Page 97 of The Bad Wedding Date

“You look nice,” she said with an ease I hadn’t expected.

I glanced down at my casual shorts and my dark green polo T-shirt before I looked back at her with a raised brow.

Her grin made her cheeks pop. “I’m not used to seeing you out of formal wear. The relaxed look suits you.”

“Would you prefer I wore a suit?”

She shook her head slowly and let her gaze drift down to the short, tight sleeves around my biceps. “That’ll do nicely.”

The sexual tension grew—something I’d never had so effortlessly with a woman.

“What happened yesterday?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“With your job? Did you do everything you needed to do?”

“We got through some things, yeah.”

“As cryptic as ever.” She smirked, reaching out for her water again and taking a sip before she let the glass settle in her lap, both hands curling around it.

I tilted my head to look at her. “I’m not cryptic.”

She raised an accusatory brow back at me.

“I’m not. What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“You need to be a little more specific.”

“Okay,” she said, her humour alive—a relief on my part. I wasn’t sure how serious this was about to get. “Start by telling me one thing about yourself you’ve not already told me. Just one thing, Fraser.”

“And then you’ll be happy?”

“I’ll be happier,” she said with a smile.

I glanced around the street, at the people wandering along in either direction. Some local. Some foreign. Some unable to see the appeal of this land. Others struck in awe by buildings that Charlotte and I saw every other day. I saw the small band playing behind their steel drums and the happy strangers that surrounded them, oblivious to the wars that raged within these streets behind closed doors and in dark alleyways. The horror that the night brought upon them, often under their noses, yet too silent for anyone to hear the screams of the people in dire need of help. I took it all in—the sun, the sky, the bright colours of a hot summer’s day in one of the most magnificent cities in the world.

Eventually, my eyes fell back to Charlotte. “Every Tuesday and Thursday evening, I teach self-defence classes to women at a studio in Hackney.”

That seemed to catch her off guard. Her face fell, and she stared at me as though trying to seek out a lie.

“You were with me last Tuesday and Thursday evening,” she said.

“Wade covered for me. Sometimes we switch it up, and I ask the others to go in so that the women get taught different skillsets from different men.”

“What kind of defence is it?”

“Everything. Basic hand to hand combat is the area I excel in. Some women don’t have the agility or the desire to learn things like Jiu-Jitsu or Muay Thai, although one of my guys is a master at all of those. But mainly, I want these girls and women to understand the basics of boxing. To know how to throw a punch. To know how to get out of a compromising hold. To know how to breathe through their panic and keep themselves centred.”

“Is that profitable?”

“It’s a free course. We make no money.”

“Wow. That’s… charitable.”

“Until the world stops casting your gender as the weaker sex, there’s work to be done, and I want to be a part of that work.”

---