#because canada

The speakers in all corners of the main floor pump faint top forty hits into the air as she begins her warm-up. As to be expected, she practices her kicks on one of the heavy bags that hangs in the corner, a part of the gym far removed from the squat racks, free weights, and machines. 

And as she unloads various roundhouse and sidekicks onto a sand-filled bag, he enters the gym.

“Good morning, Jean!” Porco greets from the front desk.

Annie turns towards the door just in time to see the evidently-named Jean smiling like a cocky bastard, a sight she swears she’s seen a thousand times before. Like a typical gym bro he exchanges a casual fist bump with Porco.

“Morning to you, too,” he says, the unmistakable sound of his Quebecois accent shaping the way his voice leaves his mouth. “How’s it been this morning?”

“Dead as fuck, but what else is new?” Porco says, then shakes his head with a laugh. “Have a good workout.” 

Annie continues to kick the heavy bag as Jean proceeds through the gym. Her body begins to feel warmer with every blow. 

Through the mirrors in the gym she sees Jean approach and disappear into the men’s change room. She doesn’t deny why she always notices him, as the reasons pertain to both the familiar accent leaving his lips and him being a dedicated member of the early morning crowd. 

The way he speaks simply reminds her of home. Hearing it occasionally leads to her workouts being plagued by thoughts about how long it had been since she called her father, or her childhood walks along the Prairies River when she had nothing better to do. She’ll even muse on whether a ticket home would be worth the cash, all because some gym rat who sounds like the boys she got into scraps with as a kid strolled in. 

Then again, Annie has to come to learn how rare it is to run into another Quebecer despite Toronto’s lofty population. 

Annie finishes punishing the heavy bag and gets to the main part of her workout. She hates leg day as much as the next person, but finds the nearest squat rack and begins loading the barbell without complaint. She’s halfway through her warm-up sets when she looks into the mirror behind the contraption and sees him in the reflection.

Jean walks across the main space with his smirk now faded, his tawny hair held back by a headband that makes him look like an instructor in an 80s workout tape. The morning appears to catch up with him as he fights back a yawn. Annie watches him as he goes to a squat rack a little bit away from hers, becoming acutely aware that they’re the only people in this particular corner of the gym. The distance placed between them seems to be an intentional choice, a silent acknowledgement of how some gym-goers would be better off worrying about their gains and not warding off unwanted attention.  

She looks aside to see Jean warming up his upper body with a resistance band, making her presume that he’s about to utilize the rack for his usual set of pull-ups.

Annie tries to heed no attention to him as she goes on with her lifts, a routine that is second-nature to her now. She loads her usual amount of plates on the bar and wonders if today will be the day that she finally breaks through her plateau. As of lately, a part of her had felt haunted by the thought of never squatting more than 225. 

With that in mind, Annie gets under the barbell and goes on with her lift. The first working set comes and goes with ease, though by the time she’s brought the weights back up for an eighth time she can already feel her legs tingling. Annie catches her breath, eyeing the clock in the corner once more and waiting for the minutes to go by.

To pass the time she looks aside again and glances at Jean. He’s in the middle of his set at his own rack, having grasped the top of the contraption and to perform the most impeccable pull-ups Annie’s ever seen. To see him so easily lift his own weight is impressive, especially with his larger frame. The fact that he’s been known to eventually add weights to the equation makes her wonder if he’s not the regular kind of calisthenics freak. 

When Jean finishes his pull-up and drops himself back down, he looks aside and spots her staring. Immediately, Annie breaks her gaze and refocuses on her own lifts. As she adds some smaller plates onto her barbell, she swears that she can hear him chuckling. 

With the number now slightly higher than her usual PR, Annie gets below the bar and begins her second set. The extra weight on her back changes things very subtly, as it’s all she can feel as she steps back from the rack. She focuses on her breathing, reminding herself that she can bail if she needs to before squatting down. 

She gets as low as she can, feeling the extra pressure on her spine as she pauses at the bottom. When she stares ahead into the mirror, she sees only her face contorted in concentration. She tries to ignore how the weight on her back already feels immoveable, focusing more on the air coming in and out of her lungs and the tension in her braced core.

