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“Satisfied?” Barney demanded. He tossed the orange to Derelie.
“I think so.” She caught it. “You’re not really a big grouch, are you?”
“He is,” Jack said, same time as Barney said, “I am.”
“Take your vitamin C.” Barney wagged a finger at Derelie. “And Jack, I got a feeling you’ve got something you want me to do for you.”
He handed Barney his camera. “A favor. Some shots of us. It’s for the paper.”
Barney closed his hand around the camera. It was smaller than the orange. “This tiny thing is a camera?” He lifted the pocket-sized digital to his eye.
“Use the screen.”
“Aye. Technology.”
It would be a miracle if Barney could get a single decent shot—he still used an old clamshell phone—but selfies wouldn’t cut it for the paper and Jack couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. He pulled Derelie in to him and they posed, standing side by side. He remembered to smile. The shot wouldn’t do, but it was a start.
“Candid, Barney. Surprise us.”
“Got better things to do than to sneak around after you two.” He grumbled, but he took the camera while Jack took Derelie down into the pit. He lost the sense of where Barney was after that as they shared the orange and she tested out the slightly sprung floor, bounced off the sides of the wall, and then shaped up to him.
“Show me how to throw a punch.”
He could have the debate about why she didn’t need to learn to throw a punch, that there were better forms of self-defense, but none of that let him cage her in his body to step her though how to make a fist, how to deliver a punch, how to keep her guard up. He was a fraud, but this got him close to her and made her laugh and soon they were shaping up to each other, fake shadow boxing.
“I like the idea of the women’s fight nights,” she said, bopping around him like something with batteries included. She’d already tried to Karate Kid him, complete with cartoon sound effects that showed off her inner Miss Piggy.
He spun to keep an eye on her. “No you don’t.”
“I could punch my frustrations away.”
Flail was more like it. “Isn’t that what yoga is for?”
“Doing yoga is something else to cross off my list of done in the city accomplishments. I also thought it might bring me peace.” She stopped moving. “I kind of hate it and I’m not good at it, and don’t think I ever will be. Not that yoga is competitive, just that I am.”
“You looked very peaceful this morning in my bed.”
“Hi-yah!” She leaped at him and he caught her in a hug. “I was.”
“We could just keep doing that to take care of your peace-keeping needs.”
She wound her arms around his neck. “Do you mean that?”
“I mean it.”
“And you’ll teach me how to box properly?”
“No. Someone who knows how to teach you how to box will. I can show you the basics, but you need to join a gym and get some experience because this is the underground amateur league here and you’re not ready for this.”
“But I could be.”
He could see the way the idea engaged her. “You could be.” He wasn’t sure he liked it. He’d find her a good trainer.
“One, two,” she said, a mini Rocky, giving herself the giggles and no longer afraid of what he did when he came here.
He found Barney while Derelie waited outside for their Uber. “Thanks for letting me give her the tour.”
“What’s with the two of you?”
