Since I was dressed in my usual jeans and a t-shirt, I didn’t need to change. I kicked my shoes toward the edge of the room and waited for him on one of the thick blue mats.
He toed off his shoes at the edge, then met my eyes while he pulled his belt from its loops. “Don’t get any ideas. I just don’t want the buckle to hurt you when I take you down.”
Not wanting to fan his ego further, I let his statement go as he met me in the center of the mat. The soft plastic material folded around our feet as we both took a fighting stance: one arm ready to block, the other ready to strike.
I let him make the first charge. He swung out and instead of blocking the strike, I danced to the left out of his reach.
“Running already?” he joked.
“Just helping you get a little cardio in.”
He circled around and tried to get behind me. As he braced on one leg, I crouched, swept, and took him to the mat.
He landed flat and turned over onto his knees. I joined him, and we engaged another round of spinning and slipping back and forth.
Instead of grabbing my arms and dragging me down, he tackled me flat on my back to the mat. We hit the mat hard, and I locked my thighs around his waist to try and gain some control, or else, with his size, he could roll right over me.
I squeezed my thighs tight, and he groaned out an exhale.
“I really only came down here to see if you were all right,” he said. “Hearing news like that is a lot.”
“What news?” I said, jerking my hips to tip him off balance too much to make his next move.
No such luck, not that I truly expected it given his experience. Nor did I expect him to drop the subject of my apparently muddled up heritage.
He shoved off the mats, lifting me up and slamming me back down. It was enough to knock the wind out of me and my legs slipped enough he could escape.
Instead of waiting for him to take the lead, I struck out. I expected him to block the move, but he didn’t, and my fist collided with his jaw.
Pain rammed into my knuckles, and I shouted, “Shit!”
“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his face.
I shifted over onto my knees to look at his cheek. “I thought you were going to block that.”
“Well, I thought we were having a conversation.” He stretched his jaw. “I don’t know if I should be terrified or aroused right now.”
My hand stung, and he pushed off the mats to walk over to the mini fridge in the corner of the room. He returned with two ice packs so we could both nurse our wounds.
“You ran away,” he said. If there had been judgement in his tone, I might have slugged him again, but it was more of a question.
“If you haven’t noticed, I have trouble with acting before I think things through.”
“Really? I had no idea,” he said, hugging the ice pack to his cheek. A stain of pink spilled out from its edges. From the cold or from my punch?
Not looking at him, I continued. “I had a happy childhood. Part of me knew, even from a young age, I was luckier than a lot of kids I grew up with. My parents loved me, and they loved each other. When I became a teenager, obviously, I didn’t appreciate that as much as I should have. And like I do as an adult, I shoved them away, as far as I could.”
I peeked up at him under my lashes. “What I’m trying to say is I thought I knew my parents when I was a little girl. As a teen, when they died, I realized I didn’t know much about them, or myself, which is one reason their deaths hit me so hard. We all think we have more time.”
I kept my gaze on the ice pack over my knuckles, focusing on the cold burning into my skin as it soothed the ache.
“Parents hide things from their children all the time,” he said. “It’s nothing new. If you knew nothing about some aspects of yourself, it’s because they wanted to protect you.”
I snorted. “A lot of help that did me. And how are their secrets helping me now? I can’t hate them, and I feel so guilty every time I think about the less shiny parts of our lives. They’re dead. They can’t defend their actions. But I’m the one who has to live with them, and I can’t either.”
His fingers trailed under my ponytail and he cupped the back of my neck. They were cold from his ice pack and I relaxed into his touch.
“Do you want to go another round?” he asked.