Hold Onto Your Honey (Sweet & Dirty MC #11)

1. Chapter 1

one

M arcus 'Heavy' Hanks stood in the doorway of his new place in Airway Heights, Washington.

Not a house, an apartment or an old mobile home like the one he'd grown up in.

Heavy Iron Fitness was a gym. A haven for lifters and fitness enthusiasts of all levels.

He looked past the empty parking lot to the street beyond. On a Sunday afternoon in mid-November, the small lot was deserted, since the cleaners on one side of his gym, and the computer repair shop on the other side were both closed Sundays.

Hearing the deep rumble of motorcycles through the sunny, but chilly afternoon, Heavy straightened, his muscles tensing with anticipation and nerves. There they were, two, no three big Harleys turning to enter the lot. No, make that four … five. Fuck him, half the brothers had tagged along.

In the lead, a tall, rawboned man with pale hair and beard and eyes like ice chips, Stick Vanko, the president of the Devil’s Flyers, E WA Chapter.

Behind him, another tall man, with long dark hair bundled in a messy man-bun, his face such that women often did a double take and wondered if an actor had wandered into town, the club’s VP, Rocker Hayes.

Third, and an addition that Heavy could have done without, the Sgt at Arms, Bouncer, a squat bulldog of a man with a foul mouth, a beer-belly, and a negative attitude toward any activity that didn’t start and end with alcohol. The fourth, just behind him, Snake, a skinnier remake of Bouncer.

And last, but definitely not least, a huge man with ginger curls and beard blowing in the icy wind, T-Bear.

As the bikers backed their Harleys into the curb and alighted, Heavy kept a smile on his face.

“Stick, Rocker, Bounce,” he greeted the club officers. “Welcome to Heavy Iron.”

He nodded to Snake and T-Bear, then looked back to Stick.

The club president paused on the walk to pull off his leather gloves, looking over the big windows that made up the front wall of the gym. Heavy waited, breath frozen in his throat, hand clenched on the side of the door, searching Stick’s hard face for some sign of approval or disapproval .

The center window bore the black-silver-and-gold Heavy Iron Fitness logo, a stylized couple standing side-by-side, legs apart, arms up to support the outsize barbells arching over their heads, and in bold letters, the gym name arching over all.

A smaller logo and the gym hours graced the glass door.

He’d spent enough time gazing at the outside of the place himself, God knew. And he thought it looked fuckin’ awesome.

Finally, the club president slowly nodded his head. “Da, I like it,” Stick said in his deep, cool voice, faintly tinged with a Russian accent. “It looks good. Show us the rest.”

“You bet,” Heavy said eagerly, holding the door wide. “C’mon in.”

Stick liked the logo, and the facade. Feeling fifty pounds lighter, Heavy followed his club brothers into his gym.

The three officers stood before the reception desk, which was chest high, with a glassed in display case underneath.

“So, give us a quick tour, kid,” Rocker said. “Sign in here, right?” He jerked his chin to the new computer standing on the desk.

“Yeah,” Heavy agreed quickly. “Right. Everyone will have a key fob, and a membership number—you can sign in either way. And uh, I’ll have energy bars and protein bars under here. Then back here are the cold—“

“Izzat a fuckin’ juice bar?” Bouncer interrupted, his smoke-roughened voice loud, leaning over to squint at the commercial-grade blender on the counter over the glass-fronted cooler. “Jay-sus, kid, what kinda place you runnin’ here, one o’ them spas?”

Snake snickered loudly. T-Bear, shouldering in the doors behind them, held up one freckled hand. “Hey, you gonna do smoothies?” he boomed. “I like a smoothie after I work out. So does my Manda. You got protein powder for those?”

Heavy shot the big ginger a grateful look. “Sure do, T. Got all kinds of healthy juices and protein powder.”

“Fancy shit,” Bouncer grumbled, but he did it under his breath, so Heavy seized the chance to move on.

“Here are the gym tees,” he laid a hand on the next rack of shelves, filled with stacked black fitness tees like the one he wore, with the Heavy Iron logo in gold, stretching across the expanse of his wide chest. “Hoping they’ll sell like weed at a biker convention, free advertising for the gym.”

