Hanging On (Jessica Brodie Diaries #2)(106)

“This is going to be uncomfortable, and probably hurt in some places. I am not going to cure you like a witch doctor or anything, but I will give you more movement and cut recovery in half if you go home tonight and apply ice.”

Adam clenched his jaw and nodded. Lump started kneading, working his muscles with an expect hand. Adam flinched every so often, but after a while, he started to loosen up, his lids growing heavy. He almost looked drowsy.

“She’s good, right?” I said, nodding. “She took masseuse classes.”

“You’re not supposed to tell people that,” Lump said, focusing on the treatment. “You’re supposed to say I’m a natural.”

“I do—a natural blond. Dumb as a post.”

Lump snorted. The boys were in their own world and didn’t notice my delightful wit.

The message lasted about twenty minutes from beginning to end. When Lump was satisfied, she let Adam put his shirt back on, but not without stealing a glance at his torso, naughty girl.

He moved it around in a circle. “I think it might hurt worse now than it did,” he said to her, laughing.

She smirked and shrugged, apparently unaffected. “You’ll see.”

I had been watching closely for a romantic spark, even though Lump was in professional mode. It meant that I completely missed raging storm clouds on David’s face until Adam was putting his shirt back on. He had watched a different scene then I did, viewed through the scope of jealousy. He did not like Lump helping Adam at all. Or possibly, he didn’t like the easy communication they shared. He didn’t know about the underlying current of wariness.

“Lump, can I talk to you for a minute?” David asked politely.

I excused myself with Adam and followed him to the ring.

“Nice going,” I said to him.

“What?”

“You got her in trouble with all your muscles and man sweat.”

“My man sweat? I thought girls don’t like the sticky and smell.”

“I can’t speak for all women, but I don’t like to touch that muck, no. But men think, that girls think, that man sweat is sexy. That guy probably thought Lump wanted to lick your nastiness clean. Like a cat.”

Adam got a strange look on his face and turned back to Lump. He jumped, then flinched, clutching his shoulder. I followed his gaze. Then sighed dramatically. It always ended with this, lately.

Lump was not in her “ready for anything” stance, but in her “I am going to rip your head off and I don’t care who knows it” stance. Something David said or did got to her, and now her temper, slow to ignite, flared. It meant that at the minute, she was truly a dangerous girl. One that put people in hospitals.

The worse news was, he was ready to fight back. I’d thought he was one of the good guys, but you fight against a chick three times a week in practice, it probably made the real thing seem totally normal. Lump seemed to think so.

I made a decision—she was no longer allowed to date people from that accursed school!

Adam took off at a jog. I followed after him, intending to tell him to stay he hell back, because he was most likely worried about the wrong person. Also, that you needed logic when she got like this, not physical restraint, unless you just wanted to make her madder.

The waiting ended when David threw the first punch, right at her face. I’d seen Lump fight before, but never against someone that knew how to fight back. As the fist cut through the air, Lump shifted, subtly, swatting it away with a lazy hand, then counter-attacking.

Her punch was met with a block two beats before her foot connected with his thigh, nearly taking the feet out from under him. He was fast and pretty good, but she was just as fast, and more experienced.

He tried to kick. She blocked, circling him. She blocked another punch, then started hammering him. Punch, swipe, punch, kick, landing blows to his body that had him grunting and gasping.

David hadn’t even reacted before she was moving again, kicking at his leg, hitting lower on his body, then whirling away, anticipating his next move. It was as graceful as a well-choreographed dance, but quicker, and way more violent. I could hear her fists and legs connecting, and hear David’s continued grunts and whoosh of breath at the inflicted pain. He kept going, though. He kept trying to get her. Without succeeding.

Adam was braced on the outskirts of their imaginary fighting circle, watching her kick David’s ass with his mouth hanging open. It took until that moment, seeing the look of complete and utter shock on his face, to realize that he had never believed she was capable of self-defense. Not really. He had never believed she could handle the situation at Froggy’s, or deal with her crazy dates. Not until that exact moment. And until that moment, he probably didn’t realize how freaking turned on it made him. Not that I was looking, but it was kind of obvious.

Lump ended the fight in a display of prowess by doing a pin-wheel looking roundhouse kick. She turned and half-squatted then spun around, jumped, then landed an extremely painful looking kick to David’s stomach. He bent over double, ready to lay down and die.

She finished him off with a big, swinging punch. The loud crack erupted blood from his nose like a volcano as he fell back against the dirt, limp.

Adam was over his daze but hadn’t moved in, preferring to watch the spectacle that was Lump. Her deadly grace had him entranced, her complete control of her body, her fluid motions, her aching vulnerability at the pain with which he identified; Adam was a goner. The stars in his eyes totally gave him away!