Page 64 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

Different from the usual weight crushing me when I think of my past and how that fucked me up.

Hey, I’m a ray of fucking sunshine, wouldn’t you know.

I find myself running for some stupid reason and I burst into the gym out of breath, turning in a circle, scanning the main hall. Then I start checking the rooms, the bathrooms, the changing rooms. Today of all days she’s not here?

“Ronin,” a familiar male voice calls out. “Hey, can I help you? What’s going on?”

“I’m looking… for Gigi… to talk… about…”

“Know what? Why don’t you come and sit down with me for a sec? Come on, man, this way.” Zayne all but shoves me toward an open door and I let him. It’s an empty classroom, a long bench on one end. He pushes me to sit down, then goes to close the door.

“Now.” He returns and puts his hands on his hips. “What seems to be the matter?”

He’s a big alpha, tall like me but even bigger in the shoulders, his arms so ripped they are all veined and shit. He makes me feel small, even though nowadays I can probably throw him down on the mat.

Probably.

“Drop the teacher act, Zayne.” I glare at him, but only briefly. I sigh. “I’m just… out of sorts.”

He crouches down, puts a hand on my knee. “Ronin… You can talk to me.”

“I know,” I say. “I know.”

I’ve known Zayne forever, it seems. Ever since I moved to the city at the age of seventeen. I slept rough, I stole, I was like a wild animal. One day… One day he came up to me, pressed a few dollars into my hand and said…

He said,“Come help me out at the gym across the street. I’ll find you a place to stay.”

He saved me. I hero-worshipped him. Kinda still do, but I’m an adult now. I’ve made my own life, though he still makes my blood pound in my veins when I look at him. Same way Gigi makes my blood pound.

He’d kept mostly to himself back then, only checking on me from time to time, that I had a roof over my head, food in the fridge, that my job at the gym was okay.

It was fine. I cleaned and tidied and moved equipment around.

Much like Grey is doing now at the tattoo shop, though Grey is an artist with experience under his belt already and I was just a green kid. I couldn’t believe it when Zayne took such a chance on me. Such a risk. For all he knew, I was a little punk who’d rob him and disappear.

Now he’s looking at me with that same trust he put in me all those years ago and it’s breaking me.

I also remember when Gigi started hanging out with him, how pissed off I was—because I wanted Gigi, because I wanted him… It pissed me off and relieved me at the same time. My mind was a hot mess then, not that it’s much better now.

But their fling didn’t last.

I wonder why.

“Ronin.” Zayne squeezes my knee, and it hauls me back to the here and now. “That’s some serious thinking happening in there. You know your brain isn’t strong enough for that.”

“Fuck you.” I snort.

“Tell me how to help.”

If there is one person I can drop my guard around, it’s him.

And an idea strikes me.

“I want to try something,” I say slowly.

“Try what?”

“An experiment.”

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