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‘Don’t wipe your ass before you...’ Shit, oh yeah, and then there’s her dad.
    “By the way, looks like I’ll finally get to meet Niki’s family. She’s invited me to her stepmom’s birthday party on Saturday.”
    “Fuck, good luck with that. The stepmom’s a whack-job biatch.” He tossed a pair of leather weight-lifting gloves at me. “Come to think of it, Niki’s ex might even be at the party.”
    “That dude Jason? You mean the overzealous, pompous, vexatious asshole that Niki dated before me?” I had thought he was out of the picture a long time ago.
    “My, my, what big words you have. Niki’s intelligence must be rubbing off on you. Why don’t you just say, ‘douchebag?’”
    “Okay. Why would that douchebag be there? Her dad knows they broke up.”
    “Trust me, Niki’s dad will use any means necessary to get those two back together. He’s a control freak about Niki’s life and his number one choice is Jason. Sorry, bro.”
    “That old timer really needs to take himself the fuck down a notch.”
    “Just be careful with him. He is a lawyer. And lawyers have no scruples.”
     “Let him bring it on.” The words shot out of my mouth from instinct. “I’ll go head to head with Jason and Niki’s mother fucking lawyer dad. I’m ready to take down the fort for her. I’ll show them that!”
    “Easy, tiger.” Chase held up a gloved hand, palm out. “Just don’t whiz on the electric fence.” He wiggled his fingers into the other black weight-lifting glove.
    My eyebrows furrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
    He chuckled. “Just don’t do anything stupid, man.”
    I kicked a heavy gray dumbbell, resting on the floor. Niki was my everything and it didn’t take much for me to spring to her defense.
    “And good luck with that birthday party.” He squatted to the floor in front of a barbell and easily ‘clean jerked’ a weight heavy enough to pop my groin muscle from here into next week. “Enough talk, bro. Let’s get started.”
    We continued our training session for an hour and a half, repeating sets on various kinds of workout equipment, focused on building strength in my legs. As we headed to the locker room, Chase turned to me. “How is it going with Kenny, by the way? Did he start chemotherapy yet?”
    “Yep, two days ago. He’s hanging in there, but man, chemo is brutal. The stuff they gave him, it’s pure poison to the human body.”
    “I know. That’s some serious shit but serious shit is what it takes to kill those cancer cells before they kill him.”
    I nodded and pulled my workout shirt off over my head as I sat on the bench in front of the open locker. I finished changing out of my workout gear and stuffed the sweaty clothes into my gym bag. “Hope he can handle it. I doubt we’ll see him at work much. I told him we’d cover most of his shifts and not to worry. ”
    “Of course, no problem, we’ll handle the bar.” The metal of the locker door rattled as Chase slammed it shut. “Damn…good thing you decided to come to California. Otherwise Kenny would’ve been six feet under.”
    The musky stench of the men’s locker room faded away as we wove our way around wooden benches toward the exit doors. I held open the glass door at the front of the gym and allowed Chase to pass ahead of me. “Yeah, life has a strange way of turning out, sometimes. It would suck to have my dad die right after finding out that I actually have a dad who’s alive.” I snorted. How ironic. “That’s why I always say…” I lifted my bicep with the tattoo. “…Carpe Diem.”
    We were at Chase’s car, in the parking lot, by now, gym bags slung over our shoulders. Chase wasn’t laughing at my lame joke, not even a smirk. He paused at the driver’s door and aimed his key fob at the handle.
    “Listen, I wanna talk to you about the bar.” His jaw tightened and I stepped around to his side of the car, anticipating a heavy conversation before we got in. “It’s no secret