Jerry laughed behind us.
“What’s calling her daddy going to do?” he sneered.
Louis answered for me so I didn’t have to.
“Her daddy is part of the Dixie Wardens Motorcycle Club.”
Jerry shut up quite fast after that.
“Also,” I said softly, “there are about fifteen clubs loyal to him within a thirty-mile radius.” I continued to explain, “Ones that can get here at the drop of a hat and help out until he does.” I grinned. “And her dad took classes with Ashe so that she wouldn’t be alone in all of the adult classes. So he can handle himself just as well as… that.”
Ashe didn’t waste time in doing what she needed.
One second she was all the way across the room on the edge of the mats, standing next to her fellows, and the next she was once again trying to sweep Patman’s legs out from underneath him.
He recovered, gaining his balance by using his hand to keep him upright before he hit the mats, and Ashe took the nice way out and collapsed his elbow inward on itself and not outward like I’d seen her do in the eleventh grade.
“There was this one time,” I said to no one in particular, “she went out on a date with a guy. When he wouldn’t take no for an answer, she fought back. Broke his elbow by doing that exact move right there. Only she went the wrong way. Patman’s lucky.”
The man at my side grunted out an amused sound.
But I kept my gaze solely on Ashe and how she moved.
“Now’s where she’ll either go easy on him or take all her frustration out,” I mused. “I’m going with easy because she has to work with these two motherfuckers for the next few weeks.”
The man at my side snorted.
“That was easy?” he asked curiously.
The ‘easy’ he was talking about was Ashe doing this complicated move that put Patman flat on his face.
She moved just in time to see Greeves heading toward her.
A quick jab and a fist straight to Greeves’ balls had him lying on the ground right next to Patman, and she hadn’t even had to loosen her armbar on Patman to do it.
“Ohhhh,” a few of the men behind me groaned.
“She did that to me once,” I said to no one in particular. “Thought I was going to die. She didn’t know it was me, though. Thought it was just some random guy trying to force her to do something. I learned my lesson not to surprise her anymore.”
Chuckles filled the room.
And we all watched as Ashe got up and made her way to the side of the mats, leaving the two instructors on the ground to get up on their own.
“I think we should call it a day.”
I looked over to the man at my side.
His eyes came to mine and they were filled with amusement.
“This is about to get ugly,” he pointed out.
I agreed.
Wholeheartedly.
Unfortunately, over the next few weeks, she got treated worse and worse, and she never told a single soul.
It wouldn’t do for her uncle to find out that one of his officers was a piece of shit.Chapter 5
You have a smile that could light up an entire psych ward.
-Ford to Ashe
Ashe
Three weeks later
“You didn’t show up to tryouts today.”
I didn’t bother to look up from my contemplation of the floor.
“Nope.”
“Why not?” he asked, pushing farther into the room.
“I wouldn’t have made the team,” I muttered.
“Well, you’ll lose now,” he said. “I’ll have to donate my calendar proceeds to a dog charity or something.”
My back straightened at that, and I narrowed my eyes in affront.
“You wouldn’t.”
“You didn’t try out,” he countered.
I threw up my hands in defeat.
“It was a technicality!” I cried out. “I wouldn’t get on the team because I couldn’t just drop everything I was doing to go to a call!”
Though that hadn’t been the only reason, I’d been told that I shouldn’t bother trying to be a SWAT team member.
Apparently, I had to be able to move a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound test dummy up a flight of stairs and over a small fence.
And I couldn’t do that.
I was five-foot-three inches, and there was no way in hell that I was going to accomplish that.
Fucking Patman.
“This sounds incredibly like giving up, and you don’t do that, Ashe.” He sounded worried.
Which pissed me off.
“Get out of my office,” I ordered.
His eyes flashed at that.
“You… you have a fuckin’ office?” he asked, his eyes taking in the empty space.
Well, almost empty. I had his fucking calendar photo hung up on my wall, which he’d yet to see.
“Yeah,” she said. “Luke’s trying to entice me to stay after I graduate. He knows something’s wrong… and he wants me here.”
Why I felt like I had to explain to the thorn in my side, I didn’t know, but I didn’t like the idea that he thought I was getting preferential treatment like everyone else did.