Huntress

To my utter relief and delight, Alec didn’t come around that night.

Instead, to my complete dismay and disappointment, he turned up very late on Saturday. Or, rather, very, very early on Sunday morning.

Being tired, a little hungry, sore and generally annoyed, this didn’t make me happy. At all. I’d only just fallen asleep, after refusing Tris entry to the house once again after our date, a task that was getting harder each time I tried.

Dinner had been delicious, and I’d ended up wearing a different dress than the one I’d picked out the night before. This one was deep violet, with a short under-shift and a sheer overlay. I figured it was demure enough for the restaurant but just sexy enough to still be interesting.

Tris seemed to think so anyway. He let out a low wolf whistle from the passenger side window when I exited the house. I couldn’t help but smile and did a little twirl. “You like?”

“I like,” he confirmed, opening the car door from the inside. We left and drove up and down King Street a couple of times looking for a parking space, eventually finding an awkwardly small stretch outside a closed newsagency to reverse park into.

The restaurant was warm and welcoming, and they had a table for two already waiting for us. The room was nearly half full of families and couples.

“So I was thinking,” Tris goes after we ordered drinks. “I have a bit of money saved up. I know you do too. Why don’t we go overseas?”

This was a total surprise. Like, completely out of the blue. “Overseas?” I parroted stupidly. “Where?”

He shrugged. “Wherever you like. New Zealand, Paris, Japan. Canada. I’ll go anywhere as long as you come with me.”

I’ve never had anyone ask me something like this. Even Chloe and I never planned on a trip together, which probably has something to do with her affection for her comfort zones. For Tris to ask me something like this was totally... unexpected.

“Um,” I started. Then, somehow, I couldn’t continue.

Tris didn’t seem rattled by my indecision. “It’s cool if you don’t want to,” he told me calmly. “I just thought that, you know, a white Christmas would be cool. We could go snowboarding too if you want.”

Clearly he was keen on this more so than the Christmas bit, but I was instantly captivated by an image of the Eiffel Tower wreathed in snow. It would be perfect.

“No, no, it’s a great idea,” I blurted. “I love it. Seriously, we should do it. We don’t have that long to book though...”

It was already late September. If we were going to go we needed to organise everything soon. Tris looked a bit more animated now that I’d showed some interest in the idea.

“Right. It’s ok, I have a contact at a travel agent who can get us really cheap flights.”

“A contact?”

He looked sheepish. “Aunt Tillie.”

I laughed. A waiter came and took our order and by the time we got our food I was thoroughly excited about the trip.

“How long did you want to go for?” I asked through a mouthful of tabouleh and fried cauliflower. “Two weeks?”

He nodded, wrapping meat in bread with his fingers. “Sure. I’ll just see if I can get a little bit of time off. Vic won’t be happy, I think he was counting on having me available for Christmas cause it’s party season. But he’ll just have to deal.”

I knew my boss would also be really pissed if I asked for time off over the holiday season, but if Tris could ask his large, fierce Italian employer for a break I could man up and ask my middle-aged mother of two.

We finished and instead of ordering a proper dessert bought some of the baklava they had on display and went for a walk. The air outside was slightly chillier than usual and I got sticky little bits of pistachio and filo pastry on the front of my dress.

Tris finished his piece first and reached down to gently grab my free hand. I looked at him in surprise.

“What?” he said, entwining his fingers with mine.

I smiled. “Nothing.”

Boys don’t usually hold my hand, but I didn’t tell him that. It was unexpectedly sweet. I licked the remaining honey off my fingers and smiled contentedly. We walked for a minute in companionable silence, passing a side road that curved around the back of a building and into darkness. Tris looked down it with something that seemed like alarm and I tensed.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said, “I just...” Still holding my hand, he ventured a few steps in, keeping close to a building. I followed, starting to get a little anxious. Was someone following us? More to the point, was someone following me/?

Suddenly, Tris yanked on my hand, pulling me toward the wall. My heart leapt into my throat and I held back a scream as my back hit the raw bricks. Before I could figure out what was happening Tris had pressed himself up against me and... kissed me.

Wait, what?

