Chapter 152: Darren Back At It! [FIXED!]
Darren woke up that morning already thinking about the gym long before Mateo was dropped off at school, still feeling the weight of everything he’d eaten over the last two days sitting heavy in his stomach. Nothing about last night had actually damaged anything permanent, but the guilt of an entire tasting menu followed by cinema snacks and room service wasn’t going anywhere without some actual work to offset it.
Nothing was standing in his way today, so he made the drive across town instead of hitting the smaller place near his apartment where Mike usually ran things. That gym worked fine most days, but today called for real equipment — full racks, proper plate-loaded machines, the kind of setup that let him actually push himself instead of working around limitations.
He pulled into the lot at Ironclad Fitness, a spot he’d been a member of since it first opened its doors years back, back when the pricing structure still reflected a startup trying to build a client base rather than the premium membership fees they charged now. He’d locked in his rate back then and never let it lapse, which made him one of the few remaining members still paying a fraction of what newcomers handed over monthly.
He thought about Drake as he got out of the car, the memory surfacing unbidden the way it kept doing since last night. Unexpected, sure. Unsettling, even. But not something he planned to let derail his day. Whatever Drake had gotten himself tangled up in wasn’t Darren’s problem to carry, not directly, not unless it forced its way further into his life than it already had.
He made his way inside, checked in, and got straight to work.
He hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, deciding water was the smarter move before a heavy session, and by the time he got into his first working sets, his body had settled into the familiar rhythm he’d missed more than he’d realized during the break. Everything from the last two days — the steak, the lobster, the endless snack tray at the cinema — felt like it was burning off in real time, sweat replacing whatever guilt had been sitting there since morning.
He kept the loads reasonable. No attempt at a PR today — he wasn’t conditioned enough yet after the layoff to push that hard without real risk attached, and there was no version of today where a torn something was worth the ego boost. Smart progression. Controlled intensity. He knew his own limits well enough to respect them.
Hours passed, the gym slowly cycling through its afternoon crowd, and by the time Darren finally wrapped his session, his whole body carried that specific, satisfying soreness that came from a genuinely productive day rather than one pushed past the point of usefulness.
He grabbed his bag and headed toward the exit, and that was when something shifted in his gut, subtle but persistent — the kind of low, wordless unease he’d learned a long time ago never to ignore. He scanned the room automatically, hypervigilance kicking in without conscious effort, though nothing immediately explained the feeling.
A hand touched his shoulder from behind.
"Hey, Darry..."
Darren flinched hard, spinning around on instinct, adrenaline already spiking before his brain caught up with the fact that the voice attached to the hand was high-pitched, familiar, and entirely unthreatening.
"Oh my god, désolée—sorry!" The woman stepped back immediately, hands raised, clearly startled by his reaction. "I didn’t mean to scare you like that."
Darren exhaled, forcing his shoulders to relax. "You’re good, Camille. Just wasn’t expecting anyone."
Camille stood barely five feet tall, and next to Darren’s frame she looked almost comically small, craning her neck slightly just to hold eye contact with him. She’d been coming to this gym for as long as he had, though the version of her standing in front of him now bore little resemblance to the one he remembered from her earliest months here — soft, heavier through the frame, still finding her footing with the equipment.
She’d put in real work since then. The transformation was obvious, and Darren respected it — she’d rebuilt herself, methodically, patiently, and the result showed in every line of her now, curves settled into place with the kind of proportion that came from genuine discipline rather than luck. He was one of the few people, he suspected, who’d treated her the same both before and after — no sudden shift in attention once the weight came off, no performative respect that only arrived once she looked a certain way.
"It’s been forever," Camille said, tilting her head, French accent threading softly through her words. "I thought maybe you disappeared on me, hm?"
"Life got busy," Darren said, shrugging. "Took a little break."
"A little break." She raised an eyebrow, stepping closer than strictly necessary, her tone dipping into something more deliberate. "You could have called me, you know. I would have kept you motivated."
"I bet you would’ve."
"I mean it." She reached out, fingers brushing lightly along his forearm before pulling back just as casually. "You know I always liked training with you, Darry. You push harder than anyone else here."