“I can always use a workout tee,” Rocker said, eying the tees.

Heavy blinked. “Ah—right. Here you go. One for each of you.” He grabbed two tees from the stack of XLs, and tossed one to Rocker and one to Stick. They both nodded their thanks, Rocker with a grin.

“Fuckin’ scuse my ass?” Bouncer glowered, pausing in the act of pulling his vaping pen from a pocket. “I’ll take one too.”

Rocker grinned at the shorter man. “Bounce, the last time you worked out was 1990-somethin’.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m turnin’ down a free tee.”

Heavy sighed inwardly, and tossed the club sgt-at-arms an XL. He’d need it to go over that gut of his. Heavy just hoped the man never wore the tee without his cut over it, to hide the logo. Bouncer was not the kind of advertising Heavy Iron needed.

Snake held up his hand, so Heavy tossed him a L tee. And an XXL to T-Bear, waving his arms and grinning in the back, like a little kid hoping for candy tossed from a parade float. T promptly wrapped the tee around his neck like a scarf, and tossed his ginger curls like a rock star, making Heavy and Rocker chuckle.

“So what goes up here?” Stick asked, jerking his chin at a set of empty, glassed in shelves on the wall where clients would move toward the locker rooms.

“Oh, those are for, uh, my competition trophies,” Heavy said, his neck going hot. He lifted a hand to scratch the back of his head.

“You got that many?” Bouncer demanded, eying the shelves in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Heavy said. “I do.”

“Nice,” T approved. “Only trophy I ever got was for eatin’ hot dogs. Had a cute plastic weiner dog on it. But he broke when I tried t’ play with him.”

Snake rolled his eyes, and T scowled down at him. “Hey, I was seven, whaddya want?”

If Heavy hadn’t been so on edge, he would’ve cracked up. You never knew what was gonna come out of the big ginger’s mouth. Rocker chuckled, and Stick smiled.

“Get those trophies out here,” Rocker told Heavy. “Fuckin’ great advertising, kid. You’ll have all the young guys signin’ up for weight training. Maybe you can even do one o’ them lifting competitions here.”

“Let’s move this along,” Stick said. “We all have somewhere to be.”

“True that,” Rocker said. “And I for one, don’t wanna face the old ladies if we’re late.”

Heavy nodded. “Right. So back here is my office, next is a room for a tanning bed—one of these days.” Right now it was storage, including the trophies.

Turning, he strode into the open area of the gym beyond. “And here’s the good stuff.”

His chest swelled with pride as he held out his arms, indicating the area. Gym customers might not notice the industrial-grade carpet covering the floors, or the heavy black mats under the weight areas.

But they would definitely see the gym's mirrored walls reflecting back the gleaming new racks of weights, the rows of fitness and cardio machines. As they worked out, they’d see themselves reflected in those mirrors as well, and either be spurred to better their fitness level or maintain it.

Today, he and the other Flyers were the ones reflected in the mirrors.

Heavy was used to his own reflection—a six-foot-five mega-pack sized weightlifter with a face that would never win a beauty contest, and no formal education beyond a high-school diploma and a couple years of part-time community college.

A guy whose own parents, and teachers, had expected him to end up mopping floors at someone else's gym, or doing some other job that required brawn over brains.

But here he was. And now the hazel eyes gazing back at him had a gleam of triumph in them. Because where he was, was standing in the middle of his own fuckin’ business.

Turned out he might not be much good at writing English papers or solving algebra problems, but he might just be good at the fitness business. And he was willing to work his ass off to be the best at it—just like he had at body-building.

This place was his.

Well, his and his motorcycle club brothers', since his chapter of the Devil's Flyers had underwritten his bank loan. But president Stick Vanko and his officers were not the kind to breathe down Heavy's neck—unless he mismanaged the place and started losing their money, which he had no intention of doing.

He was gonna make a success of this place.

One that would make his brothers proud, have the other gym owners in the area watching to see how he did it, and make his blood family sorry they'd spit on his dreams.

