Double Heat [Twin Ties: 3] (33 page)

“I’ll give you a pamphlet with some basic tips to take with you when we’re done,” Mariko assured him.

“Oh, good!” Brennan smiled, then raised his fists again.

Alek shook his head subtly.

“Avoid confrontation if you can,” Mariko continued. “Get away, talk them down, or give them your money rather than fight, if that’s what they want. If violence is unavoidable, there are some simple ways to fight back effectively, even if the attacker is bigger or stronger than you!” Mariko was so excited about what she was teaching, it was somewhat infectious. Evan stood a little straighter. Brennan looked a little fiercer. It gave Alek some hope that they might actually take something useful away from all of this.

Mariko slipped on a padded vest and fastened it.

“Now, Evan,” Mariko said. “I’m going to approach you. I want you to push back at me and shout, ‘Back off!’ Shout very loudly.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Evan replied uncertainly.

“I’m sturdy!” Mariko said smiling. “Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” Evan widened his stance, squared his shoulders and, when Mariko came toward him, he gently pushed back at her shoulder and shouted the phrase.

“Harder! Like you mean it!” She encouraged. He pushed harder the second time. “Good! Better!” She said happily. Next, she advanced upon Brennan, who was less reticent.

“Louder, Brennan!” she said eagerly.

He put a little more force behind it, and Alek liked the spirit he started to see in Brennan. Maybe it was regret for not fighting back harder against Tommy earlier, kicking in.

“Very good!”Mariko praised. “This will signal for help, but also lets the attacker know you’re not an easy target. You’re not an easy target, are you?”

“No!” Brennan answered. Evan looked less sure of himself, but seemed to feed off of Brennan’s confidence.

Next, Mariko tacked a poster to the wall. It showed a silhouette of a person with certain areas covered with little bullseyes. There were targets over the eyes, the nose, the throat, the groin, the knees, and the shin, with another pointing to the ear.

“Ooh!” Brennan said excitedly. “I got this one right. I kicked him right in the nose!”

“Good, Brennan!” Mariko said. “But remember, if the attacker is not close enough to you to go for their nose, try aiming a kick for the knee or their groin. You want to incapacitate them swiftly so you can get away. Conserve your energy for that, not fighting back.”

“That’s what you did, right, Bren?” Alek said. “His face was the closest target given your positions, so you kicked his nose, then got away when he was distracted.”

“Yeah,” Brennan nodded, brightening at the compliment.

“Why don’t we practice a few techniques for ways to most effectively strike these pressure points? Things like gouging eyes, or striking the neck,” Mariko suggested. “Then we’ll go over the parts of the body that are best used as weapons to inflict maximum damage, ways to use everyday objects or your weight as leverage.”

“This is awesome,” Brennan chuckled excitedly to Alek, bouncing a little like he was about to get in the ring. Maybe they’d have to get some boxing gloves on him and let him practice his punches while they were at it. In Alek’s opinion, anything that would enhance Brennan’s confidence was good.

The class lasted another solid hour. They finished up with practicing moves to get out of a few common holds. The two younger twins looked like they had plenty of ideas, now, to file away for future reference, so they wouldn’t be so easily cowed if someone like Tommy tried something. Alek knew Drew was a different story, that he hadn’t used physical force to take control of Evan. The best weapon they had against Drew’s mind games was to help Evan trust their family to keep him safe, and keep him from feeling he had no choice but to hide and feel ashamed. Transparency and confidence in himself would help Evan fight back.

“What do you think, Ev?” Alek asked as they each drank from bottles of water and Brennan reviewed the pamphlet with Mariko. “Does this stuff help?”

“Yeah,” Evan nodded, giving Alek a hint of a smile. Maybe it was inappropriate, but Alek found it incredibly alluring to see Evan practice the various holds and taking charge physically. With the mount position hold, Mariko had Alek straddle Evan’s torso to pin him to the floor so she could show him Jiu-Jitsu techniques for getting out of the position. It only gave Alek ideas for ways they could practice more at home. It had been exciting to see Evan successfully flip them both so that he was on top. It made Alek want to let Evan pin him to the floor again, or maybe slam him up against the wall or bend him over a couch...

