Page 36

Chapter 36

Eoghan

W alking into the gym, I was struck by two things: the undeniable funk caused by body odor that only exists at gyms mixed with disinfectant and loud rap music. I'd grown to hate the music selections by the Spencers. Although given how extremely loud the bass was, this had to mean that Spencer Suzuki was at the helm.

"Yo! Look who's here," shouted Scuba from the squat rack at the far side of the gym.

In the corner, Spencer Suzuki spotted Scuba from the side, while Carter Carmichael sat on the bench to get his reps in. Spencer Levine would normally be with the four of us, but he was absent.

I didn't think he was leaving town so soon, since his trip was planned for next week. It was weird that he wasn't there, unless he was the getting surgery soon.

I did one of those lazy waves to acknowledge that I saw and heard them, but I needed to drop off my stuff first. I stuffed my gym bag in one of the cubbies but pulled out my towel and wrist straps. I looked at my noise cancelling headphones longingly, but stopped myself. If I wanted that A on my sweater this season, I needed to be social, which meant I couldn't be hiding all the time.

I learned from my time at the Wild, I could be quiet, but I couldn't be unapproachable. So I kept the headphones off.

I put on the wrist straps and walked over to the squat rack next to Scuba. I loaded up the plates with about 350 lbs of weight. It was a fair amount of weight for anyone who wasn't from the Wild.

Cartsy came over to help spot me. "Really. You're going to start with that?"

I shrugged and got myself lined up. I focused on my form to make sure that I was getting nice and deep into the squat and did a rep of ten before putting the bar back in place.

"Freaking show off. If you even try to insinuate that you're rusty or this was nothing, I'm going to smack you." Cartsy didn't let up.

I chuckled as I got out of the way. "Is this your way of saying that you want me to take off some weight?"

I waited at the side of the bar for him to say yes, but instead, he simply just grabbed the bar and got into position. His reps weren't quite as deep, and his breathing was labored as he did the last two squats. But he managed the full rep and racked the bar.

I immediately went to the bar to do my next set. I always liked to include a couple extra squats, so this time, I did fifteen.

Carter just shook his head as we swapped roles and said, "I'm only doing ten. This is almost my max weight."

"Never said you had to match me. This is my normal conditioning." Then I turned my head in a way that canines always do when they are thinking about something. I chided my inner wolf for showing off. "Ohhh. Your competitor is coming out to play."

Suzuki looked over at us, "Yeah, Cartsy can't pass up a challenge if he creates it in his own mind. Just do you."

I nodded.

I watched Carter with him doing his rep, but he lied. He went ahead and did the fifteen squats.

Not wanting to kill my captain, I stayed with the fifteen squats for the last rep for this set. It was quite easy, and my breathing stayed steady throughout.

Cartsy just shook his head as we swapped roles. I wanted to hold my hand out to actively squat, but I didn't want to offend him. So I just prayed I didn't have to show off my rapid reflexes. Thankfully, he just paced himself and cheated a little by not getting into that full squat.

Scuba racked up his weights and asked, "So what's next, my capitaine?"

He pointed to the jump boxes at the side of the room. "Squat jumps followed by skater lunges with resistance."

Scuba said what I was thinking, "Oh so we're going to avoid the weights now? Are you afraid of being outshone?"

Carter scoffed, "No way. It's about active recovery this time of year with a hint of explosive power. I'm just following out the plan that Derek created for us."

I looked at Suzuki to see if he bought Carter's defense. Suzuki pulled out his phone. "Someone's skipping a step. There's also the leg press set first."

That brought out a smirk. It seemed like we all tried to cheat a little on leg day. But, at the same time, we all knew we needed a strong leg day to compete in the NHL.

The four of us moved over to the two leg presses and stacked the weight onto the machine. I looked towards the guys. "Are we starting with the single leg presses or both legs?"

The three of them all said, "Both legs. Are you a sadist?"

"No. I'm a masochist." It was one of the few times that I made fun of my drinking issue with the new team. "All right, let's get at it."

As Scuba pushed the metal plate up, "I got to do the weekly vibe check. Everyone good with their girls?"

I stayed silent as I focused on lifting up the weights with my legs since I wasn't sure how I felt about last night's night terror. It messed up Emmy's mood by seeing me shift and I hated that for her and it wasn’t like I could say to these guys, 'Hey, I fucked up and transformed into a wolf while I slept.' I wasn’t back home where I could make that sort of confession.

Thankfully, Suzuki was the first to speak up. "Nat's the best. But you all know that."

Suzuki basically all but forced me to hire her for my social media content and it'd been good. I briefly used her as a personal assistant like the others. Apparently, she wanted to focus on the social media thing. I couldn't blame her, and it gave me the perfect excuse to give Emmy my key a few months ago.

As Scuba and I stood up to swap spots with Suzuki and Carmichael, Scuba said, "That's not an answer if you two are perfectly happy?"

"Who the fuck is perfectly happy planning a wedding?" Suzuki groaned, but it got the rest of us chuckling since he was a hundred percent right.

Scuba stood up and peacocked with his hands on his hips as he said, "Well, I had fun planning mine."

I dipped my head. I still owed the guy a dinner for fucking up his wedding with my drinking. At least, he'd been good at pretending that I didn't mess things up. If anything, he acted like nothing happened except for marrying his sweetie.

As I felt more comfortable with my new teammates, I could let my guard down and joke around with them like I did with the Wild. "Probably because he said yes to everything and Annie didn't rein him in too much."

Scuba dipped his head and seemed slightly embarrassed, but we all knew that Scuba would do anything to make his family happy.

Suzuki pointed at him, "Only person who has him more wrapped around his finger is Eric."

"Not-ugh." Scuba said as he shook his head vigorously, "Annie is the boss. She tells me no more than I like when it comes to Eric. Apparently, it's a bad idea to spoil your son. Cartsy, don't think you can get off without sharing anything about your love life."

Carmichael gave Scuba the stink eye. I knew very little about his girlfriend other than he lived with her and things had to be hush hush.

After a full rep, Scuba finally held up his hands. "I'm not asking for details. Just vibes."

We were switching back for our leg press reps, Carmichael gritted out, "It's fine."

If he wasn't spotting me, I would have chalked it up to the weight that he was pushing up. I wasn't going to be the dickhead to ask him what that meant.

Scuba was about to say something when Suzuki interrupted him, "What about you, Wild Boy? Things still solid with what's her name?"

That was a new nickname for me, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

I pushed out my weight. "Still with Emmy. Things are fine."

"When are you boys going to learn that fine is the exact opposite of what you're saying? I let Cartsy slide." Scuba said, but he paused as Suzuki raised an eyebrow and Scuba gave up defeat. "Fine, Suzuki stopped me from digging into the issue, but seriously boys. Give me something."

I looked at Cartsy. He wasn't going to give us anything. I would love to know that story behind that, but I wasn't going to be that prick who kept poking.

I glanced back to Scuba. "I think I speak for both of us, not getting anything more than that. Quit poking or else you'll wake one of the two sleeping bears."

Cartsy and Suzuki folded their arms across their chests. It felt good to know that I said the right thing.