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He would go for a few months, eating endless amounts of shit, drinking too much, and never moving his body. He’d get a little doughy. And maybe someone said something about it and got him determined to lose the extra couple of pounds.
Which was where I came in.
Hey, Zaddy, I want to be ripped like you.
Or some variation of that phrase.
“Well, that version of me didn’t have a brain soaked in booze and memories of lap dances from some pretty ladies.”
When it came to biker stereotypes, Dezi proudly sported most of them. He liked to do it all hard. Party, drink, eat, fight, fuck, and fuck up. Which meant that when he set his mind to putting in some effort at the gym, he actually made a lot of progress in a small amount of time. The guy made me feel like I was slacking when he was in the right headspace to make shit happen.
Clearly, though, his mind was on girls and parties. And, to be fair, that was where my mind had been when I was young and carefree as he was.
I mean, I wasn’t old. But when you get to a certain age, shit starts to creak and fall apart if you don’t set your mind to taking care of it. So, I’d dedicated a lot of my life to keeping fit and eating right. To slow down the years that felt like they kept coming faster and faster.
Days were still slow for guys like Dezi.
And he liked to spend that extra time on his hands having fun.
I couldn’t blame him, but I was a pretty dedicated physical trainer when he demanded it of me. So, despite all the bitching and moaning, he was going to go to the gym with me and sweat out all the shit he’d put in his system the night before.
“This might be that last round of L.I.T.s talking,” Dezi said, leaning his head against the window. “But you seem to be heading in the wrong direction, man.”
“Our gym doesn’t open for another hour yet,” I told him, meaning the one owned by Cash and a couple of the club old ladies. I preferred to workout there, having the option of not only regular gym equipment, but speed and punching bags as well. And the ring for some fighting.
The club hadn’t known a hell of a lot of peace since I joined up. I didn’t want to let my fighting skills get rusty. We never knew what kind of problem was right around the corner.
“The only other gym in town is owned by Shane Mallick.”
“Yeah, and?” I asked, not seeing the problem.
“It’s disloyal, man,” Dezi claimed.
“Disloyal to who?”
“To Valen, man. You know him and Jase Mallick have that rivalry going on.”
“Rivalry,” I scoffed. “They both liked the same girl a decade or something ago.”
“Nah, Zaddy. Jase was dating her. Valen stole her. It’s some shit. We gotta be respectful.”
“Of the decade-old shit?” I asked, shaking my head. “It’s not Jase’s gym. And Shane Mallick has always been someone our club has considered an ally from what I hear. It’s fine.”
And the only option.
Because, quite frankly, I didn’t want to go to the self-defense gym with Dezi.
I damn sure didn’t want to get into a ring with him.
Sure, the man was a food-obsessed teddy bear a fair chunk of the time. But the man could flip a switch like no one I’d ever seen. If you’d ever seen him in a fight, you’d think the man didn’t feel pain with the way he took his hits and kept coming back for more. He was a relentless fighter. And while I was fine to fight when a situation called for it, I wasn’t someone who enjoyed it like Dezi did.
So the normal gym was the plan.
Whether he liked it or not.
“Hey, look at that, Zadds,” Dezi declared a couple minutes later as we made our way toward the front doors of the gym. “There is someone in the club more dedicated to their physical fitness than even you,” he said as he nodded his chin at the man coming out of the doors.
He was a new addition to the club, still squarely stuck in the prospect phase along with Valen, who was a legacy.
Dezi and I, we officially got our patches just a week or so after they blew into town.
Voss had saved Valen in a fight somewhere down in Louisiana. And, for some reason, all Voss wanted in return was to get a chance to prospect with the club.
Voss was tall and a stocky kind of strong that said he absolutely spent a good chunk of time in the gym, lifting heavy. He had a full blond beard and matching hair, but he kept it shaved up the sides, giving him a Viking appearance.