Annie doesn’t know how long she remains at the bottom of her lift, wherein she spends more time internally hyping herself up to complete the exercise instead of actually doing it. She already contemplates bailing the barbell onto the safety rails before she hears footsteps approaching her.

She looks at the mirror again and sees Jean approaching her rack. He gets to her level and positions his hands near her shoulders in a way where he’s not touching her but could easily provide support if necessary.

“You got this,” Jean encourages. His tone is very direct, no-bullshit. “Breathe.” 

Annie does so. By the grace of god, she manages to stand with the unfamiliar weight on her shoulders, thus breaking through the plateau that had been hanging over her head like a cloud. The next few reps come and go, albeit not with much ease. Jean helps her through each one like a good spotter and by the time the sixth is finished, she’s re-racking the barbell and basking in the shock of her quads not feeling like they’re on fire.  

“That was all you,” Jean applauds. “Didn’t even need to touch the bar.”

Annie turns to face him, tilting her neck upwards to meet his hazel eyes. To no surprise he towers over her, a feat that tends to be exceedingly manageable. 

Instead of saying thank you like a normal goddamn human being, she says — 

“You didn’t need to do that.”

Jean chuckles. “Of course, I did. It’s the love language of gym rats, is it not?.”

A sense of punchable confidence enters the smirk on his face, causing Annie to fight the urge to roll her eyes.

With nothing else to do between her sets, Annie crosses her arms and leans against her rack, keeping her eyes on Jean as he goes back to his own space. He hops up and grabs the top bar of the contraption, easily performing another set of pull-ups. His form is still immaculate, a detail that she’s not sure is impressive or annoying. As she watches the way his back muscles work to bring him upwards, the sound of his accent continues to linger in her mind. Even if she’s only spoken a few words to him, she wonders if he’s picked up on hers too. 

“What’s with all the pull-ups?” she asks instead of the question she’s actually pondering. 

Jean hangs from the rack as he turns his head towards her. “Hmm?”

“I see you here a lot. You do these all the time.” 

For reasons that she doesn’t quite know, Jean looks amused. 

“I just think they’re neat,” he ultimately answers in the middle of a rep. “And they remind me of my swimming days, y’know? The better you pull, the better you get through the water.” 

“What part of Quebec are you from?” she finally decides to ask, utilizing her native French after months of not doing so.

Once more Jean looks at her. After skirting around the question of whether they share a home province for long enough, her forwardness makes him seem relieved.

“Trois-Rivières, born and raised,” he explains, automatically switching into his mother tongue. After finishing his last pull-up, he lets go of the bar and lands on the floor. “And what about you?”

“Laval.”

“Ah, just north of the Island.”

“I know where it is,” Annie retorts, unable to stop herself from sounding annoyed. 

A chuckle escapes Jean’s mouth. “I wasn’t implying that you didn’t.” He manages to keep his tone light as he speaks to her. “I’m Jean, by the way.”

“Annie.”

He extends his hand towards her and she accepts the gesture rather stiffly. As Annie eyes Jean at this angle her brain ponders what he does when he’s not spotting random girls in squat racks. Her instincts tell her that it’s some kind of boring office job, an immovable 9-to-5 that necessitates visiting the gym so early. However, the designs inked onto his skin are visible underneath his muscle tee, giving him a hint of artsyness far removed from the typical yuppie. Combined with the scruffy, unkempt beard on his face, her presumptions begin to hold less weight. 

“Funny… I think I’ve seen you about a thousand times,” Jean admits, breaking her from her train of thought. “Kicking that bag or whatever. I didn’t think we’d actually get a chance to talk.”

“I’m not much of a talker,” Annie admits, shrugging. 

Somehow, Jean continues to smile. “Oh, really? I couldn’t tell.” Clearly, sarcasm comes easily to him.

A beat of awkward silence proceeds to persist between them, wherein Annie passes the time by avoiding his gaze and Jean glances up towards the ticking clock on the wall. And it’s moments like this where Annie is swiftly reminded of how unversed she is in the art of smalltalk.

“Uh… do you…” he begins, placing his hand on the rack in lieu of not knowing what else to do with it. “...do you still need a spotter?” 

Something about the way he speaks puts a strange sense of relief inside her, as focusing on her workout tends to be a lot easier than continuing… whatever this is.