Someone Someday (All in Good Time Book 2) (2 page)

"I just wasn't feeling it," I said. "I think I need some fresh air."

Chapter 2

Maddie and Tyler came with me to stand outside for a few minutes. I told them I'd gotten overwhelmed with the crowd and the noise, but the truth was, I couldn't have a man, handsome or not, rubbing up against me without remembering that night three years ago.

I couldn't help but feel like every guy I met wanted to do the same thing to me, and it didn't help any that it was normal for guys to rub all over you in a club.

The Lexi I was before the rape didn't mind that type of thing. In fact, I would have desired it… but I wasn't that same girl, and that type of thing just didn't do it for me anymore.

"It's almost one-thirty," I said, taking my phone out of my purse.

"Do you want to head home?" Maddie asked. I could tell by her face that she was surprised and would be disappointed to leave.

"I can get Chris to give me a ride. I'm sure he's about ready to leave anyway." I gestured to her and Tyler. "You guys can stay. I'm sure Michael or Anna have room and could give you a ride later."

"Did that guy say something that bothered you?" she asked, looking concerned.

"No, no, no, he was fine. It's just the music and stuff." I rubbed my forehead. "I have a headache, that's all."

Maddie reached out and gave my shoulder a comforting rub. "I hate that you're leaving when you're the birthday girl."

"Oh, no, don't worry about it. I had a blast tonight. I wasn't planning on staying out all night anyway."

She rolled her eyes at me. "You never do," she said. She looked at Tyler. "I tell her she acts like my grandma sometimes with how she likes to turn in early and seems to have an aversion to loud music."

We all laughed. I didn't mind being called the grandma of the bunch, so I didn't mention that my aversion to loud music had more to do with the douchebags that hung out in the types of places that played it.

It only took me a few minutes to find Chris, and he was more than happy to head home for the evening—overjoyed, actually. Four others decided to leave as well, and we all piled into Chris' SUV. He dropped the others off at Miller's before giving me a ride home.

"Thanks for leaving early," I said once we were alone in the vehicle.

He looked at me from across the console. "Are you kidding? I was ready to go an hour ago. I just didn't want to say anything since it's your birthday."

"I'm sorry! You should have told me."

"Oh, it's no big deal," he said. "I was having fun and everything, it's just that I have a clinic at the gym tomorrow morning at nine, and I knew I'd regret it if I stayed out all night." He glanced at me and laughed a little. "I'm already gonna get beat up as it is."

"Beat up?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Seriously?"

He shrugged. "Sort of, but not in a bad way. It's just gonna be a lot of wrestling, and I know better than to go in exhausted."

I let out a little laugh assuming he was joking around, but he didn't laugh back. "I didn't know you were a wrestler," I said. "You mean like John Cena?"

That made Chris bust out laughing. "That's hilarious!"

"What?" I said. "You said you were going to wrestle."

"I did say that, but what I meant was that I was going to do some Jiu Jitsu. I just refer to it as wrestling because it's similar in a lot of ways. I guess grappling would be a better way to describe it."

"I have no idea what that is," I said. "Are you talking about high-school wrestling with the tights?"

"It's more similar to that than Hulk Hogan wrestling for sure."

I stared at him from across the console.

"Have you ever seen UFC?" he asked.

"Cage fighting?"

"Yeah," he said. "Jiu Jitsu is the form of martial arts you see happening when the guys are down on the ground. It basically looks like they're just rolling around if you don't know what you're looking at."

"Are you talking about the stuff where they're trying to choke each other?" I asked. "Some guys at my high school were into that. They wore these shirts that said Tapout and walked around putting each other into headlocks and stuff."

He laughed. "Yeah, it's the same stuff, but you pretty much want to avoid any high-schoolers with Tapout t-shirts on."

"Yeah, those guys were crazy," I said.

I lived so close to Miller's that we were already at my apartment. He pulled into the driveway. I was still perplexed by the fact that Chris participated in a sport like that. He was a small, soft-spoken guy, and I would never in a million years have thought of him as someone who liked beating people up.

"I thought that sport was pretty brutal," I said.

He put the truck in park and turned to face me so we could continue our conversation. "I can see how you'd think that if you don't know anything about it, but those guys are elite athletes. They know what they signed up for."

I stared at him, still unable to come to terms with the Chris I knew doing something like that. "So, you're a
fighter
?"

He laughed. "No, I just train Jiu Jitsu for fun and for exercise. I train at a gym with a bunch of fighters, but I don't do any striking."

I smiled and shook my head. "I just never dreamed you'd be into something like that."

"Why? Because I'm little?"

"No, I just—"

He cut me off. "Because Jiu Jitsu's made for little guys… and girls. Girls do it too. The whole idea is to use technique to overpower an attacker—even if they're a lot bigger than you. Think about it… what's the most compromised position you could be in? On your back right? If you were being attacked and someone had you on your back, that would be a nightmare, right? Well, I'm totally comfortable on my back. I could easily defend myself from lots of compromised positions. I could devastate someone twice my size from my back just by using Jiu Jitsu techniques."

His words brought me back to what a nightmare it could be for someone to have you on your back. My palms started sweating and my heart started racing at the thought.

"It's a perfect sport for small guys," he said, not picking up on my sudden nervousness. "It's actually an intellectual sport—like a game of chess. It's just a matter of outsmarting your opponent."