“Kind of wish I’d known this stuff earlier,” Evan was saying. “I might have to keep coming back here, to practice. It makes me feel more prepared. Before, I wasn’t prepared.” He looked like he was angry with himself about it, blaming himself for what happened.

“Hey, you survived. Not that there’s
ever
going to be a next time, but if anyone tries shit with you again, at least now you know you have options to allow you to escape.”

“Yeah,” Evan agreed. “But I really think it’s crucial that we go over all of this stuff at home, you know? You and Bren could practice pinning me to the floor.”

He stared right at Alek with a serious expression, and Alek lost it, laughing and blushing a little at getting caught.

“You could tell I liked it, huh?” he said guiltily as Evan laughed at him.

“Oh, I could tell,” Evan assured him with a wink.

“You didn’t seem to hate pinning me to the floor, either, for the record.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Brennan asked, appearing suddenly at their side.

“I-I, uh...” Evan stammered. “We were just talking about, you know. Techniques and practicing. At home.”

“Naked,” Alek added. “Maybe with body oil or a pool of Jello or mud to roll around in?”

Brennan shook his head. “You’re hopeless. Get your head out of the gutter!”

“Yeah, right,” Evan chuckled. Drinking his water, Evan turned to go get a towel and Alek took a long look down his body, watching him go.

Mariko was at the far end of the room, putting equipment away.

“How about you, Pookie?” Alek teased, nudging Brennan. “Ready to kick some ass?”

“Ooh, does that mean boxing gloves? Wrestling?”

“Let’s start with boxing gloves. The wrestling we can do at home.”

Brennan grabbed him by the front of the shirt, yanking him down and kissing him firmly.

“It’s on,” Brennan said with a wicked grin.

Luka decided it was time for a break. The room where Mariko was working with Alek, Evan, and Brennan was down a hall to Luka’s right, but he went left instead, toward the employee area. Since it was Saturday afternoon, the gym was packed. Every piece of equipment was taken and there were people waiting around, doing calisthenics and using free weights while they kept an impatient eye on the occupied stationary bikes, elliptical machines, treadmills, and every other bulky pieces of metal, iron, and plastic meant to work the body. The regulars were there, the gym rats who lived the life and saw the honing of their bodies as their primary job. There were plenty of newbies, too. Luka liked the newbies. It was more rewarding to help someone who’d recently resolved to work on their health, than to give pointers to those who thought they knew it all already. When it came right down to it, you could only help those who were prepared to listen and learn. Otherwise, it was just like talking to a treadmill and hoping to get a response. Useless.

The old Luka from a year ago would have been sizing up the hard-bodied guys, looking for someone who fit his type or just stirred his cock. There were plenty of men wearing next to nothing, flexing, sweating, panting, and bending their bodies into all sorts of positions. It helped the imagination wander.

He hadn’t lied when he’d told Brennan he had solely been a top for a while, way back when they started to date. Seeing big, muscle-bound dudes with a firm ass, nice thighs, and cut stomachs always made him want to be the one giving it hard. He wanted all of that power at his mercy, spread and begging for more.

Not with Brennan. Not all the time, anyway.

Of course, Luka had loved topping Brennan for so long. But Brennan was vastly different than the gym rats and the pretty boys with empty heads. He was the whole package. Slim, sexy, seductive, strong-willed and not at all shy, Brennan made you feel like you were lucky as hell to get a chance to get close, get inside and ride. But, now that he’d experienced letting Brennan top him, Luka only wanted more. It wasn’t just sex, it was an experience. It was honesty, faith, and love. It was everything Luka never thought he’d be lucky enough to find. It made Luka so happy to see Brennan taking charge, taking his pleasure for himself, showing Luka how good it could be to let go and submit to that fire behind those pretty blue eyes.