He might be in debt up to his eyeballs and have only a few hundred dollars between him and the streets right now, but he was gonna make this work.

And if pretty women wanted to hang on him... that was okay too. Even biker babes liked a guy who was successful, who had assets beyond his Harley and a pickup truck.

Not that he had any plans to tie himself down to one woman. He was loving the single life, especially with the pretty girls who hung around the club, hungry for their chance with a biker.

Yeah, in the biker life, women came and went. But a business—a real brick-and-mortar place like this, with his name on the dotted line, and his decisions, know-how and hard work making it go… this would last. This, he could count on.

“I think we lost him,” Rocker muttered, amusement clear in his deep voice.

“Admirin’ hisself in all these mirrors, looks like,” Bouncer said sourly.

Heavy came back to himself with a start when a heavy hand clapped on his shoulder. “Thanks for the tour,” Stick said, a twinkle in his ice-blue eyes. “You’ll remember that discount on memberships for the brothers and family, da?”

“Of course,” Heavy said. “As we agreed. So, what d’you think of the place?”

Stick was already walking away. “It looks good,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Very good.”

As he followed Stick, Rocker gave Heavy a wink and a slap on the back. “Good job, kid. Real good job.”

Heavy let his breath out in a gusty sigh of relief, his legs suddenly shaky.

“Buncha fancy-ass shit men don’t need just ta pump some iron, y’ask me.” Bouncer growled as he jostled past, and as usual, Snake snickered his agreement.

For an instant, anger fired in Heavy’s gut. Where did the two aging bikers get off, disrespecting his new place? Did they think he was gonna take it, just because he was the youngest brother in this chapter?

But then he caught Stick’s cool, measuring gaze, and let go of his anger with a roll of his shoulders.

Stick and Rocker, the two men responsible for fronting him the money to open Heavy Iron, approved. They thought he’d done a good job, that the gym was ready to open. That was what mattered—not the sneers of two old men who no longer lifted anything heavier than a bottle.

“Well, I like it,” T-Bear boomed at Heavy’s elbow. “An’ my Manda’s gonna like it too, you betcha. Gotta please the ladies, right, bro?”

“Right,” Heavy agreed, returning the big ginger’s grin. “You tell her to come on in, and bring her friends.”

“Oh, I think you can count on all the old ladies hustlin' in. ‘Specially with that discount you mentioned. The ladies do like a bargain.”

Heavy’s grin held, since he'd been advised—by Stick Vanko himself—to inflate membership prices enough that he could still make a profit on those discounted for Flyers.

As he watched his fellow Flyers mount their Harleys in the parking lot outside, he worked through the relaxation techniques he’d learned during his body-building days. Tense all the muscles in his body, and then loosen them, one … by … one, until he could let go of the tension and worry.

It almost worked. But that tightness held in his gut, and across the back of his shoulders. Because as he looked around, at all the shiny new equipment, and the spotless expanse of carpet and windows… the success of this place rested square on his shoulders.

And they might be broad—but unlike his body-building days, mere strength and physical form wasn’t gonna be enough to carry this. He had to use his head, too.

Not in the ways that had frustrated him back in his school days, but in real world ways. Practical ways.

But he’d do it. Because he was never, as long as he had breath left in his body, gonna end up like the rest of his family.

Throwing back his head, he let out a wordless bellow—a roar of challenge. By God, Stick was the leader of the Devil’s Flyers, and Heavy would follow him without question. But here, he was the biggest beast in his jungle, and he would rule it. The deep sound echoed off the walls and ceiling, punctuated by the throaty, fading rumble of Harley motors.

However, the ensuing quiet was broken by the muted sound of an alarm from his watch. Noting the time, Heavy groaned inwardly. Damn, the last thing he wanted to do was leave here, especially not to get dressed up.

But even beasts, at least modern-day ones, had to obey certain summons. He had someplace else to be. Across the highway, along a county road to the sprawling clubhouse of the Devil's Flyers, Eastern Washington Chapter.

He had a biker wedding to attend.