Chapter 15 #2
I raised a brow. “I’m sure all the bad guys will be terrified of my calm breathing,” I said before I could stop myself.
He pressed his lips together, fighting a smile.
“It’s just one piece of the strategy,” he said. “Next, we can work on voice.” He took three steps back. “Shout like you mean it. Not a whisper. Not a plea. One word—from the diaphragm. Tell me stop. Tell me no. Scream. Anything to get attention and distract. Try it.”
I stared at him with all the derisiveness the request deserved. “You want me to…yell at you?”
His eyes flickered, but I couldn’t quite read the expression in them. “Yes, with your whole chest.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s—silly.”
He stepped toward me again, close enough that I had to look up into his face. “I wouldn’t ask you to do something I thought was silly or unhelpful. I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to help you.” He stepped back again, and nodded encouragingly. “Now let me hear how loud you can be.”
I shifted on my feet, entirely too self-conscious, but he looked at me with so much belief and expectation that it wore me down.
After pulling in a few more of those deep breaths, I opened my mouth and…the sound that came out startled me with its rawness. It wasn’t pretty, and my cheeks singed with heat. It was small at first, but steady. My voice echoed around the gym.
A half smile curled Graham’s lip. “Again,” he said, with another nod. “Louder. Project. Imagine someone’s behind that wall and they’re going to come running. You can do it.”
I filled my lungs again, my ribs twinging, before I screamed. I wasn’t even sure what I was saying, but I let something loose inside myself in a way I hadn’t in years. When I was finished, I felt ridiculous, but…braver.
Graham was smiling now, the full weight of it making the embarrassed blush in my cheeks hotter.
We worked on yelling a little while longer, until my throat felt on the verge of bleeding and Graham made me stop.
“You’re doing great,” he said. “We’ll work on a couple more things today.”
He stepped closer again, the heat of him sinking into my skin.
“We’ll do a wrist release next. We’ll start slow. I’m going to hold your wrist lightly—no pressure. You rotate toward the thumb and pull back. Think slip, not yank.”
I swallowed. Memories of other hands, other grips, flared at the edges of my vision. My chest tightened, but his tone kept me from spiraling. He placed his hand around my wrist like it was the most natural thing in the world—gentle, but businesslike.
“Rotate toward my thumb.” He guided my wrist with his free hand. “Not away. Toward the thumb. Shrug your shoulder down. Pull your elbow toward your hip.”
I twisted. The movement felt small and mechanical, but when I slid my hand through the space between his fingers, the tiny rush of triumph was disproportionate and utterly intoxicating. I took a small step back.
“Again,” he instructed. “Faster.”
Each repetition was a little less foreign. His hand tightened a fraction on mine with each try, and my body remembered to do the thing before my mind had time to freeze. After a few reps, the motion became automatic enough.
He watched me with a careful, almost reverent attention. It made my skin feel very, very thin.
“Good,” he murmured. “Now let’s try a stomp. If someone’s on your back, you use your legs. Drop your weight, bend your knees a bit, and bring your heel straight down behind you onto my shoe—hard.”
“Your shoe?” I repeated, incredulous. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Trust me,” he said.
Still, I hesitated before I did as asked. The heel of my foot hit the rubber with a thud that rattled up my calf and into my sternum—not pleasant, but not too much. It felt almost…powerful.
“Good. Again—stomp, then swing an elbow to the face if you need to before dropping low and twisting out of the hold if you can. Get away. Don’t stay. Run.”
We rehearsed the sequence slowly: stomp, pull, turn, step away. He never forced the motion. He corrected the angle of my foot, adjusted my movements, and reminded me to keep breathing through it all.
By the end of the hour, my ribs ached in a dull, but manageable way. Graham noticed when I was moving slower, and demanded we finish for the day.
I hated to admit it, but this whole thing wasn’t the worst. There were parts of it that I actually enjoyed. I was tired, but I’d never felt so alive, too. Like I could do anything.
Graham leaned back against the wall and gave me that faint, guarded smile of his. “You did really well. A natural.”
I rolled my eyes, but a bud of pride bloomed in my chest. “I don’t know about that.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
When he said it, it shocked me that I believed him.
He cleared his throat as he straightened, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “So, I have something for you.”
I frowned. “Something for me?”
“For all your hard work this morning.” He nodded. “I got you a present. If you want it.”
“A present?” That was the last thing I expected to come out of his mouth.
He walked over to his sweatshirt and pulled an envelope from the pocket. He seemed nervous. I stared at the envelope as he held it out to me.
“What is it?” I asked, afraid to look.
He scrubbed the back of his neck. “I thought that you might need something a little fun. After everything, you deserve a break.”
I gave him a doubtful look. Breaks weren’t really my thing. But I opened the envelope anyway—and froze the second I saw the familiar logo. My heart started to race.
He didn’t.
With slightly trembling fingers, I pulled out the tickets.
They were for an Ohio Central University football game.
And not just any game—the rivalry game. The Cardinals would face their in-state enemies, the Erie State College Walleyes.
It was the biggest game of the season. Of the entire year, actually.
I gaped at him. He was looking at me with a sheepish grin.
“How did you get these?” I stared at the seats printed on the bottom. They were good. Really good. Near the fifty-yard line. Those were expensive.
Graham shrugged like it was no big deal. “My dad’s an alumnus,” he said simply.
“Your dad went to Ohio Central?” I asked, surprised.
Graham nodded, but I couldn’t stop staring at the tickets. The paper felt heavy in my hands. Most tickets were digital these days, but he’d sprung for the fancy commemorative ones. They were more a souvenir, and one I’d probably keep forever.
“Still,” I shook my head, “I can’t—I can’t take these.”
His smile faltered. “Why not?”
“It’s too much.” I raised a shoulder. “You didn’t have to do this—”
“Well, one of them’s for me,” he interrupted, a little exasperated. “I figured if I was already going, you might be interested in coming with me.”
That caught me off guard. “You like the Cardinals?”
He looked at me like the answer should’ve been obvious. “My dad went to school there. Of course I do.”
I blinked at him, my heart suddenly lighter than it had been in weeks.
Could I really go? Part of me doubted it, the part of me that was scared. But a bigger part of me—the one that remembered the smell of bitter, cold air and the thrill of the crowd—couldn’t imagine saying no.
I bit the inside of my cheek, fixing my stare on him. This could be the worst idea I’d ever had, but I felt safe with him.
“Okay,” I said finally. “I’ll go.”
Graham’s eyes glittered in the gym lights, making my stomach clench.
Yes, this could be the worst idea, or…possibly the best.