It had been intense, the way Brennan had made love to him. And, it made it really easy to stand up and walk away from the guy Luka used to be. There was nothing left in him saying to look around, see what he’d been missing. No one in that gym, no one in the whole town, could love him the way Brennan did. Luka knew it.

Of course, it wasn’t just Brennan. Not anymore. Evan was a puzzle in and of himself.

Luka walked through the hall lined with people on their way out of the gym or their way in, checking their phones or just hurrying past. When he got to the employee only area, he went through the door, through the break room with its couple of battered, overused tables and chairs, past a row of lockers and benches, to the door leading outside.

The blast of cool, fresh air was welcome. He inhaled a lungful, even if it did smell vaguely of car exhaust and cigarettes. There were about ten to fifteen butts crushed on the pavement around the doorway, though there was a container to stick the butts in. People were too lazy to bother sometimes, apparently. A few feet away, in the no-man’s-land between the walkway ringing the gym and the parking lot, three crows were pecking at a smashed container of French fries, still in their paper sleeve. It looked like a few cars had run over it, but the crows didn’t care. To them, it was a feast, pathetic but irresistible. They fluttered a little as a car passed, but didn’t go far, coming right back to their plunder.

The lot was overflowing with vehicles, packed into every available spot. There were non-handicapped vehicles parked in the handicapped spots, people pulled up on the grass or just parked along the building, half of a tire up on the curb. It was hell getting in, hell getting out, navigating the congested lanes between rows.

Still, at least there was a breeze. It helped cool the sweat on his skin. Bracing his hands on his hips, he let his head fall back and thought of Evan. Evan, who needed to feel like he was being seen, and heard, and understood, flaws and all.

It made sense, in a horrendous way, that Evan had crossed paths with someone like Drew. Evan had been shunned by his peers, was too scared to take a chance and find a connection with the appropriate partners, kids his own age. He still had needs. His dad had left him alone too often, further isolating him. He wanted to know he wasn’t alone in his desires and private fantasies about other boys. So Drew, a predator, saw his opportunity. He noticed the signs Evan was gay, and alone, unsupervised. He was a prime target. But Drew knew his game. He was smart about it. He knew just how far to push Evan, then would hold back, not wanting to scare him off.

And it worked, Evan kept letting Drew back in. It was the same reason Luka and Alek kept revisiting the same lovers, like Drew, over and over, even though the idea of doing so turned their stomach a little. Some of them were overzealous, too rough, too high, too mean, but when you were lonely, you could overlook a lot of shortcomings. Luka regretted many of his former sexual encounters. He was downright ashamed of a number of them, and had been with men who were even older than him than Drew was of Evan. Luka knew exactly what it meant to feel like age was only a number.

Drew was Evan’s mistake. They all had them. Evan wasn’t the first gay kid to succumb to the willingness to be touched, just for a chance to feel someone’s desire channeled solely in his direction. For Luka, it was the mental violation of what Drew had done to Evan that was the bigger crime. He’d played all of Evan’s weaknesses, all of the things that made him so beautifully vulnerable, and took advantage of a kind, pure soul in desperate need of understanding and acceptance.

But not anymore. Luka would do anything, travel any distance, fight any battle, and go up against any odds to prevent Evan from coming to any more harm. The sweet surrender in the way he’d opened himself up to Alek and Luka that morning, the innocence and miracle of it, took Luka’s breath away. All Evan wanted, ever since Luka found him alone in the grass, forsaken by Charlie, by Alek and even Brennan, was to be seen, and loved, just the way he was.

And Luka did. He loved Evan with his whole heart, in a way time and circumstance would never lessen, for they were kindred spirits. Evan, who just wanted to know he was okay, that he was worthy of love, and it was all right to get dirty and wild, as long as there was someone there to help him through the come-down and would stay through the night, holding him in their arms. That’s all Luka ever wanted, too. To trust that much, love that much, and not be destroyed, but saved... that was the ultimate goal. That was the dream.