Three's Company

40. Void

"You sure you good?"

His friend was pathetic. Three long months of burying himself into work, refusing to acknowledge what was really going on and letting out the steam in his physical wellbeing. Truly and utterly pathetic.

Theo found himself somewhat amused as the hardheaded man slammed a fist harder against the punching bag.

"I'm fine."

His mental health was struggling, anyone could see that and yet he refused to mention it. Pretending like it was fine.

Inside the built-in gym, punching a punching bag over and over again, grunting loudly with fury as he delivered strike after strike to the bag. He danced around the punching bag, ducking and dodging as if the bag was fighting him back as he continued to deliver a flurry of punches at it.

He had been at it for almost two hours straight, his body begging to stop.

Theo wondered how he had missed how bad it had gotten, he had been away for so long that his friend, more like, brother, was a shell of a person.

He had also never seen him this ripped since high school. The same time Heath had spiralled so hard that he ended up having to hospitalise himself.

He worked out when he was angry, stressed, depressed, and all of the above.

Putting his own weights down, light-coloured eyes searched over the clenched face in the gym mirror.

He cocked his head to the side, saying. "You haven't spoken to her since January. It's now nearly May, what's going on?"

"I thought you'd know. You still speak, don't you?"

The mention of her had his fist collided with the bag, harder than before. Hard enough that he broke the chain the bag was hanging on and sent it flying across the room, soon crashing it into the wall and creating a sound like no other.

Theo couldn't help but grin at that, finding it more than entertaining. He thought his intentions were pretty obvious to the fool standing metres away from him.

"Open your fucking eyes, bro." He chuckled darkly, moving over to where more boxing gloves were and pulling them on. "I been too busy looking after your messy ass."

His two-hour-long boxing match with himself was taking a toll on him, his bare knuckles felt a sharp pain flowing through them.

He tried to calm himself down and catch his breath, but he was really struggling to do that at the moment.

Heath was huge in build, his muscles bulging and an eight-pack sitting comfortably on his stomach. He wasn't even flexing.

He was a goddamn firefighter and he still hadn't managed to get that ripped yet.

It was safe to say that heartbreak had done a number on him.

He had become completely obsessed with his body. Sure, he was becoming increasingly stronger, faster, more agile, and basically in the best of shape, but he was also killing himself in a way.

His body went through exercises that would practically kill the average human being, but Heath was no ordinary guy. He was a guy who always had such high determination, such strong willpower, and that always showed.

Then came his eating. He was clean eating for his gym routine but that meant the simple meals he ate were low in calories, oftentimes leaving him hungry. But he didn't really care all that much.

Securing the gloves on, Theo gave him a head nod and Heath was turning in time.

With no words exchanged, they started to go at each other. Heath aims for only the gloves, not wanting to accidentally punch the guy in the ribs.