Chapter 16 #2
I eyed her once more, checking for any signs that she was joking, before giving in with a loathsome sigh. “So what, I just…punch it?”
“Not like you’re trying to fluff a pillow,” she said with a laugh. “Like you mean it.” She then demonstrated, driving her palm forward in a quick, solid strike that made the sack shudder. “Start with the heel of your hand and pretend you’re aiming for the nose. Hard and fast.”
I tried to mimic her, but my first hit landed all wrong—way too soft and tentative, and not at all as badass as Norah made it look.
“This feels ridiculous,” I muttered, that first telltale sign of embarrassment creeping in as I stepped back.
“Of course it feels ridiculous.” Norah laughed again and propped her hands on her hips. “You’re punching a feed bag in a barn. Again,” she urged. “Put your weight into it this time.”
I expelled a heavy sigh and tried again. Better, but still weak.
Norah stepped behind me, adjusting my stance. “Feet apart,” she said, kicking her booted foot between mine to widen my legs. “Bend your knees. Remember, you’re not asking the guy to step aside…you’re telling him.”
Something about that clicked. I drove my palm into the sack, harder this time. The thud was satisfying enough to pull a grin out of me.
“There you go! Now, elbow. Short and sharp.” She demonstrated, then had me try.
Before long, she’d walked me through a handful of moves—palm strike, elbow jab, knee to the groin. Little wisps of my hair that had escaped my bun were sticking to my face with sweat, and every time the feed bag bucked under my hands, something inside of me loosened.
First, I pictured Gus and his grabby hands. Then Zane’s stupid scowl. And then…then my brain landed on Heath.
The memory of his voice, low and cold, slithered in without warning…
You really think anyone else would put up with you?
My chest pinched. I hit the sack harder.
You’re nothing without me.
Another hit…so hard my palm stung.
“You okay?” Norah asked, but I barely heard her over the thrum of my own pulse pounding against my eardrums.
I drove my knee up into the sack and shoved it back against the stack of hay bales…
breathing hard as rage and something like grief tangled in my throat.
When I finally stopped, my arms hung heavy and limp at my sides, and I leaned forward, bracing my palms on my knees as I worked to catch my breath.
Norah eyed me cautiously. “I don’t know who you were picturing just now…but damn, remind me never to piss you off.”
A breathy laugh fell from my mouth as I sank onto the edge of a hay bale.
Norah leaned against the stack next to me, arms crossed and watching me with a smirk. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah…a little,” I admitted, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my wrist. “Did your brothers really teach you all of those moves?”
She nodded. “That’s the blessing, and the curse, of having two overprotective brothers. I love them, but it’s…complicated. They make things complicated. Especially when it comes to dating.”
I frowned. “That sounds…annoying.”
“It is,” she admitted. “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a fishbowl everyone’s peering into. No privacy, no room to figure out who the hell I am without them hovering or intervening.”
I nodded slowly, understanding more than I expected. “You ever think about leaving?”
“All the time,” she said softly, then louder added, “Not like leave town or anything, because I love it here. But just…having my own space would be nice, you know? An apartment in town or a small little house I can rent. Somewhere off their radar enough that I wouldn’t have to worry so much if I’m going to get caught doing the walk of shame and have to spend the next hour getting a full-on sermon on morality, curfews, and common sense. ”
A laugh bubbled up from my chest as I stood up from the hay bale, tugging at the band barely holding my messy bun together and letting the sweaty strands fall loose. “Wow,” I mused, shaking my head as the strands tumbled down. “Doesn’t Zane have anything better to do than be a hard-ass?”
“Zane’s not the problem,” she said dryly as I flipped my head over and bent forward, combing my tangled hair and trying to wrangle the mess back into a knotted bun. “Luke, of all freaking people, is the one to give that particular lecture and… Shit, girl, what did you do to your back?”
I froze, feeling a cold prickle slink up my spine as I realized my tank top had slid up while I bent over.
Most of the bruises from Heath’s last bit of wrath had finally faded…
but that one stubborn shadow along the back of my ribs—where he’d shoved me so hard and I’d fallen awkwardly onto the entryway table, and then again into the back of the sofa—still lingered.
And I couldn’t reach that one with makeup like the barely-there one yellowing around my eye.
But, lucky for me, my hair was long enough to cover it while it was down…
which is probably why Zane hadn’t noticed it earlier when he walked in on me.
Or if he did, he was probably too busy staring at everything else to bother processing it.
But now…now his sister had definitely seen it…
“What are you talking about?” I jerked to a stand and yanked the fabric back down over my ribs.
Norah pushed off the hay bale stack and stepped closer, gently reaching for the edge of my shirt. “You’ve got a nasty, fading bruise back here,” she said, her voice soft and concerned as my shirt lifted and her fingers hovered just above my skin. “What happened?”
I shook my head, heart thudding painfully against my sternum. “Nothing.”
“Girl, that’s not nothing…”
My hands shot up, ripping the shirt from her grasp and yanking it back into place again, as if that could erase the moment. “It’s nothing,” I said again, firmer this time as I met her confused blue eyes and held them, silently pleading for her to just let it go.
Norah’s mouth pressed into a thin line as her eyes darkened with something fierce and quiet. She didn’t pry any further than that, but her jaw flexed enough to show she was simmering, and her fingers twitched like she wanted to reach out again, but she didn’t.
Instead, she exhaled softly and straightened, letting her hands fall to her sides. “I hope the asshole who did that to you got a taste of what you just gave that bag.”
I blinked at her, and a small, reluctant smirk tugged at my lips despite myself. He didn’t, but she didn’t need to know that. Norah’s expression softened a little with my smirk, and she nudged me gently back toward the bag. “Come on. Let’s see what else you’ve got.”