Stalking on Abs flexing his larger than life girlfriend on social media doesn't help to solve any of my issues at all. It was addictive but frustrating, like peeling off the crust of your dried wound, painful but satisfying and still bleeding. Life in general, like one of the teeth of a rotating cogwheel meshing with others to transmit torque across axes. At some point it goes up and then plunges to the lowest point within its rotation. Today, I could be up there at some point when Abs is falling rock bottom. But next day, we would be switching places.

As I stared blankly on my phone screen, notification of Nick's next appointment popped open: Boss' gym session @ City Fitness 17:00.

I texted Nick of the appointment and he replied back five minutes later, 'Ok cheers. See u there.'

I read his text in astonishment. It's his appointment, not mine. I texted back, 'No boss. It's Ur gym appt @ City 5.00.'

'Im sparrin & ull join me. Cheers.' Nick's persistent text flashed, leaving me exasperated. The thing about working on flexi hours was that you can't have an impromptu Me Time without being interrupted. Another text from him popped, making me churn, 'pick u up @ 4. Cheers.'

City Fitness located by the entrance way of Etihad Campus, houses exclusive and intensive fitness and wellness programs that are to offer. They limited the membership to mostly affluent subscribers with a ridiculously expensive monthly fee but with some state-of-the-art fitness facilities. They had their own wall climbing treadmill machine rotating on a conveyor which I find that to be cool. Oftentimes you would bump into some of the City Junior players due to its proximity to Etihad Stadium.

As we got out of his McLaren 675LT Spider, I told Nick I never came to this part of the county as it was considered forbidden or bad luck under Abs' book to set foot on the land of Red Devil's worst rival. Nick looked at me with a sneer and called me a halfwit.

I felt like a walking potato among these toned looking bodies of god and goddess, flexing their muscles on the fitness machines. Nick signed me up as his guest and went towards an upper floor private room partitioned by frosted glass walls. The room was twice as big as mine covered with laminated wooden flooring and large padded carpet in the centre. I got myself changed inside the ensuite shower room and entered into the room only to see Nick had nothing on except for his boxer shorts and his blue coloured shin guards.

I was overwhelmed by the excessive amount of tattoos on his medium fair skin. Not only they covered the third quarter of his arms as I presumed, the ink blanketed his entire torso from below the navel up to his collar bones sprawling onto his shoulder back, leaving the lower back bare. Despite all that, the aesthetic monstrosity of the artwork on his defined muscles and seductively sculptured body made Abs look like a beat up vagina. However, I finally get to see the face of a women's neck which was covered the other day at the A&E, it was a face of a beautiful lady in her 40s unfamiliar to me. Noticing me eyeing on his tattoos, he slapped me playfully with his face towel.

"Stop staring at my tits," Nick joked in an impassive manner. "I could file you for sexual harassment."

"I... I wasn't," I stuttered, crimson flushed from my ears to my cheeks. "I was admiring your body art."

"We're here for sparring, not to appraise some artifacts," Nick said with a hint of smug on his face. He took a pair of red shin guards and gloves before handing them to me, gesturing at my feet. "Take your shoes off."

I obeyed. I took off my Nike trainers effortlessly with my feet and kicked them under a bench against the wall. I put on the shin guards around my lower legs before putting on the gloves.

"So, becoming your punching bag is also part of my JD?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, the talk we had at Blackpool got me thinking," he said.

"Are you reconsidering my offer –"

"I'm not considered anything at all," he cut off. "I just realised that you are still at risk regardless. Although my protection is at your disposal, there would be occasions where I can't be there for you. So you need to know some basic self-defence skills."

"My self-defence skills are good," I boasted. "I beat you up well."

"You have a blazing spirit but lack agility and balance," he remarked. "You're a terrible fighter."

He took out his iPhone from his Ghurka's Cavalier II No. 97 vintage chestnut leather duffle bag, connected the device with the room's audio to play his workout mix on shuffle. Elastic Heart by Sia & The Weekend was the first to resonate through the speaker. He placed his iPhone on the bench and took another pair of gloves for himself.

We entered into the padded area facing each other within one metre distance for some stretches led by him.