Chapter 10 #2
At my affirmation, he shows me how to perform the move, giving me step-by-step instructions, repeating it several times until I have it down. “Nice work, Professor. You’ll be kicking my ass in no time.” He gives me a fist bump, which seems to be his go-to with his students.
This whole situation is weird, but his praise gives me all the warm fuzzies.
“You don’t have to call me ‘Professor’ when we’re out of class.” Even as I say it, I don’t know how I feel about it, but having him call me Professor when we’re in a setting like this feels awkward.
“Okay, Clover.” He gives me a wink before he returns to the front of the class.
We learn to escape from three more holds: being lifted off the ground, a chokehold, which is intense to say the least, and a hair grab.
At the end of the hour, we review all the defense moves we’ve learned, and Maverick and Laura answer any questions and tell the group that they hope to see us next week so we can build on our defense skills.
Their final suggestion is that if we have a friend we can practice with, it helps cement them.
Maverick stays behind to talk to a few of the women in the class, but when I shoulder my purse, he holds up a finger. “Give me a minute, and I’ll walk you to your car.”
I hang back, waiting for the last of the class to leave. Maverick pulls his hoodie on and shoulders his gym bag. “See you on Saturday, Laura.”
“Have a great week. You were fantastic as usual tonight.”
“Thanks, so were you.” He puts his ball cap on. “How was that for you?” he asks, shifting his attention to me. “You picked up the moves quickly. Do you think you’ll come back next week?”
“I might.” It was eye-opening, and empowering, like he said it would be. It’s also . . . a little conflicting.
“Better than a flat-out no. Is it weird for you? Being my student instead of the other way around?”
I chuckle and glance at him from the corner of my eye. “A little, but you’re very good at teaching, and putting everyone at ease.”
“It’s important to make everyone feel comfortable, otherwise it’s hard to be effective.”
“I can see that.”
He holds the door open for me, and we walk across the parking lot where his giant truck and my little car sit under one of the floodlights. When we reach our vehicles, I clutch the strap of my bag and turn to him. “Can I ask why you do this?”
Maverick spins his keys on his index finger, catching them in his palm before he releases them and spins them again. “I do it for my sister.”
I’m unsurprised by this. From what I’ve learned recently, it seems Maverick does a lot for the people he cares about. “Did you teach her self-defense?”
“She and my mom took classes together when she was a teenager. I let her practice the moves with me. Eventually I decided I wanted to teach them to other people, so they’d know what to do if they ever ended up in a situation like Lavender did.
I mean, she was six when it happened, so it wasn’t like she was old enough to take those kinds of lessons, but I never wanted her to feel helpless like that again. Or anyone I cared about.”
“You mean when she was abducted at the carnival when you were kids?” I’m trying to follow his train of thought. The story he wrote seemed to be from an outsider’s perspective, looking in, but now I wonder if it was his adult self, looking at that childhood trauma.
“Yeah. If things had been different, she never would have gone missing.” He’s still spinning his keys, around and around, but he loses his rhythm, and they fly out of his hand, landing on the ground at my feet.
I scoop them up. There isn’t much space between his truck and my car. Only a couple of feet separate us, and when I straighten, my shoulder brushes his chest. Again, goose bumps flash over my skin, but this time they’re hidden by my jacket. “How do you mean?”
“We were supposed to wait for her.” His jaw works.
Sharp angles and soft eyes. Haunted. “But we didn’t.
None of us were ever the same after that.
” He swallows, gaze bouncing from my hand to my face and back again.
“Do you think maybe we could go for coffee or something? I can fill in some of the gaps in that story I wrote.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Maverick.”
“It’s coffee, Clover. Lots of professors have coffee with their students. I, uh, I just . . . Writing about that has kind of made it feel fresh again, if that makes sense? And I don’t have a lot of people I can talk to about this kind of thing.”
He seems so earnest, and like he could really use someone to listen. He’s not wrong about professors having coffee with students. It happens on campus all the time, especially with graduate students. The difference is most of those professors haven’t slept with the student in question.
“Just a quick coffee?” He gives me what can only be described as puppy dog eyes.
“Okay. We can go for coffee.”
“There’s a place a couple of blocks over, unless you’d feel better about going somewhere on campus. Like the café?”
“A couple of blocks over is fine. I can follow you?”
“Sure. Yeah. That’d be great.” Maverick holds my door open for me. “It’s called the Coffee Emporium. Have you heard of it?”
“I’ve been there before.”
“Okay. Drive safe. See you in a couple.” He closes the door and hops into his truck, pulling out of the lot before I can rethink this decision.