wait outside the locker room, staring at a poster of the human muscular system on the opposite wall. The details are all wrong—the biceps too smooth, the abdominals like cartoon bricks. I want to laugh, but it comes out as a sigh.
When Roman comes out, his hair is wet, slicked back. He’s wearing a black t-shirt, stretched tight across his chest, and dark jeans that make him look both dangerous and weirdly approachable. He stops in front of me, close but not crowding.
“Coffee?” he asks. “Or you gotta go?”
For once, I don’t hesitate. “Coffee would be good.”
We walk out together. The sun is just coming up, lighting the windows with a lemony gold. The street is still, but the city’s waking—cars starting, sirens in the distance, the smell of asphalt and fried food from the diner across the block.
Roman leads, and I match his stride. Our arms brush, then separate, then brush again.
The coffee shop is half a block away, but we don’t go in. Roman stops, looks at me, and says, “Actually, I got better stuff at my place. You want to come up?”
I know what he’s asking. I know what it means.
My throat goes dry, but I say, “Yeah. I do.”
His apartment is a few blocks north, above a tattoo shop. The stairs smell like cigarettes and cleaning solution. Inside, it’s all exposed brick and hard edges, but there’s a warmth to it: a shelf of battered books, photos stuck to the fridge with magnets, a battered blue couch under the window. He tosses his keys in a bowl, kicks off his shoes, and gestures for me to sit.
He makes coffee the old-school way—pour-over, careful, almost ritualistic. I watch his hands, the veins and scars, the way he measures out the grounds. When he hands me a mug, our fingers touch, and the contact is electric.
We talk, or at least pretend to. The conversation is placeholder, mostly gym stories and shit about the city—how the construction crews never finish anything, how the local deli got shut down by the health inspector but everyone goes anyway, the time he caught someone deadlifting in flip-flops. His voice is softer here, the edges sanded down, as if he’s left half his armor at the door. I’m aware, in a dizzy, hyperreal way, that we are alone. No gym regulars to watch, no crowd noise, just the amber light and the clockwork tick of the radiators.
He drinks the last of his coffee and sets the glass down, eyes flicking to mine. “You good?” he asks.
I nod, because anything else would be a lie, but it’s not the full truth. The full truth is that I’m vibrating in my skin, raw and ready and terrified of how much I want to crawl into him, to let go in a way I never have before.
He sees it. He must. He tilts his head, and a smile ghosts across his mouth—a real one, not the careful, filtered version he shows the world.
I reach out first, my fingers closing around his forearm, just above the wolf tattoo. It feels like crossing a border. The muscle under my hand tenses, then relaxes, and Roman turns toward me, his free hand bracing on the back of the couch. For a second, neither of us breathes.
Then the kiss happens, fast and deliberate, like the snap of a trap. Our mouths collide, teeth scraping, lips pressed so hard I taste blood. Roman’s hand comes up to cradle the back of my head, steadying me, and the pressure is perfect—firm enough to hold, not enough to restrain. He smells like coffee and salt, and I can feel the ridge of his scar just under his bottom lip.
He lets me take the lead. My tongue flicks over his, testing, and he lets out a noise—half growl, half sigh. His hand migrates from my head to my shoulder, then to my waist, settling there like a promise. I break the kiss, gasping.
“Fuck,” I say, eloquent as ever.
Roman’s eyes are black in the half-light. “That what you want?”
I nod, again. My voice is shaky. “Yeah. Fuck. Yes.”
He studies me, thumb brushing my jaw. “You ever done this before?” The question is blunt, not judgy.
I shake my head. “Not with a guy. Not—” I want to say not like this, but it feels stupid, so I leave it hanging.
Roman gives me a slow once-over, eyes locked on mine, waiting for something I can’t name. The urge to fill the space is unbearable.
“I want—” My voice breaks, but I make myself finish. “I want you to take control.”
He holds my gaze, then nods, once, and the energy in the room shifts. “You tell me if you want to stop,” he says. “I mean it.”
“Okay.”
He leans in again, this time kissing me slow, tongue tracing my lower lip, his hand sliding under my t-shirt, palm flat against my ribcage. The contact is hot, grounding. He smells the nerves on me, I’m sure, but he doesn’t rush.
I want more. I want all of him. I straddle his lap, bold in the rush of wanting, and his hands grip my hips, steadying me. He pulls me in until we’re flush, chest to chest, nothing but fabric and willpower keeping us from fusing. My cock is hard, insistent, and when I grind down against him, he groans into my mouth, low and guttural.
He slides his hands up my back, under my shirt, then peels it off me in one practiced motion. His fingers skate over my shoulders, tracing the faint lines of muscle, and he makes a pleased sound. “You’re solid,” he murmurs.
“You’re huge,” I counter, instantly regretting the words, but he laughs, open and warm, and I feel less stupid.
He doesn’t talk much after that. He just shows me, with his hands, with his mouth, with the slow, careful way he undresses me: first my shirt, then my shorts, then the rest. I’m shivering by the time I’m bare, but Roman cups my face in his hands and looks me dead in the eye.
“You still good?” he says.
This time, I answer out loud. “Yes. Please.”
He grins, wolfish. “Say it again.”
“Please.”
He brings his mouth to my neck, biting down just hard enough to leave a mark. My whole body tenses, then melts, and he slides his hands down my sides, gripping my ass and pulling me tighter against him. His cock is rock hard through his jeans, pressing into me in a way that makes me ache with want.
He stands, lifting me like I weigh nothing, and carries me to the bed in the far corner. The sheets are dark blue, neat and military-tight. Roman lays me down, then strips with a speed that suggests he’s done this before, but when he crawls over me, he pauses, eyes scanning every inch like he’s memorizing a map.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do. His body is all planes and shadow, every muscle coiled and ready. The tattoos are bolder here, dancing with the movement of his skin, and I feel something inside me loosen.
He kisses down my body—collarbone, sternum, each rib like a prayer. His hands keep me anchored, and when his mouth closes around my nipple, I almost buck off the mattress. He holds me down, gentle but immovable, and the contrast is electric.
I want to give him everything, but I can’t stop trembling.
He notices. He always notices. He slides back up, kisses me soft on the lips, and whispers: “Breathe.”
I try. The air is thick with sweat and something sweeter. I taste him on my tongue, feel him everywhere.
“I want you to fuck me,” I blurt, before I lose my nerve.
Roman stops, eyes narrowing, and I worry for a second that I’ve broken the spell. But he just smiles, slow and dangerous.
He kisses my forehead, my temple, the tip of my nose. “I got you.”
I want to believe him, but a familiar fear creeps up: What if I can’t do it? What if it hurts? What if I’m not enough?
Roman must see it, because he brushes the hair off my forehead and holds my face between his hands. “You’re in charge of yes and no. I’m in charge of taking care of you. That work?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
He grins, satisfied. “Good. That’s my boy.”
