“Then don’t get hit,” Felix laughs, and Nolan rolls his eyes.
As they banter back and forth, I attempt to take a closer look at the tattoo that covers Nolan’s right shoulder and half his arm. Before I can get a good look past a broken clock with different forms chained to it, it’s as if he can feel my eyes, and his left hand comes out of his pocket to grab his upper arm, covering most of his ink.
Doesn’t want to talk about it. Got it.
This however does make me curious, and I comment, “With how talented Connor is, I’m surprised he doesn’t have any tattoos of his own.”
“He can’t-- at least not permanently,” Nolan explains, moving to the other side of Felix. “Once he shifts back from a wolf, he’s literally good as new.”
There’s a fleeting look of confusion across Felix’s face, before he glances down at Nolan’s arm and a moment of melancholy tugs at his deep set eyes. I respectfully ignore the exchange, and within a blink, his expression is wiped clean, and he looks back up at me with his sweet smile.
“What’s cool is that’s how he taught himself to do tattoos,” Felix extols with pride. “I didn’t know at the time, obviously, but he’d practice, shift, then he’d have a fresh canvas to work on.”
I do my best to ignore how painful it probably was to stab himself repeatedly for something he knew would be gone as soon as he finished, and marvel a bit at his ingenuity to use his healing abilities to benefit his art.
“I wonder if I’m capable of getting tattoos or would I heal too fast for the ink to set?” I ponder out loud.
Nolan tips his head to the side, considering. Now that his arm is safely blocked from view, his hand goes back into his pocket. “From what I saw last night, I’m guessing no. With that burn, the damaged skin didn’t flake off, it was like it was never burned in the first place.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to agree,” Felix adds, bobbing his head “Or if you can, one deep scratch and you have a line of healed skin right through it. Actually, that might be kind of cool.”
As we talk about my healing abilities and what we’d have to do to make the tattoo stay, we more hang around the elliptical machines than use them. I go the extra step of standing on one of them, but I don’t really do more than the occasional rotation.
Donovan comes strolling in, looks at the three of us, and shakes his head. He’s now wearing black workout shorts and a matching sleeveless tank that I’m pretty sure I can visibly count his abs in.
With exasperation that rivals Kaleb, he asks, “Did you seriously just stand there while I was gone?”
“Nope, I totally did a full workout,” Felix answers with a huge grin. He drops to the ground and starts doing pushups. “Look I can do them one handed now!”
“Smartass,” he grunts back, pressing his lips together to keep from smiling.
“So, how exactly am I helping Callie today?” Nolan questions, his expression somewhere between concern and a model pout that accents the sharpness of his cheekbones. “I need this face bruise free.”
“Don’t worry. Callie won’t be punching you in the face.” Donovan smirks. He walks over, pats Nolan on the shoulder, before resting his hand on the back of Nolan’s neck, like he’s keeping him from running away. “She’ll be throwing you to the ground and grappling you into submission.”
Nolan squints up at Donovan. “I have mixed feelings about this.”
“Too bad. It’s gotta be you. You’re the last man standing,” he replies without remorse.
“Not for long,” Felix chuckles under his breath.
∞∞∞
For the first half of my session, Nolan is excused to do an actual workout and Felix hangs out with him. I can’t hear what they talk about, but Felix tends to gesture wildly as he speaks, appearing to pantomime shapes and actions while Nolan nods along.
Meanwhile, Donovan uses the aforementioned heavy bag, important locations to aim for marked off in tape, to teach me how to stand, move, punch and kick without falling on my ass.
The music has shifted to a rock song that’s both harsh and seductive. The beats roll together with promises of pleasure and pain that draws the listener willingly to a darkness that only offers danger. The room feels warm, the air thick with a moist heat that has started to fog the tops of the windows.
“With Muay Thai, you want your hips facing forward,” Donovan instructs from behind me, his large hands encasing both of my hips and moving them to the correct direction. “Normally, having the trunk of your body facing this way makes you a much larger target, but how you move will help negate that. Also, you’re so small, you’re still kind of a hard target.”
He chuckles, his breath playing with the loose strands that have fallen out of my ponytail. There’s no gruffness to his tone, and it gentles the gravel in his voice to something far smoother that makes my heart skip.
The song mixed with Donovan’s nearness has my skin feeling hot and tight against my bones. Awareness tingles through me and leaves me struggling to actually take in what he’s saying.
“Face forward. Got it,” I chirp.
“Then you shift your weight back and forth between each foot,” he continues, rocking my hips to guide me. “This makes it harder for your opponent to trip you, because you can easily lift your leg out of the way.”
