I wake up early today, filled with a sense of purpose and drive that I haven't had in a really long time. The sun isn't even up yet, and I'm already dressed and heading through the mansion to the converted garage where the gym is set up. I switch on the lights and look over the one area of my life where I'm the undisputed master... or at least I thought I was, until Katrina put me on my ass in about two seconds yesterday.
I'm no pushover. I've had more than my fair share of throw downs, and my forty-eight-inch chest isn't just bodybuilding muscle. I've trained too, mostly in BJJ and MMA, getting into scraps and knuckling up with some bad fuckers. It was one of my adrenaline rushes for a while, going down to some of the worse neighborhoods, or under the bridges near the Pontchartrain Expressway where they do the bum fights, and throwing down.
But while I took some licks in those underground fights, I never had my ass handed to me as quickly or as effectively as what Kat did to me. Sure, she caught me off guard, but that won't happen again. I promise myself that as I grab my workout notebook from the shelf and look at the page in my journal, seeing that today's a chest and triceps day. Good, I can use the heavy work to get myself calmed down again.
I start with an empty bar on the fifteen-degree incline press, just getting the blood flowing into my chest and shoulders and grooving the movement again.
I haven't done these in a month, and my first set with 275 feels a little heavier than normal, probably since I'm not used to lifting this early in the day, but I get through it okay, and note that on my upper set I might need to drop a rep.
I slide the next set of two and a half pound plates on each side when the door to the gym opens and Andrea walks in, stopping when she sees me. “Whoa. What the hell are you doing up at six thirty in the morning?”
“Oh, come on Andi, you've seen me awake plenty of times at six thirty,” I say as she shrugs and comes in, stripping off her outer t-shirt to just her sports bra and running shorts. The gym has more than just weightlifting equipment, and she gets on the StairMaster, draping her shirt over the bar above the console.
“Of course I've seen you awake at six thirty. But usually when you're stumbling in the house still half-drunk after a party,” she says. “Not in here, and certainly not lifting.”
“Gotta do what I gotta do,” I say, setting up under the bar. The gym isn't air-conditioned, although I can turn on a high-velocity fan if it gets too bad, but that's on purpose. I don't have any pussy pads on the squat bars, and I don't need no pussy air conditioning, either. “Enjoyed getting out of the house yesterday, and think it might be time for me to get out some more again today. Besides, maybe if I act like I've got my shit right, Pops will get off my ass.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Andrea says, starting up her workout. “You really think Peter will give you a little more slack with that leash he's got on you?”
“Maybe not the full amount, but he's gotta let me out sometime,” I say. “Might be a month before I'm going to be safe to go by the Watering Hole again.”
“You'll just have to content yourself with your previous playmates,” Andrea says. I ignore her, though, doing my next set at 280 before moving up in five-pound increments, finishing with 315 by the time I've hit my target for today. I set the bar back down, and I see that Andrea's still grinding away on the StairMaster, her head down, sweat dripping from her chin to drop to the moving beltway stairs.
“How long you going for today?” I ask, figuring she can't last much longer. I'm surprised when she looks up, and she doesn't look tired at all.
“Still got another half hour on here. Today's all endurance. Besides, this thing gives me some killer calves and a nice ass, too. At least as much as us Japanese girls get,” she says self-deprecatingly.
At the mention of calves, I think of Kat, the way her legs looked yesterday in those martial arts pants, and my cock twitches again. I grumble, turning away from Andrea quickly before she gets any ideas. I go to my next exercise, weighted dips alternated with bodyweight pullups, ten and ten before I rest, six sets. I finish up, then climb onto the StairMaster next to Andrea for a quick fifteen minutes.
Andrea finishes soon after I climb on, and pats at her face with her t-shirt. “So did you go see her?”
I blink and glance over, but there's no deception or slyness in Andrea's face. I've suspected for a long time she hates Pops nearly as much as Kat does. I can understand, when her entire presence in the house has been to basically serve as a giant 'Fuck You' to Mom. That's not the sort of thing anyone wants growing up.
“Yeah,” I say after a moment. “She's... motivated.”