AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was a fine line between healthy definition and becoming emaciated. And Alaric was toeing that line a little too closely lately.
“What are you, my Ma?” he asked, sensitive because he knew what I was saying without saying it.
No.
I wasn’t his mom.
But I could easily make a call to his sister.
I didn’t want to bring Sass in on this, but I would if I had to, if no one else was going to say or do something.
The thing with Alaric was, he’d climbed his way out of poverty using his body. He’d started male exotic dancing when he’d been barely legal. All that attention on his body, all the connections he made mentally and emotionally between his body, his pocket book, and his self-worth? Yeah, it clearly fucked with him a bit.
And the thing with Eddie was, the man cooked with his heart. And often a lot of grease and cheese.
The rest of us, we didn’t mind.
You ate a heavy meal, you made sure you ate better for a day or two, or put in a couple of harder workouts.
It all shook out.
But, clearly, for someone like Alaric, he had a much harder time with it.
“It’s chili, man,” I added. “He even made a meat-free one,” I reminded him.
You couldn’t exactly gain weight on a bunch of veg and some beans. Though, objectively, Alaric could really use to gain ten or fifteen, at this point.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Alaric agreed, pulling his legs out of the pool, then following me inside.
“So, yeah, the boss man said he was on his way to talk about some new business you guys have going on,” Eddie said as I walked in.
Eddie, as much as he was a staple in our club, was not part of it. Maybe someday he would be. When he got granted his full citizenship, when he didn’t have to worry about the law and deportation. Or maybe he would always just be our favorite hangabout, cooking meals, going out on the town, being like family.
But when work business was being discussed, he excused himself from the conversation.
“Been a little slow around here,” Cato said over a mouthful of chili that he was eating over a baked potato.
Because Eddie never did things by half, the options were to have your chili plain, over a baked potato, on fries, over rice, with cornbread, or with chips. Tortilla chips that he made fresh himself, I have to add. Because it would fucking break his heart if that part was left out.
“The fuck is the matter with you?” Levee asked, slapping a hand to the back of Cato’s neck.
“Yeah, getting shot once wasn’t good enough for you?” Donovan added as he dipped a chip into his bowl.
“What? I didn’t become a biker to sit around the pool all the time,” Cato said, shrugging.
Cato was the kind of guy who did shit just for the thrill of it. Hanggliding, cliff diving, rollercoasters. If there was some chance of decapitation involved, he was signing up.
The way I saw it, my life had enough risk attached since day one; I wasn’t going out and looking for more chances to cheat death.
That said, it wasn’t exactly a terrible quality to have in the club. A guy who was game for some shit to go down at any time.
Levee was a bit more laid-back, more go-with-the-flow, happy to hang by the pool and collect a paycheck. But also game to throw down if it was necessary.
As for me, well, I liked to be prepared for anything. I didn’t want surprises. I didn’t like being in a situation I couldn’t almost immediately find a way out of.
That was why I’d cultivated so many connections over the years. I went out of my way to know just about everyone there was to know. Organized or independent, if you had a skill I thought could be useful someday, you and I were getting to know each other over drinks, building some sort of friendship. So when I needed to call, I could count on you to show up.
It was a two-way street.
