Page 65 of Two Chances With You

At that moment, I understand two things. One, he’s certainly not a good trainer, and two, for that reason I should start worrying.

***

I’m putting on a light T-shirt, shorts, gym socks, and the new Nikes I bought at Nike Town in New York.

“Hey, Step, ciao.” In the locker room, I meet someone I know, but I can’t remember his name. “What are you doing here? Do you train here?”

“Just for today. I want to take a trial lesson just to get an idea of how things work in this gym.”

“They work great, let me tell you! Aside from the fact that it’s full of women. Did you see the one working the heavy bag? A hottie to die for.”

“In a few minutes, I’m going to be trading punches with her.”

“Don’t tell me!” The guy whose name I absolutely can’t recall looks at me in surprise and then with a hint of worry. “I didn’t make a mistake, did I? Should I not have said it?”

“Said what?”

“That she’s a hottie to die for?”

I lock the locker, putting the key in my pocket. “What possible reason? It’s just true!” I smile at him and leave.

“All right, third dan, are we ready to start?” I say to Gin.

She looks at me with a fake smile. “Leaving aside the fact that the third dan has nothing to do with it, and you are so incredibly repetitive, can’t you come up with anything new?”

I laugh like an idiot and spread my arms wide. “I can’t believe it. Here we are about to have a boxing match, a nice serious match, no holds barred, and what do you do? You just start a taunting match.”

“A taunting match, nice, I hadn’t heard of that.”

“You can’t use it, in this caseIhold the rights to it!” And a split second later…Boom. I wasn’t expecting that. She hits me right in the face with a fast, sharp right straight.

“Good job, nice work.” The trainer jumps in the air. “Right, left lunge, and then get back on guard.”

I move my jaw, shifting it right and left. It’s slightly numb.

“Nothing broken, I trust?” Gin is jumping in place, looking at me and raising an eyebrow. “If you want, we can get started for real now.” Then, jumping, she comes over to me. “This was nothing but a first taste, oh, living legend. Ha, my trainer has never heard of you.”

I look at her as I lace up my boxing gloves. “As far as that goes, he hasn’t seen the photo I took of you with the Polaroid camera. Certainly, if he did see it…”

“If he did see it?”

“Well, maybe he’d think things over. In that photo, you look so scary that he’d suddenly get over even that itch he has to take you to bed!”

Gin lunges at me like a fury and starts hitting me.

With a laugh, I parry punches that are coming in from all directions, with an open glove, then a closed one, variously wide and narrow. Finally, she catches me with a straight kick.

“Hey…”

Lower belly. She lands the kick there good and solid. I fold over, keening from the pain. I just barely manage to catch my breath. “Ouch! No fair!”

“All’s fair with you.”

“Okay, Gin, even if I wanted to show you all my love, right here and now I wouldn’t be up to it.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take you at your word.”

Damn it to hell, she distracted me, she made me laugh, and then she kicked my balls in. I stand there, folded over at the waist, doing my best to recover.

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