"But it's good for self-defense?" I asked.

He laughed. "It's the best thing you could
possibly
know for self-defense," he said as if that was obvious.

"And you said girls can do it?"

"Oh yeah, there are tons of girls at the gym. I think it should be mandatory for women. There are a lot of sick-o's out there, you know."

"I know," I said before sitting there in silence for a few seconds.

"Do you want to try it?" he asked. "Because you can come to the gym with me sometime and check it out. That would be great because I think I get a break on my membership if you decide to sign up and I refer you."

"Easy now, I'm not sure that's my thing necessarily."

"How do you know if you haven't tried?"

"Because I can't imagine feeling comfortable rolling around on the ground with people." I scrunched up my face and shook my head at the thought. "I think I have too many boundary issues for that."

"Why don't you start with striking? That's good self defense too—and good exercise. Just come to the gym and see what you think."

"When?"

"Why don't you come tomorrow morning? We're doing that clinic, but I think they have morning kickboxing classes you could check out."

For some reason I wanted to go. "Text me the address," I said.

A huge smile spread across his face and he clapped his hands one time really loud like he was pumped. "Yes!" he said.

I laughed. "I'm not promising anything. I'm just going to check it out."

"You're gonna love it!"

I opened the door to get out of his truck. "Text me the address," I said, stepping out.

"I will. Nine o'clock." He pointed out the window toward my apartment. "Do you need me to walk you up or anything?"

I smiled. "No I got it. Night. Thanks for the ride."

"Nine o'clock!" he yelled as I shut the door.

Chris text me immediately with the address and directions, and I went to bed that night wondering what in the world I'd gotten myself into.

***

I had no idea what to expect, but for some reason, I pictured a much smaller operation than the one I found when I drove up the next morning. The parking lot was full, so I had to squeeze into a patch of grass at the far end. It had taken me twenty minutes to get there, and I told myself that I wouldn't want to be doing that drive on a regular basis and would end up not using the membership.

Between the drive and the packed parking lot, I almost had myself talked into not going inside at all. I sat in my car for at least five minutes, trying to figure out whether or not I should go through with it. I remembered what Chris said about defending yourself from your back and decided to check it out. I figured what did I have to lose.

There was a lobby area right when I walked in with a lot of people standing around. To the right, there was a counter with three people sitting behind it. I assumed those people worked there, so I turned to them wearing a deer in the headlights look.

"My friend's doing a clinic here and he wanted me to come check it out and see if it was something I wanted to try," I said before they could even greet me.

"Oh, sure!" one of the girls said. There was one guy and two girls behind the counter, and the one who spoke to me stood and immediately started walking around the counter to meet me. "Let me show you around and tell you a little bit about what we do here."

She asked my name and told me hers was Jordan and then she proceeded to walk me down a long hallway that was full of framed posters and newspaper articles, explaining the credentials of the owner and instructors, saying all sorts of good things about how they were accomplished fighters. I didn't understand most of the jargon she used, but it seemed pretty impressive and I figured they knew what they were doing.

Just then, a guy came out of the door that was at the end of the hallway. He was wearing a long-sleeve karate outfit with a belt tied around his waist, and he ran past us as if he was in a hurry.

"You better hurry, Michael," Jordan said. "They're already warming up."

"I know," he said, rushing past.

"What's that?" I asked.

"That was Michael, one of our students. He's headed to the clinic."

"What's he wearing?"

She looked confused for a split second before it dawned on her that I had no idea what any of this was.

"Oh, that's the gi," she said. "That's what you wear to train Jiu Jitsu. We have no-gi classes too. They just wear spandex or whatever for that, but the clinic's gi today."

"So Chris has on one of those outfits?" I asked, smiling as I tried to picture it.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot you said your friend was here. You mean Chris Stratford or Chris Miller?"

"Chris Stratford."

"Yeah, we love Chris! He's a blue belt." She giggled as if she was imagining something. "He's definitely wearing a gi. Chris Stratford doesn't do no-gi—that's mostly for fighters."

She pointed in the direction the guy had run. "They're in the main gym. I'll take you in there in a minute."

"Chris said you have other classes if I didn't want to try grappling."

"For sure! We have lots of striking classes from basic kickboxing for cardio and fitness to more specialized things like Muay Thai. We even have some MMA classes that combine striking with ground work."

I smiled and nodded even though I had no idea what she was talking about, and she gestured with a wave of her hand for me to follow her. "Come on, I'll take you through the striking gym before we go in there to see Chris."

I followed her into a huge, open room. The floor was completely covered in mats and the walls were lined with punching bags. There was a class going on, and I couldn’t help but feel like we were intruding, but no one seemed to even notice we were there.

The students were working in pairs, all suited up, wearing gloves and shin pads. One partner was throwing punches and the other was catching them on padded hand mitts. The coach was walking around critiquing their technique and calling out instructions.

There were two girls in the class, and both of them looked like they could and would knock my lights out in about two seconds if I made one wrong move. It seemed intense, and I felt overwhelmed. I seriously doubted I would give something like this a try.

"This is a level two class," she said. "The level one class starts at eleven. If you hang out till then, you can sit in on a little bit of that and see what you think."

"Yeah, this looks pretty serious," I said.

"Don't let 'em scare ya," she said. "They're all a bunch of teddy bears."

I smiled, but thought to myself that I'd never describe
any
of these people as teddy bears.