Chapter Thirty-Three
Asher
The men in front of me are not what they sold themselves as. They’ve been training with me on Wednesdays for two months and still have trouble with the correct form. They each have some type of military training that interrupts the process of learning a new fighting style. If they had been honest in the beginning, I would have changed the way I taught them. They haven’t admitted anything to me, and I don’t pry, so the hard road it is.
“What’s next on the list?” One of the friends huffs as he continues his kicks.
If he has enough breath left to ask questions, something is wrong.
“Exercise.”The large one, Brody, continues his kicks smoothly, with no sign of distress.
“Does she have something she likes?” One of the twins says.
“Has she ever exercised?” The other puts in. It makes his brother chuckle.
The quiet one continues the workout without comment.
“Didn’t Andi say she did yoga once?” Ira asks.
“You teach yoga, right Ash?” The first twin, Blaze, I think, asks me.
“I do,” I have no idea when they decided they were comfortable enough with me to shorten my name, but I’m not going to say anything. I learned with Max that it’s a losing battle.
“What would it take to sign someone up?” Felix says, or Blaze, I can’t tell them apart.
“The same effort it took you to sign yourselves up.”I am not handing out free class time to a girlfriend.
“She won’t do it,” Brody comments with a disbelieving laugh as he looks at the twins.
“She could meet new people,” Felix/Blaze says.
“We could do it for her.” The second adds in.
I interrupt to say, “Switch.”
As we begin on the left leg, they continue their mocking banter, and I ignore them. I get the feeling this is a ploy of some kind, and I want no part in it.
Once we’ve finished and I’m wiping sweat from my face, one of the twins comes to me with a grin.
“Hey, if we sign up a friend for -”
“She’ll have to pay like everyone else,” my voice comes out bored as I wrap the towel around my neck.
“Yeah,” he looks confused before he continues. “Of course, man. I was going to ask if you could keep an eye on her.”
I give him a flat stare. “She’ll get treated like everyone else.”
If I give her any special attention, the rest of the class will consider it open season on me. I shudder at the thought.
“That’s fine,” he waves his hand to dismiss the comment. “I mean, she’s sensitive. We want to know if anything goes wrong or she gets upset.”
“Maybe a public class isn’t a good idea if she’s that delicate,” I frown. I do not want some whining, crying brat in any of my classrooms. The groping ones are bad enough. Making a woman cry rubs me the wrong way to begin with.
“So you do one on one?” His eyebrows go up in surprise.
“No, I don’t.”It’s a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. No thanks.
“Ok, then a class it is. She’s supposed to be meeting new people anyway. Thanks, man.”
This poor girl. Have they even checked in with her to make sure it’s ok? Whichever one of them is dating her is falling down on the job.