She takes a shaky breath. “He, ah… Dad died in April.”
“April? As in… shit.”
“Yeah.” Finally, her emotional eyes meet mine. “A few months ago.”
“Jesus, Kit. I’m sorry. Do you have other family around?”
She surprises me with a bitter laugh. “Yep, loads of ‘em. None that are useful. They’re dead weight.” She shakes her head. “No, no family that can actually help us. Just me and Jack.” She smiles shyly. “And Casey.”
She’s all alone in this big bad world taking care of a rebellious teenager. There’s nothing I can say that won’t sound like the clichéI’m sorry for your loss. I can’t find the words to convey my true condolences, so after a moment of awkward silence, I simply ask, “Do you wanna talk about it?”
She shrugs. “Nah. Not much to talk about. Plus, it’s not very good first date material.” She’s smiling again, it’s shy, but it’s there. Deflection 101 or not, I’ll oblige. Anything to make her smile.
“You think our first date consists of sitting on a sweaty gym floor while we watchotherguys work out? My mama taught me better than that.”
Leaning back against the wall, she lazily turns her head. “Would you prefer I watched you train, instead?”
“Well yeah, of course, that’d be okay. I’m kinda awesome.”
“And humble,” she laughs. “That’s such an attractive quality in a man…” She feigns a casual shrug. “Maybe I can watch you sometime, you know, make sure you’re not underselling your talents.”
She’s so cute when she’s angling for a call back. “You’ll see me, don’t worry. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”
She lifts a brow in question. “We will?”
Now that I’ve caught her again, no way in hell am I letting her escape. “Of course. Jack will need supervision, you know, so he doesn’t sneak out.”
“Or get beaten up… by you?”
I laugh. “I promise not to beat him up. I mean, I’ll still hit him and stuff, purely for training purposes. Or if I find out he’s giving you trouble. But don’t worry, I have plans for you, too. Once you’re trained up, he’ll never cross you again.”
Her eyes grow wide. “But–”
“No buts.” I bring my face closer to hers. “I’d like for you to at least try it.”
“Try what?”
Our eyes whip up to face Jack. I swear, it takes everything in me not to kick out at him instinctively. “Jesus, kid!”
“Nothing,” Kit hastily answers. “Try nothing.”
“Kit’s gonna start training here, too.” No way am I letting her out of it.
“Training?” He tilts his head to the side. “Doing what?”
“Fight training, like you guys.”
I swear, if he makes it into a big deal, if he tells her it’s lame, if he makes her doubt a damn thing, I’ll kill him.
“Really?”
When Kit gives a hesitant nod, his eyes light up. “That’s so cool! So, we’re both in?” He looks at me in question. In the last hour, I’d completely forgotten about our confrontation today. He probably still thinks I’m a psycho with anger issues.
“Yeah, you’re both in. I’ll walk you through your class timetables later, and you’ll need to head to reception to fill out your paperwork.”Aiden will love that.
“Ah, I’m not sure how it works here with fees...” He scratches the back of his neck nervously. “But, I can work double hours to pay for us both. I’ll work hard, I don’t mind.”
Kit stares at him in shock, but my opinion of him just jumped several notches. “Don’t worry about that for now. Like Aiden said, first week’s free, we’ll work out the rest later.” Standing and pulling Kit up, I turn back and offer him my hand. “Anyway, I know we kinda got off to a bad start. I’m Bobby Kincaid.”