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At least until Terry found me and introduced me to Sadie Ashby and her wild family.
“We all got a past, man. Wanna talk about it?”
I let out a bitter laugh and shook my head. “I already got a therapist I don’t talk to.”
“She pretty?”
“He’s military.”
Mace frowned. “Ugh, no thanks. The offer stands, unless you get me injured, in which case, I’ll kill you myself.” He was a big man, well over six feet and at least two hundred and sixty pounds, smooth brown skin that made him look like he was some kind of fucking Samoan warrior.
Still, I wasn’t scared. I scoffed, “You and what Army?”
“Army boys are pussies,” Provo said as he arrived and took his spot at the bench right beside Mace. “Everybody knows that.”
He smirked, trying to get a rise out of me because it was his favorite pastime.
I refused to rise to the bait because I knew Provo. A former Navy SEAL, he’d been good friends with Lance, so his death had hit him especially hard. The way he coped? He was constantly spoiling for a fight. I didn’t have a problem with that except the fucker fought dirty.
“You heard that Rachel? Provo thinks pussies are weak.”
Rising fighter and all around badass, Rachel Cruz narrowed her dark gaze in Provo’s direction. It was the first time I’d ever seen him look intimidated.
Rachel checked her form in the mirror and said, “Let’s see you try to push a squalling baby out of your dickhole. Better yet, come here and let’s see what happens when I kick you in the nuts.”
She cracked her knuckles and stretched her neck from side to side, a wicked smile on her face that said she meant business.
“Asshole,” Provo growled at me and turned back to Rachel with a smile. “I said Army boys were pussies.”
“Offer still stands,” she said, her voice a low growl before she turned back to the weight bag, throwing punch after punch.
“Damn, that babe has your number, Provo. Be careful or you’ll be next.”
Mace only laughed when Provo flipped him off and stuck his earbuds in to tune out the rest of the gym. “Provo’s been a prick since Lance’s death,” Mace said when he turned to me, “but he’ll get back to normal. Whatever the fuck that means.”
I knew exactly what Mace meant. At the best of times, Provo was hard to read, but losing his closest friend was nowhere close to the best of fucking times.
“Grief takes time and that shit never fucking ends,” I said.
Some days the grief over my fallen brothers was so bad, so all-consuming that the only thing I could do was sit on the sofa and stare into the void. Or hit the gym like a goddamn fiend and work myself until the memories were nothing but a blur of images.
After everything that went down with Brendan Rhymer, or whoever it was, I was only just now getting back to my gym routine, and then the video of Fiona’s murder added another layer of grief to my misery.
“Don’t I know it, man. That shit is a never ending suck of darkness and bullshit. But booze helps. And babes.”
Mace flashed a wide smile. I envied his ability to rise above the bullshit or, at the very least, put it away to deal with it when he was alone. We’d all watched Fiona’s brutal murder on that video, so we had that darkness to deal with, now, too.
Maybe if I was more a part of the Ashby inner circle, I’d know the progress on finding out who had taken her out and that would give me some peace, some closure. But I was only an employee, so nobody told me squat. I had to deal with this on my own.
If only I could do that shit, handle it like Mace, maybe I could stop not talking to the Army shrink.
“Babes. Is that all you think about?”
“Not all,” he said and rolled his eyes. “But come on, Emmett, look around. You’re surrounded by babes in peak physical condition, and you’re not taking advantage of it. At all. Makes me wonder if little Emmett is broken or something.”
I shoved at his shoulder. “There’s nothing little about him, fucker, and I don’t shit where I eat.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “But bro, you don’t do anything but work, so how you gonna meet someone to take that pain from your eyes?”
“What’s with you, Mace?” I did some stretches while we rested between sets. “It’s like you have some spiritual umbilical cord straight to Mother Earth.” The guy always sounded like a fortune cookie.
Mace laughed. “Being in tune with nature means being in tune with yourself. Your pain and your health, your healing. It’s why I’m mentally healthy and the rest of you fuckers are…tortured.” He flashed another proud smile and smacked his tattooed chest a few times. “Plus chicks dig guys who’re in touch with their feelings. Just some friendly advice from a pro.”
