It’s like the first day of school. Or in my case…preseason training camp is raring to begin.
I’m a night owl, always have been, so my early-morning workouts during the season are a killer.
When it’s the offseason, I walk on my lunch break, or head home early to exercise at night. That’s not possible when my workload ramps up. It’s the workaholic in me. But since I also value my fitness, my alarm is waking me before the sun.
I sleepily rub my eyes as I make my way to the bathroom, anticipating the warmth of my massage shower as I start to strip down. I don’t usually shower before a workout, however since I’m completely changing my routine, I’m allowing myself this little comfort before putting my body through hell.
With a yawn, I turn on the tap, holding my hand out to check the temperature, rolling my shoulders as I wait.
And nothing happens. At all. No warmth, no cold, no goddamn water.
Today of all days.
Turning the tap off, I stalk through the house and grab my phone, ignoring the time as I call our building manager, putting it on speaker so I can flick through my emails to make sure I haven’t missed a message about the outage.
I haven’t.
There’s nothing.
My call redirects to the after-hours line, and as the hold music plays, I run through what I’m going to say, getting more frustrated every time I hear the “your call is important to us” bullshit.
It’s eleven minutes before a husky voice comes on the line, and the second she speaks, I know I’m not the first person to call. Her own frustrations are dripping from her tone and all she said was hello. I wonder who else in my building is waking up at four a.m. Maybe we can work out together.
“Are you calling about the lack of hot water?”
“No, actually. I’m calling about the lack of waterin general.”
There’s silence on the end of the line, though I swear I hear the faintest “fuck” coming from under her breath.
“Thank you for reporting it,” she says, her now robotic voice telling me she’s said that very line many times already. “We have someone looking into the issue. We will let you know when it’s resolved.”
“Thank you. May I suggest you email everyone in the building to let them know it’s out?”
“No one checks emails at four in the morning.”
“I did. It would have saved you this call.”
“Noted.”
“Thank you. Have a nice day.”
She scoffs as I hang up, and I run a hand down my face while I groan. I probably wouldn’t be having a good day in her shoes either. Though I bet she has water at her home, so I can’t give her too much sympathy.
Instead of heading to the gym in my building, I change plans, getting dressed and packing my outfit for the day before driving to work, mentally preparing myself to use the facilities there. Something I have never done. I’d much prefer to uphold the illusion that I naturally look perfect every day. No one needs to see me as the frazzled mess I become at the end of a workout, especially my mostly male work colleagues.
Let’s hope I’m the only one up this early. Otherwise they’re in for a treat.
After an uneventful and private workout, I managed to cool down and make myself presentable before anyone else had graced the office with their presence, and I’m grateful for that.
It’s nice to keep the mystery alive.
My morning is spent fielding calls from contacts of mine, trying to get the inside scoop on what I can tell them about our roster for the season ahead, and just like I do every other year, I give them the same response.
“It’s too soon to know. We’ll announce it to the world when we’re ready.”
They’re like broken records. Still, I admire them for trying.
I manage to catch the end of the first drills session, before Pierce calls time and I smile when I see my friends back in the action. I’ve seen a few of the guys during the offseason, and whilethey’ve been here for organized team activities, namely Reed, Luke, and Zane—and Easton, obviously—this is different.
