Chapter Text
Mark Talavera was not having a good day.
At some point in the night his power had gone off, resetting all of the clocks in his apartment; including his alarm clock. So he hadn't woken up early enough to go for his daily run or put a load of laundry in like he'd intended to. By the time he got up it was already nine o'clock. He'd had to rush out to his first appointment of the day, only to find when he arrived at the gym that said appointment was a no-show; Allen Dwyer - a middle-aged accountant with a penchant for sugar and deep fried foods... he wasn't surprised, just irritated. Allen had missed appointments without warning in the past and Mark always drove him extra hard the next session to make up for it. His second appointment of the day also fell through, though at least this one had had the decency to call an hour before and formally cancel.
And now here he was, the third appointment of the day and it was going very poorly.
Fucking fatasses, he sneered to himself as the obese, middle aged woman huffed and wheezed on the exercise mat at his feet. They're all the same; they either cancel and avoid the hard work entirely or they show up and act as if they're being physically tortured instead of bettering themselves.
Regina Caffrey was his two o'clock session - a recent divorcee with three kids and a hundred and twenty-five extra pounds she was determined to lose to show that "cheating bastard" what he was missing... but from where Mark was sitting it didn't look like the ex-husband was missing all that much. She was short, fat and ugly; with shoulder-length brown hair, sallow skin and bulging hazel eyes.
What really made her ugly to Mark, though, was the fact that she could have been very attractive if she hadn’t let her weight get so out of control. She had a nice face, and if it weren’t for the mounds of excess blubber pooled all over it, it might even be a beautiful face.
"I can't!" Regina gasped, coming to a stop mid-burpee and wheezing like a winded rhinoceros. "This is too much, I can't keep up!"
The woman's voice was the single most annoying sound Mark had ever heard in his life. A sudden, overwhelming urge to slap her came bubbling to the surface but he caught it at the last second and crammed it back down. This bulbous waste of excess human flesh was shelling out several hundred dollars every week to bitch and whine like she was dying while Mark gave her a very basic, easy-to-follow routine that would bring her back from the brink of morbid obesity... if she would just suck it up and stick to it, anyways. But no, it was very clear to him that she hadn't been keeping to the diet he'd laid out for her or the daily exercises she was meant to be doing at home in the morning and the evenings.
Why did these people even bother if they weren't going to fucking commit?!
"You're doing great." He lied, a charming smile fixed to his attractive face.
He watched the woman's eyes rove his fit, chiseled frame and barely managed to repress a smirk. He knew the real reason most of these pathetic, middle-aged soccer moms with three chins and two extra asses really hired him - they wanted to watch him strut around in his underarmor and stare. He didn't care, really. He knew he was fucking hot. He was twenty-nine years old; six-foot-three; a hundred and sixty-five pounds, with tan, freckled skin, dark brown eyes, jet black hair and a full beard he kept trimmed to no longer than an inch but allowed to grow in unsculpted, giving himself a scruffy but still maintained appearance. Add to that his impressive physique, the product of fifteen years of non-stop, unwavering work and dedication and he knew he was every red-blooded American woman's wet dream.
These cows he trained could only dream of landing a stud like him; he didn't mind feeding their fantasies. He knew most of them probably went home at night and thought of him while they were lying beneath their smelly, out-of-shape, middle-aged tax attorney husbands. It didn’t phase him; he was all too happy to take their money and let them ogle him for an hour three times a week but, God... if only they could do it without all the fucking whining and bitching. He was giving them the gift of his presence and a closer proximity to his body than any of them deserved, the least they could do is suck it up and stick to the basic diet and workouts.
"I know you can do this," He pressed after a long moment, kneeling down beside the woman and placing a massive, tanned hand on her bare shoulder where her sportswear exposed her splotchy, flabby skin.
He could feel her shudder ever so slightly beneath his touch and this time he did smirk, in that same cocky way that he did whenever he was judging her behind her back. The expression on her face faltered slightly, her eyebrows knitting together and a look of suspicion and paranoia coming across the set of her thin mouth. She knew that smirk, he realized. She'd probably seen it all her life. For just a split second, one little moment, she could see through his facade.
