Page 40 of Stay this Christmas
I counted in my head. I even gave him full Mississippis, just to be generous.
He didn’t move on.
Stepping closer to them, I caught his attention. “She’s got it.”
He blinked hard, pausing his explanation as he looked from me to Harper. He let go of her, hands raised as though I’d threatened him with my mad uppercut skills.
“Just trying to help,” he said.
“Doesn’t need it. She’s good.”
He backed away, hands still up in surrender as if he weren’t the completely jacked MMA instructor here. Finally turning away, he left us to go ‘help’ someone else.
My gaze drifted back to Harper, and some of the jealousy pulsing through me faded. She looked more confused than anything else, her brows drawn down as if I’d just torn off my shirt and beat my chest like Tarzan.
Nope. I’d just run off an overly-handsy instructor. Pretty much the same thing.
I told myself friends would do that for each other. But you know who else acted that way? Jealous ex-boyfriends.
I knew I had no right to be as worked up about that guy as I was. None. But I couldn’t stop the image of his hands on her body from flashing in my mind, or the simmering resentment that went along with it.
I stepped back and got the punch pad in position for her again. “What?”
“What, yourself. What was that?”
I shrugged it off and flashed a grin. Nonchalance could work. “You know what you’re doing. He should spend his time helping someone who doesn’t.”
She still looked perplexed, but she went back to punching and kicking, at least.
When Owen wrapped up the intro course with a bunch of stretches and a sales pitch for the gym’s roster of classes, I ushered Harper out of there before he could get ideas about stopping to chat with her. Maybe I was being possessive here, but I’d just managed to get her to start talking to me again—I wouldn’t let tattooed Superman make me lose that momentum if I could help it.
Out on the sidewalk, she bounced around, still amped up.
“That was pretty great, right?”
Her eyes shone in the glow of the street lamps, and her grin just about knocked me out.
“You were terrific.” Seeing all that fiery enthusiasm and energy had affected me more than I wanted to say. “You think you’ll sign up?”
She shifted her head to the side, stretching her shoulder and neck. “If I do, I might do one of the cardio classes. I think the guys took the class way more seriously than I did.”
“I don’t know, you were pretty into it.”
She’d been so focused, she’d apparently missed the instructor’s flirting. That guy needed to learn some professionalism.
“I was pretty nervous at first, but it wasn’t that bad.” Her grin returned, lighting up the night. “It’s weird, but I’m even more excited to tackle the next thing on my list now.”
“How are you going to top this? Learning to ride a motorcycle?”
“Ha. No. That was Eliza’s suggestion for conquering a fear.”
“I can teach you to ride a motorcycle if you want, but finding someone to let us borrow theirs will be harder.”
She glanced over her shoulder toward the gym. “Oh, Owen has a motorcycle.”
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, my stomach lurching on the ground somewhere behind us. “How do you know that?”
She turned back to face me, a little furrow between her eyebrows. “How do you not know that? He cruises around town on it every day.”
