Page 6 of Allure

“It means that you look like you carry yourself well. Some women, they walk with their heads down, their steps short, small. It makes them look weak.”

“Like a target.”

“Exactly. Sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear me ramble on. You look like you’re… eighteen?”

I nod.

“Yeah, you don’t want to hear the ramblings of a thirty-four-year-old.” She laughs.

I grin at her and then hear a bit of moving around outside of the locker room. I quickly take off my sandals and look around at the cubbies.

“They aren’t assigned. Just put your sandals wherever you want, and we can get lined up,” Jackie says.

I shove my keys into a space first, my sandals on top, and follow her over to an area with a bunch of chairs. There are huge windows for any observers to watch what's happening on the red and blue mat.

A short man, maybe five-six, rushes out of the hallway. He's the only one to be wearing black pants and a black Gi top, and he claps his hands twice. "All right, everyone. On the mat. Line up."

I fall into line. There are about a dozen of us.

"You." The man motions me over. "You're new?"

“Yes, sir.” I don’t know why thesircame out, but he demands respect.

“Sensei, not sir. I’m Ivar Drakenberg, the sensei of this dojo. May I ask your name?”

“Brooke Adams.”

“How did you learn about Rumble Dojo, Brooke Adams?”

“From a flyer on campus.”

“Ah, wonderful.” He grins. His skin is porcelain, his head bald, but I think he shaves it. He’s built like a boulder, and he puts his hands on his hips as he appraises me. Then, he points to the window. “As you can see, we line up in order of rank. Black belts then brown and so on.”

“I’m not even white, so I’ll be last.”

“Yes, but last can be first. It just takes a single step to start one’s karate journey, a journey that can last your entire lifetime if you let it. When I first stepped onto the mat—”

“Sensei?”

“Yes, Declan King?”

Hottie. Even his name is hot. I try not to stare at him.

"Do you want me to start warm-ups? Or are you going to talk the poor new girl's ears off and make it so she won't even step onto the mat?"

I narrow my eyes at Declan. “There’s nothing wrong with talking,” I say, “and I’ll be on the mat.”

"For tonight, maybe." He shrugs, giving me a once-over, clearly not seeing anything about me that screams fighter.

“He’s not even wearing the uniform,” I say.

"He'll get changed. I don't think he planned on doing class tonight, not originally, but Declan King is right. You should step onto the mat and warm-up. The last thing I want is for you to become sore or injured and never come back."

I nod to him, almost feeling like that’s not enough, and I hurry onto the mat. The others are just finishing jumping jacks and are moving onto various stretches.

Stretches I can do, but what I don’t care for is the way Declan teases and pokes and prods at everyone. No one seems to care, and maybe he’s just teasing them, and I’m reading too much into it, but when he tries to get a guy to stretch his back more and pushes on his lower back some, the expression on the guy’s face has me wanting to snap at Declan, but he’s already moving on.

Down the line.

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