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“No, I wasn’t clear. I don’t want you to try anything on me yet. Especially not the next one.”
She winces, her gaze flicking down briefly. “Hitting a guy in the balls?”
I nod. “Or kicking, depending on the situation. It’s a classic for a reason.”
She gives a nervous laugh. “Does it really hurt that much?”
“It feels like…” I run a hand over my beard, considering how I can describe it. “Like you’re going to throw up and shit yourself and die all at the same time.”
The alarm on her face nearly has me grinning.
“So only do it in an emergency. Not if you’re just arguing or something.”
She nods, wide-eyed.
I show her a few more moves like hammer and elbow strikes, and she practices them a few times.
“Be more decisive,” I tell her. “Strike when they’re not expecting it.”
“Right.” She adjusts her speed, determination on her face.
“Good. Give them everything you’ve got. Attack them quickly so you can get them off-balance and make your escape.”
She nods, keeping at it. “We need one of those training dummies. Then I could get really good.”
“You’d probably hurt yourself, to be honest. You haven’t built up to that.”
“What would I need to do?”
“Toughen up your hands, for one. It’ll hurt if you don’t have calluses.”
“So how do I get them?”
“By punching things.”
“But you said it’ll hurt if I do that.”
I rub at the back of my neck. “Yeah, it’s kind of a catch twenty-two.”
She holds the backs of her hands out to me. “Do I have any?”
I lean in, inspecting her knuckles, and sweep a thumb over them, silently reveling in how soft they are. Is she that soft everywhere?
I stumble back, thrown off by that unexpected thought. This isn’t the time to think about stuff like that.
She quirks her head at me, confused.
“You’d probably split your knuckles if you punched anything remotely hard,” I say, not acknowledging my weird movement. “How about you practice the movements until they feel more natural?”
Nodding, she thrusts her palm upward into the air, and I watch from a distance, occasionally correcting her form or giving pointers.
She pauses when her breathing becomes labored. “This is like an actual workout.” She fans her shirt away from her body, then pushes her sleeves up past her elbows. “I might actually turn the heat off soon.”
I grin at her. “I take it you don’t do much cardio?”
She shakes her head. “I’m blessed with a fast metabolism. You probably have to do stuff for boxing, though, right?”
“I do interval running a few times a week. More often if I have a match coming up.”