It took a second for me to realise that we weren’t actually in danger. Tris curled a hand around the back of my neck and deepened the kiss, which I couldn’t help but smile into. I was way too paranoid.

He pulled back a little, breath tickling my skin. “Sorry,” he smiled. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“It’s ok,” I breathed. “It was worth being freaked out for a split second.”

We stayed there against the wall until the cold from the wall leeched into my back and the air got a little too cool to be comfortable. We got looks from people passing by as we emerged, probably a little flushed and messy-haired.

The ride home was short and more than a little charged with sexual tension. I was torn between inviting him in for something that would almost certainly not involve clothing, or going in alone and trying to sleep.

I settled in the end on making him wait. His frustration was almost tangible, but it turned out to be for the best. I needed sleep, and thought for all of half an hour that I might actually get some.

Needless to say, Alec was not at all welcome.

Tonight was to be Lesson Four, if the previous nights were anything to go on. It was following Lessons Two and Three, how to Block Hits and Keep Balanced, respectively. Lessons One and Three had been night visits, but Two had been an afternoon session cut unexpectedly short when Dad came home early.

I told him I’d been doing sit-ups.

Actually, I had been doing sit-ups lately. And push-ups, and chin-ups, and every other sort of –up you can do to get fitter and more muscled. I had realised, post-beating, that I couldn’t continue as unfit as I was and that something needed to change. Now the thin but persistent layer of fat I’d cultivated the last couple of years was going.

However, I still had nothing on Alec, and didn’t he let me know it.

“You’re going to find this lesson a hard one,” he announced casually, stripping off his shirt. The extremely well-defined muscles in his torso only exacerbated how annoying that statement was.

“And why is that?”

“Because you don’t read people very well,” he stated. “In fact, I bet you fall for feints all the time.”

“About as much as most people,” I shrugged. “I don’t consider myself especially obtuse.”

He smirked. “Well, no one does, do they?”

I liked Alec generally. He was funny in an arrogant way, likeably good-looking and undeniably smart. But I swear I’ve never disliked anyone quite so much during these stupid lessons.

“So, what’s Lesson Four again? How to be an insufferable jackass?”

The smirk never faded. “That’s a talent from birth, I’m afraid. Today it’s all about knowing the weaknesses of your opponent and exploiting them.”

I nodded, appreciating that this lesson would be a useful one. Alec pushed the coffee table against the wall again as I wrapped the lengths of leather around my hands. I hadn’t washed them yet and so would have bet they were sweatier than Peter Griffin’s underpants.

“So,” Alec began, but stopped suddenly when there was a soft knock from the direction of the door. “Expecting someone?”

I shook my head, hurriedly pushing the makeshift gloves off my hands and walking toward the door. When I opened it, I sighed with relief. Holly stood on the threshold holding a gym bag, clad in only a tight singlet and tiny cotton shorts.

“Hey,” she said. “Let’s get this over with, yeah?”

My confusion must have shown on my face. She raised her eyebrows and I stuttered, “Uh, yeah, sorry – did you – Alec is, um... ok, never mind, come in.”

She stepped past me into the house. From the lounge room I heard a startled noise and then a deep, “What are you doing here?”

Holly slung her bag onto the ground as I walked in, rolling her eyes. “You asked me to come with you this time, remember?”

He looked confused. “I did?”

“Yes,” she said decisively. “You did.”

Alec looked dubious but nodded. “All right. Fine. But you’re helping, not delivering the lesson, got it?”

Another eye roll, and she flopped onto the couch. “Get on with it then.”

Obviously the air hadn’t cleared between these two. Alec still looked a little put out about Holly and Eli and I was a little afraid he was going to take it out on me.

“So,” he started again, voice a little tighter now, “the main idea of this lesson is to teach you how to recognise and exploit weaknesses in your opponent.”

Nodding, I wound the straps back around my hand. When they were sufficiently tight and flexible I looked back up.

Alec went on. “Even though you’re relatively tall for a woman, you’ll still probably be dealing with opponents who are taller than you are. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; in fact it can work to your advantage.”