Darren huffed a laugh, unbothered, having long since learned to let her flirting roll past him without much friction. "I’ve got a girlfriend, Camille. Same as last time you asked."
"I remember." She smiled, entirely unfazed by the reminder. "Doesn’t mean I can’t still tell you how good you look."
"Appreciate the honesty."
"I’m always honest." She leaned in slightly again, voice dropping just a fraction. "Especially about things I like."
Darren shook his head, amused despite himself, letting the comment pass without engaging it further. Mostly harmless, he figured — she’d never once pushed past the line once he’d made the boundary clear, content instead with these low-grade, persistent little comments that cost him nothing to ignore.
"So what’s actually new with you?" he asked, steering things onto safer ground. "Besides missing me at the gym."
Camille laughed, genuine this time. "Not much. Well—" she paused, glancing away briefly, "—I broke up with my boyfriend, actually."
Darren raised an eyebrow, curiosity winning out over discretion. "Yeah? What happened there?"
"He couldn’t keep up," Camille said simply, a small, wicked smile tugging at her mouth. "With my drive. You understand."
"I’m gonna guess you don’t mean at the gym."
"You’d be guessing correctly."
Darren let out an awkward laugh, already sensing exactly where this conversation had drifted and wanting nothing more than an exit route that didn’t involve being rude about it. Nothing was physically stopping him from just walking past her, but he knew how these things worked — leave even a sliver of ambiguity in the response, and it became an invitation rather than a boundary.
"I see," he said, the words landing flatter than he intended.
Camille didn’t move, didn’t step aside to let him through, just tilted her head up at him with an expression that had shifted into something more pointed, more direct. There was a hunger sitting behind her eyes now that hadn’t been there thirty seconds ago.
"Say," she said, voice dropping slightly, "do you have that problem as well?"
Darren chuckled again, the sound coming out strained this time. "What problem?"
She didn’t hesitate, spelling it out plainly, without a hint of the shyness he might have expected from anyone else in this exact moment.
Darren kissed his teeth silently, glancing around the gym floor for literally anyone he could catch eyes with, anyone who might unknowingly pull him out of this by simply existing nearby. No luck. Everyone within twenty feet was buried in their own headphones, their own sets, completely oblivious to the standoff happening near the exit.
"Camille," Darren said, flat and final, "I don’t think I want to talk about this."
Something shifted in his eyes as he said it — the easy, amused warmth that usually colored his interactions draining out entirely, replaced by something distant and disengaged. Not angry. Just completely, unmistakably done, the kind of look that communicated far more clearly than the words themselves ever could.
Camille felt it immediately. Whatever momentum she’d been building, whatever reaction she’d expected — flustered deflection, maybe, or a reluctant engagement dressed up as polite refusal — this wasn’t it. This was a wall going up in real time, total and complete, with nothing left behind it for her to work with.
She stepped aside without another word.
Darren walked past her and out through the gym’s front doors without looking back, already shaking off the interaction as he crossed the parking lot toward his car.
Camille stood there a moment longer, bottom lip caught between her teeth, watching him go.
She wasn’t used to that. Not from him, not from anyone, really. Most men who found themselves in that exact position — cornered, half-flustered, clearly trying to find an exit — either leaned into it anyway, testing how far they could push despite the obvious discomfort, or fumbled through some awkward, half-hearted attempt to keep the conversation alive in hopes it eventually bent in their favor to get some free ass.
Either way, it usually ended with some version of entertainment on their part, some acknowledgment that the door, however faint, remained cracked open.
Darren hadn’t given her any of that. He’d simply shut it, cleanly, without cruelty but without room for negotiation either, and walked away like the conversation had never mattered enough to linger over.
She found herself oddly unsettled by it — not offended, exactly, more thrown by how unfamiliar the experience actually was. Being put in her place, plainly and without ceremony, by someone who clearly wasn’t interested in playing whatever game she’d been running.
She exhaled slowly, glancing toward the exit one more time, already turning the moment over in her mind with more attention than she probably should have been giving it.