“I spent the morning at the hospital with Avery. She’s been pretty sick during the majority of the pregnancy and now they’re saying she needs to have her gallbladder removed,” I explained.
“Shit, man. Is the baby okay?”
“The doctor says the baby’s fine. But I’m worried about her. When she called me this morning, it took me ten minutes to get to her. I wanted to know if I could work at the bar or something so I can be closer to her while she’s recovering from the surgery.”
Copper nodded and rubbed his chin. “When is her surgery?”
“She’ll find out tomorrow, but it will probably be some time this week.”
“Let me know when it is. You can take a week off to be with her and don’t worry about working. Bronze can help out at the gym.”
“Thanks, Prez, but I don’t know if she wants me there the whole time.”
Copper smirked. “Don’t give her a choice.”
I laughed. “Got it.”
With that, I left the clubhouse and headed to the gym. I felt like shit for dumping all of my new responsibilities on Coal, and I wanted to make sure he knew that.
When I arrived, I expected to find him in the office, but it was empty. After searching the entire place, I found Steve at the front desk. “Is Coal here?”
“Yeah, he’s downstairs with Bronze and Batta.”
My eyes widened in surprise, but I kept my thoughts to myself. What in the hell were they doing downstairs? Two minutes later, I had my answer.
“Keep your fucking hands up, Coal!” Batta yelled as Bronze’s fist connected with the side of Coal’s head. “So that right there doesn’t fucking happen! You can’t block him if your hands aren’t up!”
“What’re y’all doing down here?” I asked and leaned on the ropes beside Batta.
He snorted. “Giving Coal some sparring lessons without a damn audience. Did you see those bitches upstairs? Even I felt violated by the eye-fucking that was going on.”
I laughed. “I’m sure you did. How long you been down here?”
Batta shrugged. “Twenty minutes or so. Why?”
I grinned. “Because I want a turn.”
Batta threw his head back and laughed. “Go grab some gear. And for fuck’s sake, make sure you have a good mouthguard. I’ll do a lot of shit, but I am never searching for part of a tongue again.”
I held my hands up. “I don’t want to know.”
When I returned with my gear, Coal was climbing out of the ring. “Fuck me. That’s him going easy?”
Bronze laughed. “Yeah, and I’m out of practice.” He turned to me. “Come on, boy. Come get you some.”
“That sounds like a line from a bad porno,” I said as I vaulted myself over the ropes into the ring.
Bronze threw his hands in the air. “Damn it, Savior. You ruined my next line.”
“Which was?”
He grinned. “I’m about to pound that ass.”
“Just stop,” I chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. All right, let’s see what you got.”
We moved around the ring while sizing each other up. I’d paid attention when Bronze was fighting Dez. He was methodical and selective with the punches he threw. Funnily enough, so was I.
