The food arrives, and I still haven’t settled on anything to watch. I wolf down my dinner and make a spur-of-the-moment decision to hit the gym. Grabbing my gym bag, I head out the door before I can talk myself out of it to stay home and drink the rest of that vodka instead.
“Hey Pops, you miss me?” I yell as I walk through the door after a short drive. It’s already almost 8:00 pm but Pops pretty much lives here, so I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.
“Hey, kid. What’re you doing here this late? Don’t you have some party to be at or something?” He’s walking down the stairs from his office, which is just an elevated space with a cage around it where he can look over the entire gym. I mean, he does have a desk, so it is an office, but with chain link fencing instead of actual walls.
“It’s a little too early for the good parties,” I tell him as I walk over, “but I’m trying to cut back on that, anyway. Alex has been a good influence on me or something.” I smile. Alex is Pops’ granddaughter, and that’s how I met him, even though Connor has been training with him for years.
“Good for you, son. Alex tells me how you’ve been a real good friend to her. She cares about you, I’m sure she’s real proud to hear you’re finally getting your shit together.”
“Well geez, Pops, don’t hold back or anything.” I laugh while I clap him on the shoulder. “You got the energy for some training, or is it just about your bedtime? I know old folks like you usually need to go to bed pretty early. Or did you have a nap in your chair after dinner?”
Pops bursts out laughing and punches me in the arm. “Yeah, yeah, you little shit. Get warmed up and get your gear on. I’ll meet you in the ring when you’re ready. I’ma give you a good beating for that comment.”
I rub my arm where Pops hit me; for a 75-year-old man he still packs a hell of a punch. Hell, who am I kidding, he probably hits harder than I do and I’m only 34. “Them’s fighting words, gramps. I won’t hold back just because you’re practically mummified,” I tell him as I walk to the locker room. Connor usually comes dressed to work out because as the lead singer of Sleeping Dogs he’s the most recognizable member of the band. I’m just the lead guitarist; so far I almost never get recognized. Unless I call attention to myself, anyway.
I strip down and get into my training gear, compression shorts with training shorts over top and a moisture wicking shirt, and my wrestling boots. Going back to the main part of the gym, I hit the treadmill for my warm up. Pops usually has me jumping rope, but I’m really feeling like I need a run tonight.
Twenty minutes, and a lot of running later, I join Pops in the ring. He’s got my gloves for me and helps me strap them on, then gets his pads and we start my workout. He leads me through different punching combinations, focusing on that for the evening. I’m a mediocre fighter, but I usually do much better with my workouts than I’m doing tonight.
“Alright kid.” Pops puts his hands down, indicating that he wants to take a break. “What is your problem? It’s like you’re not even here tonight.”
“I’m good, Pops, let’s keep going.” I punch my fists together a few times while I do a little boxers’ shuffle, hopping from foot to foot.
“No way, kid. You’re barely paying attention. If we kept going, I’d have to smack you in the head every time I caught you with your mind elsewhere. You’d wind up with a concussion. I can’t have that on my conscience.”
I sigh. There’s not much point trying to hide stuff from Pops. He’s got that kind of insightfulness that can only come with age. My Gran is the same way.
“In my experience,” he continues, “this kind of distraction only comes from love problems. So here’s what’s going to happen. You go shower, ‘cause I can’t stand the stink of you. Then you come up to my office and we’ll sort this out.”
“No really, Pops. I’m fi-”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he interrupts. “Shower, change, get your ass to my office. In that order. Now get!”
“Okay, okay.” I go and do what he says. You can’t hide stuff from Pops and you definitely can’t argue with him. My grandmother is wonderful and loving, not to mention hilarious, but I kind of wish I also had a grandfather like Pops in my life. My grandfather passed before I had the chance to meet him, though, so I adopted Pops as my own when Alex introduced us. It hasn’t seemed to bother him yet and I don’t plan on doing anything to mess it up.
I knock on the door (it’s really more of a gate thanks to the fence walls) to Pops’ office, and then I walk right in.
“Alright son,” Pops points at a chair opposite his, “sit, and tell me what’s bugging you.”
“Fine. But only because I want to keep coming around here and I’m worried you won’t let me if I don’t answer you.”
“Oh good, you’re not as dumb as you look. Now stop stalling.”
“Okay, let’s cut it short, then, shall we? I have a thing for Denise, have had for years, and I told her today and she freaked out. I’m kicking myself now.”
“Denise? That’s the manager girl, right? The one who wears those super sexy high heels all the time? Doesn’t she date that nerdy looking guy though?” Pops has been to a few of Alex’s family dinners, so he’s met Denise and Andrew before.
“She broke up with him.” I say. “He apparently had issues with those sexy heels, along with a lot of other things. She said he made her feel like he’d never been interested. That he’d seen her as some kind of renovation project.”
“Okay, so, you found out they broke up and told her how you feel?”
I take a few minutes and explain how the day went, starting with showing up to talk to her, finding out she was sick and that Andrew wasn’t there to take care of her because she dumped him, right through to the end where I confessed my feelings and she disappeared.
Pops is quiet for a minute before he says, “So you decided not to tell her, and then you told her anyway? You had a smart thought and then your dumb thoughts took over?”
I laugh. “That’s one way to look at it, I guess. It felt so right laying there with her in my arms that I think my brain short-circuited or something. I thought I needed to just get it out there and it wasn’t until after that I realized what a huge fuck-up it was.”
“Have you talked to Alex about this? She might have some insight. She’s probably a more reliable source on the inner workings of the female mind than a 75-year-old man is.”
