Page 126 of Rules of Association

Her soft face softened even more, and she put her phone away. “I agreed to come because you said you needed help. And you know I’ll always do that.”

“I know.”

She eyed me like she wanted to say more. Possibly something about my family and how they missed me and all the things I had been hearing a lot of lately. But the truth was, I still needed room from them. From my parents and especially Apá. I made a conscious point of coming to family dinners and gatherings. I didn't want to alarm anyone, and I didn’t want to be so selfish as to think mine were the only problems in the world. But I needed space and time to get my shit together on my own.

I had tried to do it under their umbrella and it ended up hurting me. I could admit it, I was hurt by their judgment and their teasing and probably most of all by how easy they made it all seem. But now that I had found something of my own, I was feeling more and more wanted.Needed, in a place where I could one day belong.

Places, actually.

To give Ferg her credit, she was pretty astute. When it came to my family, she didn't bring it up. Instead going with, “Who let you in here anyway? Don't they know you’re already a threat to society. We don't need you learning any new tricks.”

I smiled. But that smile quickly faded when the first answer I wanted to give was “your brother” and I realized I couldn’t. Instead, I just shrugged. “I started taking different lessons a couple of months ago. One of the instructors here had an emergency and asked me to teach her classes for today.”

“You’re going to teach?” she asked, eyeing me.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “And what’s wrong with that?”

She snorted. “Oh God. Come on then. Let me be your test dummy, quick, before you really hurt somebody.”

I snorted too but felt a twinge of something warm in my chest. Something I had been missing lately now that I was so consumed with my own problems and with my relationship with Connor.

Truthfully, I did miss my family. I missed this. And even if I wouldn’t admit it, it was sort of freeing to know that they had been there waiting all along.

* * *

“Get up, Ferg!” I said, laughing and pulling on her hands. “Come on, let’s try it one more time.”

Clementine Fernandez was beautiful and toned from her various Pilates and yoga classes. She was poised and graceful…when she was sitting down. Or maybe even walking. But anything else…Dumpster fire.

We had run through all the exercises for the self-defense classes. Starting from the very beginning and even rerunning through parts I tripped up on.

Fergy was patient and listened intently as if this was a real lesson. Asking questions, but still telling me when I could tweak a certain point or another. And for the most part the lessons were working. She caught onto instructions quickly and followed them well.

So how had she ended up on the ground?

By literally tripping over her own feet. That’s it. After doing so well with various self-defense moves, the girl had tripped over herself and rolled ungraciously to the floor. And now, as I was trying to pull her up, one of her long lanky limbs caught my ankle and tripped me too.

“Jesus Christ, control those things!” I said as I fell half on top of her and half on the matted floor. But I was laughing again, and she was shaking with her own giggles underneath me. “You are a goddamn liability, I swear.”

“And you’re heavy! Get off,” she said but made no moves to push me off.

Untangling, myself I rolled away from her. I don’t know what made me look towards the glass door but when I did I was met with the second pair of Ferguson hazel eyes that day. Outside the door stood Connor, looking in on us with a weird mix of admiration and concern on his face. Our eyes touched and all the feelings I had on the phone came rushing back.

I frowned and started to blink away from him like I wanted to, but for some reason I couldn’t. For some reason I couldn’t pull myself away.

Why was he here? If he could’ve come in the first place, why did he say no? Did he lie? Was he avoiding me? Was he tired of me like Jenny said? Or was he just punishing me?

And why did it hurt so fucking bad?

My confusion must have shown on my face, because his meter came out. His eyes tracking over my face more than a few times as he tried to gauge my expression. I don’t think he was able to decide on anything before he was ducking away from the door. Released from his hold, I blinked away just in time to see Fergy peeling herself off the ground, still chuckling softly. I hadn’t even noticed her getting up.

It’s like you’re in a bubble…

Lifting my leg up, I used my foot to plant on Ferg’s ass and pushed. She fell over again before whipping her head around to me and exclaiming, “Celestia!”

I smiled. “Sit down, princess. We’re done for a while.”

“Oh,” she huffed, moving gingerly to work herself around to a sitting position. “Well you didn’t have to kick me!”

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