Markus gave her an up-and-down look, probably searching for some athleticism that wasn’t there. “Do you have any experience?”
“I can give a backhanded compliment.” She thought deep. “And I’ve thrown a guy’s clothes on the front lawn before. That was more of an early twenties move, though.”
“That’s not in the manual, but it could come in handy. You might not even need knife throwing.”
Knife throwing? Gabby started sweating. She was in over her head.
Because it was Saturday, they had the training gym to themselves. At least there wouldn’t be witnesses to her misery. Markus led her through some light stretches. “What kind of workout routine do you have right now?”
“I belong to a gym.” Last time she went to a step class at her gym, the instructor gently suggested she move to the back so as not to confuse the other members of the class. Through a fake smile, the instructor had assured her, “But you’re doing great!”
“I’m just trying to assess your base level of fitness.”
He could already see that she couldn’t touch her toes. That should be his first clue.
Markus looked like a professional athlete, but with soft brown eyes and a doofy smile. It was flat-out disarming. After one final stretch, he stood up in a “let’s do this” way and motioned for her to join him.
“Because you’re not trained in martial arts and we don’t have tons of time, I’m going to teach you how to break free if someone has you pinned.”
She nodded. That sounded doable.
Markus locked eyes with her. “I’m going to play the assailant. I’ll walk you through what’s happening in slow motion.”
She smiled without processing what he meant. So far, EOD training was a lot like that free one-on-one personal trainingsession she’d had at the gym. Hopefully, this went better than that. She’d vomited in a trash can by a bank of ellipticals and briefly distracted everyone from CNN andThe Bachelor, depending on which TV they were watching. After that, she had decided not to sign up for the personal training package.
“In a typical situation, your assailant will come up behind you.” He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her midsection.
No one had held her like that in a while. With his muscled forearms around her, she went all soft inside. Her vision blurred to sepia tone.
“Tell me if I’m being too rough. I know this is your first time.”
“I’ve had two kids, Markus. You know I’m not a virgin.” She could have slapped herself for the joke, but there it was.
“Um…” He cleared his throat, and she died inside for letting her mouth run. She had verbal diarrhea.
“Don’t worry. I promise not to talk from here on out.”
He snickered. “Good luck to both of us with that one. In a hug hold, your best move is to drop out of their grip and run.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Okay.”
“Try to escape my hold. Drop down and roll away.”
She let herself fall to the floor through his arms. Instead of catching herself, she just dropped like a sack of flour. “Ouch!”
“Now roll!” he yelled. He dropped to the floor and showed her how to roll. He made it look good.
Gabby got to her hands and knees and crawled at the pace of someone looking for a remote under the coffee table.
“I thought you said you weren’t a virgin.”
Relief washed over her at his reference to her tasteless joke. Nothing was sweeter than when someone pretended your badjoke was funny. She should be in time-out, and he was being straight-up gallant. She smiled and kept her mouth shut.
“Let’s try it again. This time drop to your knees and make it look like you’ve done this before,” Markus said. “I’m going to put you in a sleeper hold. With my arm around your neck, you won’t be able to drop out.”
Gabby took a deep breath and focused. She needed to get it together!
He gripped her hard and explained. “You have a three-part move. Stomp on my foot, elbow me in the gut, and throw your head back to break my nose. Pantomime it, though.”
