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I knew if I asked, Dezi would be game. Voss, I had a feeling, was the kind of man you could tap the shoulder of for something as crazy and dangerous as this as well.
I didn’t know how I felt about asking any of the core “family” guys, though. Fallon, Finn, Seth, and Valen.
Which left me at a disadvantage, numbers-wise.
So, yeah, I needed to think.
The problem was, having Abigail around was making it difficult.
So when Dezi showed up to hang with her while I headed to the clubhouse to pull my weight around there, a part of me was almost relieved to get a little space to think straight.
“Brought her more donuts,” Dezi declared when I met him out in the hall.
“Good,” I said, nodding. “Have her pace herself, though,” I advised. “If she eats too much too fast, she gets sick. She needs to keep all the calories down that she can. What?”
“Are you a body double? Where’s my calorie-conscious Zaddy at?”
“That’s because you want to lose weight,” I reminded him, shaking my head. “She needs to gain some.”
“So, if I’m reading into this, your girl in there came from somewhere that she wasn’t being fed.”
“Not enough anyway. And she’s not mine,” I insisted.
“Sure sure. You all say that.”
“Who is all of us?”
“Oh, you know. Each one of you who suddenly has a chick around, but says it’s not like that. Until, a couple weeks later, it is exactly like that. All of you.”
“She’s an old friend,” I insisted. “We lost touch. During that time period, she got wrapped up with the kind of bastard who likes to control every aspect of a woman’s life. She got free of them, and didn’t know anyone else in this sort of lifestyle, so she came to me. That’s it.”
“Mmhmm,” Dezi said, unconvinced. “Does she cook?” he asked, forever thinking with his stomach.
“When she was married, she cooked every day.” Three times a day, in fact.
“Like food-food, or that shit you eat?” Dezi asked, making a dry laugh escape me.
“Arguably, the ‘shit’ I eat is the only real food-food,” I said, shaking my head. “But I dunno. Normal shit, I imagine.”
“Think she will cook when you move into the apartment?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But don’t ask her if she is going to cook for you someday. The last thing she needs is another man expecting shit from her.”
“Bad, huh?” he asked, looking past me at the door.
“Worse than you’re thinking,” I told him.
To that, he nodded as a muscle started to tick in his jaw. “Well, when you’re ready to remove his head from his torso, let me know. Until then, if you need someone to plump someone up, you know I’m your man,” he said, taking the key from my hand.
“I should just be a few hours,” I told him.
“Should be able to fit two or three meals into that,” Dezi said. “I’m gonna need Zaddy Bootcamp after all this is over,” he added.
“Why? So you can quit after two days again?” I asked, already heading down the hall.
Was a part of me worried about leaving her alone? Yeah, of course. But the fact of the matter was, if there was anyone she would be safe with, it was Dezi.
Any of the princesses who’d seen him get into a fight swore the man didn’t feel pain.
I thought it was worse than that. It was almost like he enjoyed the pain. He took punches with a smile. It was some shit to behold.
I couldn’t even begin to unpack the kind of baggage that quirk must have come with.
See, the thing with Dezi—and to an extent, Voss and even Brooks—was that most of us had no idea what their stories were. Chances were that Reign and Fallon knew just because they made sure all brothers got vetted before they could even prospect. But the rest of us were in the dark about what kinds of skeletons were in their closets, what kind of ugly lives they’d lived before they found themselves in Navesink Bank.
What made Dezi so violent, yet such a puppy?
Why was Brooks so fucking anal about everyone following the rules?
Why was Voss so tight-lipped and impenetrable?
I didn’t know.
Maybe time would tell.
Until then, I was happy to call them brothers. And to be able to lean on them when I needed help.
“What?” I asked when I got off my bike and saw Seth and Finn standing out front, barely able to contain their delight—judging by the wicked light in their eyes, it was probably delight at someone else’s problem. “Is Hope here to scream at Fallon again?” I asked.
“Didn’t hear that one,” Seth said, brows raising.
“But no,” Finn said, smirking. “It’s way better than that.”
“Does it have something to do with that car over there?” I asked, pointing toward the black Mustang toward the front of the lot.
