Page 24 of A Brother At My Back

“How d’you mean?” Nik asked.

“Learn all this before he finds me; before he gets to me.”

Nik opened his mouth to speak, a frightening scowl on his tattooed face, but Mali beat him to it saying, “That’s not the point, honey. You aren’t going to learn this shit overnight. That’s impossible. All we can do with this is keep at it and give you an inside edge on staying alive if it comes to it.” She gave Nik a meaningful look and whatever he was going to say a moment before was gone.

Instead, he gave me a reassuring grin saying, “One step at a time, eh?” He put his hands on his knees, breathing heavy and gave me a nod that I think was meant to be encouraging.

I was beginning to honestly feel like I was right. That the only superpower I possessed, masked or otherwise, was that I really could just take whatever beating I had coming my way until help arrived. Mali laughed and I blinked at her. Had I said that out loud?

“Well, you’re ahead of most then. Most bitches crumble into dust and blow away in the face of this shit. You’re fighting back, and pretty hardcore at that. It’s always better to be proactive rather than reactive.”

“Wish I had been from the get-go.”

She gave a shrug.

“Meh, we all do stupid shit when we’re young, and trust me, you’re still young.”

I frowned and asked Nik, “The showers work here?”

“Ah, yeah, nah.” I was about to ask which it was but Mali interrupted.

“I’ve gotta go. You’re a quick learner, Tiff. I think your dancing is giving you an inside edge on this. I’ll do some thinking on how to make it work even further to our advantage.”

I nodded and tried valiantly to not feel completely discouraged. I really hadn’t thought I’d done well at all. I also didn’t know how I was going to fit this in around coming up with and practicing new routines on the regular. Winging it didn’t pay out as well as having a set idea of what to do on stage once the music started.

Mali shrugged back into her jacket over her workout clothes and lifted her messenger bag back over her chest crossways.

“Same bat time, same bat channel,” she called over her shoulder.

“See yah, Mali. Thanks again,” Nik called. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth for a moment, watching her go and turned back to him. He was watching me intently and I sighed.

“Wasn’t what I had in mind,” I said honestly and he nodded, dragging down a towel from where he’d hung it over the middle rope on the ring. Watching him toss it over his shoulders was a bit of a treat to watch, the muscles moving beneath his skin in his arms and chest as he wiped the sweat he’d worked up away. I swallowed hard, wondering where that had come from, trying to decide if it was getting around to that time of the month and I was just doing my regular hormonal thing or if the sudden appreciation of his physique was a real attraction trying to sneak in the back door. To help me make my decision, I took him in a little more thoroughly.

He wore a pair of cut-off sweatpants and a loose tank top and it gave him a rugged, no-fucks-were-given, look-at-me-wrong-and-I’ll-beat-a-man’s-ass sort of vibe that was appealing.

I wore my typical dance practice attire of athletic leggings and a sports bra. The only concessions from my usual practice attire were a comfortable pair of socks and sneakers. I tended to practice on the pole with a pair of heels, or if I was just playing around, barefoot.

The gym had working heat, but that didn’t stop the cold from outside from swirling in at Mali’s departure, gelling the sweat in place on my skin and causing me to start to itch. It didn’t help that the cold wanted to linger and I hated being cold for too long. Sometimes it was like the cold wanted to set in and I couldn’t stand that. It looked like this was going to be one of those times. Usually, the only cure was a hot shower or a lot of layers and some time by the heater or a fire.

“So, do the showers here work or not?” I asked again.

“Eh, yeah, they work, but nah, we aren’t supposed to use ‘em. Wasn’t part of the deal with me getting us in here after-hours.”

“Fair enough. I’m starting to freeze, though, so can we get me home so I can deal?”

“C’mon with me,” he said.

I nodded and we gathered our things. He put the hooded sweatshirt he’d had on when he’d let us in here around my shoulders and I followed him out onto the frozen, night-dark street. After locking up the front door of the gym, he waved me after him. I followed him half a block down to the front of this dive bar. He unlocked a door next to it and waved me through into a narrow stairwell. He threw the deadbolt into the locked position behind us and climbed the stairs ahead of me, two at a time. I lightly stepped after him, climbing them deftly without so much as getting even slightly out of breath.

At least the stripping had kicked up my endurance for this new sort of training. If anything, I had cardio covered in this whole endeavor. Though, I figured, I could stand to spend a little more time on a treadmill. I never knew if it would come down to me legit or straight up running in an encounter with Silas.

Nik stopped at a door at the end of the short hall at the top of the stairs and fished through his keys on the ring, selecting one and sticking it in the top lock. I shivered involuntarily and hated it. Cursing winter out silently inside my head, I followed him into the space beyond the doorway and blinked at the enormity of it.

“Wow, this place is huge…” I said, and it was. A kitchenette was off to my left, a doorway next to it. The place was a huge open floor plan but empty. Devoid of any real furniture except for a mattress on the floor up against one wall in a corner, and a spindly, old and scarred up dining room chair sitting next to it.

“Ah, yeah, the owner of the bar can’t rent it. The bar is too loud, comes right through the floor. They used to use it for storage, but the fire department said they couldn’t anymore. Seeing as I work there, I said I’d rent it. I’m working during the hours it would be loud anyhow.”

“So this is your place?”

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