Chapter 3
Zephyr
”What”s going on with you and Grace?” Blaze asked as he wiped his torso with a towel. My brother had gotten some tattoos over the years. He had a full sleeve. I saw a dragon on his chest and a relatively new tat on his pec right above his heart that simply said Spice. I didn”t want to think about why he called Nick Spice, but I”d heard enough to know it had something to do with how she tasted, and really, I didn”t need that image in my head.
”We”re playin”.” I rotated my neck, feeling my muscles move.
It was March in New Orleans and already the temperature was beginning to spike. Yeah, global warming, mother fuckers. We”d not had too bad of a hurricane season, and those who thought that shit ended in November didn”t know that the rainy season stretched from late winter through spring—with storms that brought heavy rain, lightning, thunder, and occasionally, a Goddamn tornado, that I”d lived through.
New Orleans was a swamp right now, and it would only get worse. The humidity clung to my skin like a second layer of a heavier atmosphere, wrapping around us in the old warehouse-turned-gym that I”d been going to for years. Rome liked to work out in a proper gym. He and Gaia tended to work out early in the morning with air-conditioning. Blaze had taken one look at all that spandex and joined me at Luca”s.
The owner, Luca, used to be a fighter and was now part of an MC. His gym was barebones all the way. The place was stripped down to the basics, echoing with the clang of metal and the grunts of effort. Weights, heavy bag, treadmill, sparring ring…and that was about it. No fancy equipment. No fucking yoga mats. No one was doing CrossFit or Pilates. The only women who came to Luca”s were from Big Daddy, the whorehouse where my friend Angela worked. She was the one who”d introduced me to Luca”s.
”What”re you and Grace playin” at?” Blaze demanded.
”The usual. She”s got a stick up her ass, and I”m hoping to replace it with my, ah…you know, impressive cock.”
Blaze gave out a harsh laugh. ”You”re an asshole, Z.”
”Speakin” of assholes, any news on our mother?”
Blaze grunted.
”Cool set last night at Jazz Sessions, you guys jammin” again tonight?” someone asked us.
”Yeah.” I gave the guy a high five as he walked away.
”Who”s dat?” Blaze asked suspiciously.
”One of Angela”s clients.”
Blaze shook his head. ”My brother is friends with a whore and friendly with her Johns.”
I glanced at Blaze, his frame casting a shadow that seemed to absorb the sparse light, muscles outlined against the backdrop of rusted iron and peeling paint.
”You know I”ve tried to get her out of the life, but she won”t take my fuckin” money. All I can do is make sure she gets rehab whenever she slips up and get her out of the pokey if she gets arrested.”
Angela and I had known each other since kindergarten. Somewhere down the line, she dropped out of school and went the way of her mother. I respected her and loved her—which apparently didn”t give me the right to save her, according to Angela.
”How”s she doin”?” Blaze asked as he went to the weights. He was a beast when it came to lifting. His routine was a relentless sequence of heavy weights, focusing on compound movements that built his size. Deadlifts were his religion; the bar bending under the plates as he hoisted it up was a testament to his strength.
Me? I leaned more towards calisthenics and plyometrics, exercises that used my own body weight to build a strength that was wiry and explosive.
”Good. She”s not using. She”s not drinking. Now, if I can get her to stop hooking and come work at the bar, I can start sleepin” without wondering if she”s gonna get jammed up.”
I began to do pull-ups, a staple for me. My arms pulled up in a smooth, controlled motion until my chin cleared the bar, again and again.
Blaze”s routine, unlike mine, was varied, and he liked to change it up every day. Today, he added bench presses and squats, loading the bar until the metal looked like it might give way under the strain. His shirt, a simple tank top stretched over his broad shoulders, was drenched in sweat, sticking to him as if it were painted on.
”You”re a good friend, Z.”
”She”s a better one. I couldn”t have survived Bayou Belle mansion without her,” I confessed.
Bayou Belle mansion, the home we grew up in, burnt down at the end of last year. I didn”t think it was a big loss. I wanted that fucker razed to the ground. Our childhood had been a clusterfuck, no two ways about it.
My father died when I was young, and though I remembered him some, I didn”t miss him. Gaia had no recollection of him. Blaze carried the brunt of that grief. He used to have our father and Grandpère, but when my father died in a plane crash, taking my aunt and uncle with him, our grandfather shut down. He lost both his children. Camille was never going to win an almost-decent Mother of the Year award—and she didn”t bother me much. She was trying to always get Blaze on her good side, and it wasn”t until much later that we found out she was abusing Gaia something awful.
Compared to those two, I had a half-decent childhood. I had my best friend, Rome, though I did lose him because of my mother”s shenanigans, and I had Angela—a blonde, blue-eyed angel with a heart as big as the Mississippi River.
I”m a friendly guy and have a shit ton of acquaintances, people I hang out with, party with, but I have literally four people in my life who I”m close to: my siblings, Rome, and Angela. These are the people in my life who never judge me. Who love me unconditionally. If I killed someone, they”d help me move the body and perjure themselves to protect me. A few months ago, when I was arrested on suspicion of killing my cousin Yves—Blaze had said that if I”d done it, he”d get me out of US jurisdiction. As much as I wanted to kill the son of a bitch for hurting my sister, I wasn”t going to go that far. I did beat him up good and proper. My timing was awful because he was killed on the same day, which lay suspicion on me.
