Chapter 4 #2
"Yep."
"That's six-thirty in the morning."
"Ma'am."
"Luke Davis."
"Anna Kim."
She stands. Brings her glass to the sink. Sets it down next to me. She's close enough that I can see the little gold hoops in her ears and the place where her pulse is still going faster than it should be.
"Thank you. For dinner. And the saltines."
"Go to bed, Anna."
She goes.
I stand at the sink for a long minute after her door clicks shut. The wind's picked up outside. The owl calls again, farther this time.
I scrub a plate that's already clean.
I'm on the porch at oh-six-fifteen with two mugs of coffee and a foam mat I dug out of the barn. Sun's just starting to come up over the ridge. Pink bleeding into gold. Birds are going at it in the cedars.
I sleep badly most nights. Woke at four, stared at the spare room ceiling until the dark started thinning out, got up. That's my usual. The new part is knowing whose breathing was in the other room. Knowing she cried for a while before she slept. The walls are thin.
The new part is that I heard her, and I stayed on my side of the door anyway, because she didn't scream this time.
I knock on her bedroom door at oh-six-thirty exactly.
"Time to get up."
Nothing.
I knock again.
A groan. Muffled. The sound of a woman who did not, in fact, hear her alarm.
"Anna."
"What?"
"Let's go."
"It’s still dark, Luke Davis."
"Sun's been up ten minutes."
"That is an opinion."
I lean my forearm against the door frame. Cross my boots at the ankle. Try not to smile at the floorboards.
"I got coffee."
A long pause.
"What kind?"
"The hot kind."
"You are a deeply unhelpful man."
"Five minutes."
Something hits the inside of the door. Soft. Probably a pillow.
I take my coffee out to the porch and wait.
She comes out at oh-six-thirty-eight in leggings and a black tank top and a messy bun on top of her head like a burnt match. Face scrubbed clean. Eyes still puffy. She takes the second mug from me without a word, wraps both hands around it, sniffs it like she's testing it for poison, and drinks.
"Oh."
"What?"
"You made it right."
"That a compliment?"
"Don't get used to it."
I let her drink half the mug. Watch her wake up in real time. The sunrise is doing something to her face, catching on her cheekbones and the soft curve of her mouth, and I look at the cedars instead.
Twelve years.
Twelve years between us, and I've known her thirteen hours.
"Alright." I set my mug on the railing. Step out onto the mat I laid down on the flat grass below the porch. "Come on."
She comes down the steps warily, barefoot.
"Is there going to be hitting?"
"Eventually."
"Of me?"
"No, ma'am."
"Oh, good. I draw the line at being hit by a very large cowboy before coffee is properly in my system."
"Noted."
I step behind her. She stiffens.
"Luke."
"Easy. I'm not gonna touch you unless I tell you first. Deal?"
"Deal."
"Right. So. First thing. When a man grabs a woman, ninety percent of the time, he's grabbing her wrist. Like this. I'm gonna take your wrist. Alright?"
"Alright."
I reach around and wrap my hand around her wrist from behind. Loose. Deliberate. Not squeezing. Her pulse kicks against my thumb.
"Your instinct is to pull straight back. That's the worst thing you can do. My grip is stronger than your pull. Every time."
"Okay."
"What you do instead. You rotate your hand toward my thumb. The thumb's the weakest part of the grip. You break the grip at the thumb. Try it. Slow."
She rotates her wrist. Her hand slides out of mine like water.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Huh."
"Again."
I take her wrist. She breaks it.
"Again. Faster."
Break.
"Again."
Break.
She's starting to smile. Not big. Just a tilt at the corner of her mouth.
"Both sides."
I switch hands. She breaks the second grip on her third try. Breaks it clean on the fourth.
"Good."
"This is extremely satisfying."
"Wait till you throw an elbow."
"You're going to let me elbow you?"
"Not today. Today I'm gonna show you where to aim it."
I step around in front of her. Plant myself. Take off my hat and set it on the porch rail because the brim keeps cutting the sun across my eyes. I can feel her looking at me without looking.
"Alright. Body mechanics. A man grabs you from behind like this." I take her shoulders, both of them, firm, keeping my body a few inches clear. "Your feet are flat. Your weight's forward. He's got you. Yeah?"
"Yeah." Her voice is tight.
"Breathe, Anna. I'm not gonna hurt you."
"I know."
"Then breathe."
Her shoulders rise under my palms. Drop.
Good girl.
I don't say that out loud.
"You drop your weight. Just a couple inches.
Bend your knees. Suddenly, I'm holding way more of you than I was a second ago, and my balance is forward.