He recovered quickly, though.
"Let's show that cheating prick what he lost!" He whispered viciously at her, playing into the expression to make it seem as if this was his true ulterior motive all along. It also played into her ego and desperate desire for revenge and, for a split second, a truly attractive flame of righteous fury flickered behind her hazel eyes. Mark hadn’t been expecting that at all, and his mistaken smirk turned into an all-too-genuine look of approval. He felt himself twitch in his sweatpants and quickly cleared his throat, bringing them both back to reality.
She went back to work and Mark stood back up, returning to his slow circles around her as she quickly busted out the next rep… it didn’t last though, the fire of his remark was shortlived and she quickly slipped back into the same old patterns until she was once again fumbling through the simple exercises and whining.
Welp, so much for lighting a fire under her fat ass, he thought forlornly, just barely managing not to frown in disappointment.
After several long, agonizing minutes of more blubbering and complaining the woman came to a jiggling stop and huffed again. Mark couldn't take anymore. He was afraid that if he pushed her to finish the last two reps of the routine and she continued to carry on like she had been the entire session he was going to actually snap and beat the shit out of her.
"Alright Mrs. Caffrey," He said, intentionally using the wrong title just to get under her skin and irritate her. "I think that's enough for today. It was a good session!"
The thirty-seven year old mother of three immediately stiffened, a sour look crossing her chubby face. She sniffed indignantly at him and for a second he thought she might square up to him and bitch him out, surprised to find that the thought appealed to him much more than it should… but a moment later the tension was gone.
"It's miss," She said curtly. "Thank you."
Mark sighed and apologized, turning away so she wouldn't catch his smirk for a second time as they gathered up their belongings. They exited the private training room at the gym where he hosted his training sessions, and parted ways in the hallway. She headed left towards the parking lot and Mark turned in the opposite direction, making his way down the hall to the right; towards the massive locker rooms where he fully intended to spend no less than half an hour in the sauna and then another half an hour under one of the private showers. He dug his phone out of his duffel bag to check it as he was walking and frowned at the screen, coming to a stop in the middle of the hall.
Four missed calls? That was odd. Peterson Elementary School? Why was his niece's school trying so hard to get ahold of him? He quickly hit redial and raised the phone to his ear.
"Mr. Talavera?" A woman's voice came across the connection.
"Uh, yeah this is he - I got several missed call-" He began but the woman on the other end cut him off. "We have you listed as the emergency contact for Amanda Turner. Her mother hasn't arrived to collect her today and we can't seem to get ahold of her - we need you to come pick her up or we're going to have to turn her over to Social Services."
Mark cursed under his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose in aggravation.
Of course this was happening, he thought bitterly. Of course the one time his sister drops the ball picking up her crotch goblin from the goblin daycare was the one day his patience was at its breaking point. So much for hitting the showers and rubbing one out.
He sighed heavily into the mouthpiece and nodded.
"Yeah, yeah... Okay. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be there."
He grumbled as he took a left turn down the hallway, away from the locker rooms and towards the parking lot.
He couldn't imagine what had happened to keep his sister from picking up Amanda, it wasn't like her at all. He quickly navigated to her cell number in his phone and hit dial, bringing it back up to his ear as he exited the gym and made his way across the hot Arizona parking lot towards his white, 2017 Honda Civic and climbed in behind the wheel. The phone rang and rang for nearly two minutes before going to voicemail. He frowned and waited for the beep.
"Hey Em, just got a call from Mandy's school - they're all assrumpled 'cause you never showed to pick her up so I'm gonna grab her and take her home. Call me when you get this."
A strange knot twisted in his stomach as he hung up the phone and started the car, pulling out of the parking lot.
Something wasn't right about this - Emma was one of the most dependable people he'd ever known, and she spoiled that brat. There was no way in hell she'd have forgotten to pick her precious little butterball of a daughter up from school. He didn't like to linger on what could have come up to tie her up, shoving the thoughts out of his head as he made his way across town to pick up his niece.