We Were Just Kids in Love

Chapter 6

“Yeah sure. Follow me” she replied blowing her pink bubble gum and popping it before standing up.

We followed her around the corner and the studio was pretty much just like a dance studio, I guess it was used for multiple things. We stood by the entrance of the room, the mirrored wall on our left and the instructor and his class on our right. They stood barefoot on the wooden floors in a loose semi-circle facing the instructor whose back was facing us.

The instructor must have some sort of ninja hearing or just felt our presence because he turned around to face us and hot damn was he mighty fine, not ‘Nate mighty fine’, but mighty fine nonetheless. He must’ve only been our age if not a year or two older. He had dark skin and dark brown wavy hair that fell into his bright blue eyes. He reminded me of Rome and a smiled a little. He was wearing a tight white singlet that easily showed his muscles that rippled with movement and black track pants.

He held one finger and mouthed “one second” to us before turning back to his group. They moved into pairs and started what I assumed were their instructed defense moves and he started walking towards us.

“Hey, my name’s Manu” he greeted, smiling at us and showing his perfect pearly white teeth, “How can I help you?”

“Manu, this couple were wondering if they could just sit in to see how the class works so they can see if it was something they’d like to take up” Stacey explained to Manu.

“Oh actually, it was just me. My name’s Roxy and this is my best friend Nate” I jumped in.

“Oh, so you two aren’t a couple then?” Manu asked with a raised eyebrow.

I gave a little chuckle, “No, no just best friends.” I looked at Nate and saw that he didn’t find this as funny as I did. He eyes weren’t holding any laughter and he looked a little jealous or upset. I wonder what was wrong?

“Nice” Manu smiled, trailing his eyes down my body quickly and meeting back up at my eyes, “But uh, yeah, that should be fine if you wanted to sit in. What I’m teaching is how to defend yourself with the least amount of strength. So that’s why most of my clients are female.”

“Oh! This is exactly what I need!” I said excitedly clapping my hands together. I mean, I wasn’t a total weakling but if my attacker was to ever come back for me at least I could use this kind of self defense because he was bloody strong.

Nate’s phone rang and we all turned to look at him. He grimaced and pulled his phone out mouthing ‘sorry’ and went to answer it outside the studio.

“All right then, I’ll let you watch.” Stacey piped up and with a last smile she walked back to the reception.

“So… Nate is your best friend huh?” I replied with a nod of my head. “Does that mean there’s no significant other or…?” He trailed of leaving the question dangling in the air.

I laughed at his forwardness and shook my head. “No. No boyfriend for me. I’m single for now.”

Manu gave me an adorable one sided smile and winked, “For now. So what’s your reason for wanting to take up self defense? Just a random spur of the moment decision or there’s a reason behind it?”

“Oh there’s definitely a reason behind it…” I grimaced at the reason why I’m even taking up lessons.

Manu’s eyebrows quirked up at my expression and asked “Uh um.. I’m guessing it has something to do with your injuries then. What happened?” He trailed the back of his finger along my bruised cheekbone and quickly pulled it away.

“It’s a long story…” I replied with a little sigh noticing how his touch left a warm feeling where it touched but not the tingling feeling get with Nate.