He stepped closer to me, deliberately looming over my five feet, nine inches of height. It briefly emphasised the difference between us and then he took a step back. “Having to strike someone who is shorter than you are means you have to reach,” he said, stretching out an arm toward me in a slow-motion punch. “It puts you off balance.”

“Taller fighters are usually slower, too,” Holly put in from the couch.

“Right,” he agreed with a disgruntled look at her. “The key is speed and movement. You need to be a small, quick target because those are harder to hit. Keep jabbing and hitting, but never, ever grab. And because your head is the perfect height to hit you need to keep your hands and elbows close, blocking hits like I showed you.”

We worked through each of those things for the next two hours. I blocked, punched, ducked and wove until I could barely walk. Only when I landed a solid uppercut to Alec’s throat as he swung a right hook did he cough and say we could stop.

“That was good,” he rasped, breathing hard. I was breathing harder, and my hands hurt. But the exercises I’d been doing had paid off – the soreness I felt was a tightening of the muscles, not bruising.

Well, not just bruising.

“Grab some water,” Holly told me, “then I’ll show you how to fight girls.”

Reluctant but grateful, I trudged into the kitchen and filled a glass from the tap. It wasn’t nearly cold enough to feel good.

“Why does this always have to happen at night?” I asked as I walked back into the room. “Can I have one decent night’s sleep?”

Holly was stretching her long legs on the floor, facing Alec, who was clearly fighting a losing battle with himself over whether or not to stare down her shirt. I felt a slight twinge of pity for him – that shirt was too tiny for Holly not to know what she was doing. Funny; I hadn’t picked her as vindictive.

It only got worse when she got up, so I butted in, “Are we going to fight or are you going to shove your ass in Alec’s face all night?”

The part of her with the grace to look abashed lost out to derisive, defensive Holly. “We’re going to fight,” she assured me.

Realistically, I knew I was about to get kicked around the room, again. Holly was fresh, properly hydrated and much fitter than I was. I’d also just pissed her off.

“I hate to say it, but girls are just as hard, if not harder, to fight as guys,” she told me matter-of-factly. “Especially if you are one. They bite, scratch and yes – pull hair.”

“It’s hot,” Alec put in.

Holly gave him another scathing look and went on, “They also don’t go easy the way guys do sometimes. Whether or not he realises it, Alec was probably pulling his punches a little out of reflex.”

This was not comforting at all. Those punches had hurt.

“Anyway, we’ll just go through some of the same drills and moves, but – sorry in advance – I’ll actually be trying to hurt you. And grab your hair and other stuff guys, with their whole sense of honour thing, don’t generally do.”

She kept to her word. We sparred for another forty minutes or so, in which I learned that even if your hair is in a ponytail, it’s still a weak point, and that long nails are both an asset and a danger.

“Ok, ok,” I panted when she stepped back again. “Uncle. I give. Stop. Seriously, I’m beat.”

Holly looked a little disappointed but must have seen how utterly exhausted I was at that point. My legs were about to give out and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a glass of water more in my life.

“All right,” she conceded. “But someone you’re fighting for real isn’t going to give you regular breaks to catch your breath.”

I nodded, panting hard, waving her comment away with a hand. “Obviously. I’m not. Stupid.”

“That remains to be seen,” commented Alec. He’d put his shirt back on, I noted with a tiny bit of disappointment. “Now, where does it hurt?”

He brought out his little knife again and I sighed, resigning myself to what was going to happen. “Here,” I said, pointing to my left cheekbone, which was already bruising. “And here on my wrist. That grip you had me in before has already left a mark.”

Alec nodded silently, nicked his finger again and started to swab me with his blood, something that never got less weird.

“I guess that happens when you can’t evade someone trying to grab you,” he said with a smile.

“Shut up,” I retorted tiredly. “Now get out of my house. I need to have a shower.”

Holly slung a jacket on and I unwound the leather from my hands. Within minutes I was waving their cars off and heading back inside, a little worried I wasn't improving quickly enough.

My last thought after a short hot shower and putting clean pyjama pants on was exactly the opposite of what I’d been thinking before the first time I fell asleep that night.

Maybe having Tris around isn't the best idea.