Grace Carta had been at the forefront of trying to get my ass behind bars. She wasn”t my type. Not by a long shot. I liked my women, not exactly easy but easygoing, who didn”t take life too seriously. Life was short and was meant to be lived with gusto, not with the fear of the unknown and what may be. I lived a life where I had decided the hell with impulse control. If I wanted something, I got it. If I change my mind, I let it go. It wasn”t more complicated than that.
I started to do pushups, which I like to vary in form to target different muscles—diamond, wide, and Spiderman—each set pushing me closer to exhaustion. My clothing choice was less about style and more about function: a pair of loose shorts and a breathable, sleeveless shirt, both light enough to not feel like a burden as I moved.
Blaze and I wiped down again and then converged for the final act of our workout ritual—sparring. The space we cleared out at the center of the gym was our makeshift ring, marked more by mutual understanding than any physical boundary. I could feel the shift in energy, a mix of camaraderie and competition, as we faced each other.
Blaze”s approach to sparring was like his approach to lifting—powerful, direct. His moves were heavy, each punch thrown with the weight of his entire body behind it. Dodging them required more than quick reflexes; it demanded anticipation, an understanding of his rhythm and patterns.
My strategy was agility, using my lighter frame to my advantage. I danced around him, my movements fluid, strikes quick and precise. It was a dance of fire and air, each of us pushing the other to our limits, learning and adapting in real-time. The air around us crackled with intensity; the only sounds were the scuff of our shoes on the concrete floor, the sharp exhale of breaths, and the thud of fists meeting gloves.
As we wrapped up, panting and sweating but exhilarated, I grinned. ”It”s good to have you back, brother.”
Blaze had been gone for nearly fifteen years. I saw him during that time, but it was me traveling to where he was. I never imagined he”d come back home and stay. He came to take care of his family, but he stayed because he fell in love with Nick. I never imagined Blaze Doucet would ever fall in love—be a one-woman man but she did something for him that no one else had; she loved him for who he was, just the way he was.
”It”s good to be back,” Blaze murmured. ”I”m hiring someone to draw up plans to build Bayou Belle mansion. Found this boutique architecture firm in Savannah that this guy I know recommended.”
”How does Nick feel about it?” I asked as he walked into the locker room.
”Uncomfortable as fuck. She”s still goin” on about how her type doesn”t end up in mansions. Merdé! Makes me want to buy her fuckin” diamonds and drown her in them.” Blaze took his clothes off and got into the shower.
”I never expected to see you want to get married and settled.” I stepped into the adjoining shower.
”Have you seen Nick?”
I smiled. ”Yeah, Blaze, I”ve seen her.”
”She”s fuckin” amazing, isn”t she?”
It was almost cute how smitten my brother was, how an NOPD detective brought big, bad Blaze Doucet to his knees.
”Yeah, she is.”
Blaze dried himself with a towel and pulled out clean clothes from his gym bag. ”She worries that I”m going to regret marrying her because she can”t have babies.”
Nick used to be an FBI agent and had worked undercover as part of a cartel task force. She”d been made and almost lost her life, including the ability to have children.
”What the fuck? She”s more than a Goddamn womb.”
”That”s what I said.”
I pulled on my briefs as Blaze buttoned his jeans. ”You can adopt.”
Blaze nodded.
”Or just babysit Gaia”s kids. You know they want a houseful.”
”You think she”s already knocked up?” Blaze grinned.
I laughed. ”I can”t wait to be an uncle. They”re going to have some beautiful fuckin” kids.”
”Of the three of us, she was always the one who was going to have the babies, ya know?”
I pulled on a T-shirt. ”Ya, man, ”cause she da woman.”
”Alright, I got to go to work,” Blaze groaned.
My brother, who hated anything corporate and liked to play the sax in jazz bars for his supper, as he liked to say, was now on the board of the family company BBH and was working to have his in-house counsel. He had a law degree and was a damn good lawyer, even though he hadn”t practiced in a while. Of all the weird shit that had happened, Blaze Doucet playing corporate lawyer had to be the strangest.
”You know, you”re expected to wear a suit,” I teased.
”Fuck that.”
Maybe it was the sign of the times. BBH was an old company and had been part of the Doucet family for a few generations—it was stodgy and old-fashioned—but now a half black man was the CEO and President, and their lawyer was going to be a disreputable jazz musician with tattoos, who”d die before he wore a suit to work.
”Rome”s gonna bring some paperwork over. You need to get back on the BBH board.”
”Fuckin” hell, Blaze. You got Rome, Gaia, and Rome”s friend Imran there. What da fuck you need me for?” I hated the corporate shit more than Blaze did. I was a jazz bar owner. I liked my life.
”Just do as you”re told on this, yeah? I”m not gonna let the Doucet family legacy go down the fuckin” drain. Gaia”s havin” kids. You want to leave them something more than a jazz bar in the Quarter. Alright?”
”Yeah, yeah.” As much as I didn”t want to do it, I knew I would. I”d die for my brother and sister—choking on being a part of the family company, as painful as it would be, was something I could do.