Then you drive your elbow back. Right here.
" I release one of her shoulders, step back, and point to my lower ribs, the soft place under the sternum.
"Drives the breath out of me. Buys you three seconds. "
"Three seconds isn't much."
"Three seconds is a lifetime. You'll see."
I move behind her. We run it. Slow. She drops her weight, turns her shoulders, and swings her elbow into the air beside me. I reposition, do it again.
On the fourth try, her elbow grazes my ribs.
"Oh my God, I'm sorry."
"Do not apologize for hitting me."
"Reflex."
"Unlearn it."
"Right."
Fifth try, she actually connects. Not hard. A tap. Her face lights up like she just solved a crossword.
"I got you."
"You got me."
"I'm a menace."
"You're a threat."
"I'm a credible threat."
"Credible is a stretch."
She smacks me in the arm with the back of her hand. Barefoot and wild-haired and smiling for the first time since she walked into Gabe's office, and the smile hits me somewhere under the breastbone, right where I told her to hit with her elbow.
Focus, Davis.
"Alright. Last one for this morning. Ground work."
"Ground?"
"Worst case. You're on your back. Man's on top of you. Your legs are your best weapon. Stronger than your arms. Longer. They buy you space."
"Oh."
"I'm gonna show you. I'm not gonna lie on top of you. I'm gonna kneel. You're gonna use your legs to push me off. Alright?"
"Alright."
She lies down on the mat. Slow. Arms at her sides. Hair spread out on the green foam. Sun coming over the cedars, catching her from the side. I breathe out through my nose and remind myself what I'm doing here.
I kneel. Knees outside her hips. Not touching. Hands at my sides.
"Bring your knees up. Plant your feet flat on my chest. Not on my ribs. On the meat. Right here." I tap my pectoral. "Then straighten your legs hard. Fast. Like a piston."
"Won't that hurt you?"
"I'll be fine."
She brings her knees up. Her feet press flat against my chest. Warm through the cotton. I can feel her heart going through the soles of her feet. Or maybe that's mine.
"Good. Arms up. Brace. Now push."
She pushes.
I rock back on my heels, stand, step away. "Good."
"I moved you."
"You moved me."
"Luke."
"Anna."
"This is the most fun I've had in a week."
"Bar's on the floor, sweetheart."
Sweetheart.
It comes out before I know I'm saying it. Her eyes flick to mine. Hold.
I clear my throat. "One more time. Faster."
She lies back down. Knees up. Feet on my chest.
I kneel back in. Close this time. Closer than I meant to. Her legs bracketed against my front. Her eyes up at me, dark and wide. Her hair fanned out on the mat. Her tank top rucked up an inch at the waist, showing a strip of skin I wasn't planning on seeing this early in the day.
Focus.
"Push."
She pushes.
I don't rock back this time. I stay.
Our eyes are locked. Her breath's coming fast. Mine's gone sideways in a way I can't explain with exertion.
"Knock knock, y'all."
Madison.
Anna yelps. Rolls sideways out from under me. I stand up too fast and nearly clip my head on the railing.
Madison Moore is standing on my front porch steps with her hand on her hip and a grin on her face that I'm going to remember for the rest of my natural life.
"Well." She lifts her coffee cup in a lazy cheers. "Don't stop on my account."
Anna makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a prayer.
I pick up my hat off the railing and jam it on my head.
"Morning, Madison."
"Morning, Davis."
"You ever think about knocking?"
"I did. I said knock knock. Out loud." She takes a sip. "Was I interrupting a very important session?"
"Yes," Anna says from the mat.
"It looked extremely strenuous."
"It's very strenuous."
"Were you pinned, Anna?"
"I was being taught to push him off."
"Is that what that was?"
"Madison," I say.
"Luke," Madison says sweetly.
Anna's up on her feet now, cheeks a color I'm going to pretend is from the sun. She dusts her hands off and does not look at me.
Madison jerks her chin at her. "Walk with me, babe. We need to catch up."
"Yeah." Anna grabs her coffee off the railing. Does not, under any circumstances, look at me. "Yeah. Let's walk."
They head down the drive, Madison's arm already sliding through Anna's. Madison says something low, causing Anna to swat at her shoulder, and Madison laughs.
I stand on the porch with the sun in my eyes and my hands on the railing and a heartbeat that's doing absolutely none of what I'm telling it to do.
Sweetheart.
I scrub a hand down my face.
Twelve years apart, a killer in Portland, a woman I've known fourteen hours flat, and a foam mat that's still warm from her back.
Goddamn it.