Your Worst Nightmare
21
AGGRO
HAMMER
Friday is weights day. Me, Tank and Kingy hit the club gym and smash chest. The boys head upstairs to do media with Tessa, so I grind out a few last sets on the bench press alone.
I’m about to hit my final set when a big tatted unit shuffles into the gym in his red Chicago Bulls tank: Brick.
I deliberately don’t make eye contact with him and when I glance sideways at him loading up the leg press, he’s deliberately not making eye contact with me either.
I don’t wanna be around the shit vibes of someone who hates me, but I refuse to be chased out of the gym. Gotta stay here and finish my set in defiance of him.
But when I lift the barbell above my chest, I think of him saying ‘choo choo, motherfucker’, and it throws me off – long enough for me to lose the balance of the barbell.
The plastic collar on the barbell slides clean off – one of the faulty ones that float around the gym – and the twenty-kilo plate slides off after it, crashing into a metal pole; it takes all my strength to stabilise the barbell on the other side to stop it crushing my rib cage. I twist a weird way in doing so, and feel my back seize up again.
‘FUCK!’ I shout, doubling over at the end of the bench, head between my knees.
A voice calls over from the leg press. ‘You okay, bro?’
I can’t help myself. ‘As if you give a shit.’
‘Piss off with your pity-party bullshit,’ Brick’s voice snaps, suddenly right beside me.
I look up: he’s standing next to me, offering his hand.
‘Did you hurt your back?’ he asks, kicking the lopsided barbell to the side.
I hesitate. I want to grab him by the neck of his Chicago Bulls singlet and shout all my rage in his face, but my back is sore and he’s a physio.
I turn around, crouching over the bench and exposing both my spine and my arse to him. ‘Down here,’ I mutter, my fingers touching the painful spot.
‘Damn tight knot,’ Brick remarks.
He starts kneading my back and the tension eases at once. I haven’t badly injured myself. Phew. ‘Thanks,’ I concede.
‘It’s my job,’ Brick replies.
‘Yeah, but I know you can’t stand me, so, ya know, whatever. Good of ya.’
‘I mighta been a bit harsh on ya the other day,’ he says. ‘You hurt a lot of people. But I just got a taste of me own medicine. Not so nice when the shoe’s on the other foot.’
‘Huh?’
‘That Xander Sullivan prick had a go at me as president of Perth Centurions,’ Brick explains. ‘He reported me to the Eagles for allowing homophobic remarks to be made by my vice-president. I wasn’t out at work. I had to come out to save my prac placement.’
‘Yeah, not so fun when people accuse you of homophobia without really knowing who you are, is it?’ I blurt out.
I bite my own tongue, as in literally bite it. What the fuck was I thinking!
‘Wait – what are you saying?’ Brick asks, pulling away from rubbing my back.
I’m saved from answering him by a vibration from my phone; I quickly stand up. ‘I have to check this. It’s important.’
I grab my phone and walk clean out of the gym without re-racking my weights – a cardinal sin – but I need to get away from Brick before he catches on.
