He glanced at it. “Great, thank you.” Then he nodded toward the mat. “Let's get started.”
Riiiiight, I thought, letting my backpack slide to the ground. No casual friendliness here. Unsure of what to expect, I'd dressed in a pair of black workout pants and an old t-shirt with YMCA written on it. If I ever did workout aside from riding the bike around town—which was so close to never it paralleled the likelihood of someone living on the sun—I would have worn this.
Seemed fitting.
He'd already headed for a bright blue mat with a red circle around it, so I followed him, but I had enough sense to take my shoes off and leave them with my backpack. Once he stood in the middle of the mat, he turned to face me. Those stupid butterflies resurrected themselves.
“You ready?” he asked.
I took two steps onto the mat and paused. “You're not going to, like, come at me are you?”
To my greatest shock, he cracked a smile. Weary. Exhausted. But there. I accepted it as his first sign of humanity and tried not to notice the way it illuminated his face.
“No. Not that. You ready to get started?”
“Teach away, coach.”
“The first thing to work on is confidence. For the most part, I think you have that down.”
I reared back. “Say what?”
“Confidence.” He readjusted his stance, planted his feet, and kept his shoulders broad. “Being aware and confident in any given situation will automatically deter some people. If you’re paying attention, they may pass you by. Most attackers want an easy victim. Don't make it easy for those idiots, all right?”
But what if that attacker is your rage-filled brother and you never know when he's Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? I thought but nodded instead. A solid wind could knock Amber over. Likely, if I growled at her, she'd back off.
“Confidence. Makes sense.”
He held out a hand, stopped, and said, “Can I touch your shoulder?”
I nodded again, this time with a gulp. He reached over, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled them back. It automatically made my chin tip up a little. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Feel the difference?”
“Actually, yes.”
There was a sort of power there in the rearranging. Seeming pleased, he nodded and stepped back again. At least he didn't take a quick glance at my chest, which stuck out farther than ever. Not that I had so much to brag about there. If my hips could share a little of the love, I'd be far more even. The smell of his cologne distracted me, and I wanted to follow the trail back to him.
“Next, remember that you're powerful. Use that power. Make them afraid of you, okay?”
“Sure.”
“We're going to practice a few things, and I want to feel it from you. The confidence and the power. A self-defense situation is not the time to hold back. Snarl like an animal if you have to, just use what you've got.”
The realization that this may have been my worst idea occurred to me then, particularly when the words, “I'm going to teach you how to fight off an attacker when they have a hold of you,” came out of his mouth.
Dear heavens, I thought. He's going to have his arms around me.
Ten minutes later, after reviewing things that jumbled in my brain like groin kick and hammer punch and use your car keys, that is exactly what happened. He came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and said close to my ear, “This is a bear hug. Someone could come up behind you and stop you like this. How do you get out?”
If you are my attacker, I thought, I may not want to stop it.
His arms had clamped around me like a steel vise, my spine pressed into his chest. Those butterflies flapped around helplessly, drunk from the overwhelming smell of aftershave that followed him.
“Think,” he chided, no doubt misreading my silence. His arms tightened. “What are you going to do?”
Instead of flipping in his arms and laying a kiss on his lips, I stomped my foot with a grunt, thankfully missing his toes. Then I whirled to the side with my elbow high, the way he'd told me. I tried to shove it into his neck on one side, then the next. It gave me room to spin, and I mimicked a knee to the groin with my knee.
“Good.” He stepped back. “You're quick.”
Breathless too, but I managed to smile. Praise from a guy like him