West-End Boys (Naïve Mistakes) (6 page)

The statement was too sharp, too close to the bone.
Feeble
. It's how I felt. I fought the tears back and won, but not without several heavy swallows. I promised myself, right there, that I'd make it. I'd get through this. Conall had done it. He'd been through so much worse, and he'd done it.

I could do it too.

But he was physically strong. And I spotted that that was my fear: What if it happened again?

"Call Trey, please," I said.

He did.

And we set up my first training lesson for the next day.

-1-

My attacker approached from behind and wrapped his arms under my ribs, lifted me, hands clenched. I tried to hook my left foot under his knee, failed. He swung me up, both my feet off the ground.

If he'd been a real attacker, he'd have me on my back on the floor now...

Trey dropped me to my feet. I looked down in frustration, scratched my sweaty head.

"Again," he said. "Foot under the leg and behind the knee, no matter what, you
must
get the foot under my knee or else you're fucked. That prevents him having full control over you." Trey bear-hugged me from behind again, held so tight that I couldn't breathe. I kicked and tried to hook my foot under his knee as he'd said.

"And grab the fingers, Leora. Grab the fingers!"

I did, meanwhile flailing, kicking,
trying
to hook my foot under his knee!

He swung me up.

Failed. Again!

"Again. No time to feel sorry for yourself."

It took another ten tries for me to get it right, but eventually I did, then it took another forty to get it right
every
time. Finally, there was no ways he was gonna get me in that frickin bear hug. He or anyone else!

I felt good. Stronger. This was the best damned psychotherapy in the world! I'd been training with Trey for only a week and already the full-blown panic attacks had disappeared. I felt more self-confident, more in control of myself and my environment. I'd skipped the damn baby-step of visiting the village with a friend and was even catching the tube to London for this stuff.

OK, fine, Kayla caught it with me. But it was
major
progress.

I sniffed under my arm and understood why gyms stunk so bad.

"OK, choke-hold now," said Trey. "Lie down."

I did. Trey, who I still considered to secretly be Shaq's twin-brother in the size department, put himself between my legs, on his knees.

"Remember, hands always up. You can pretend you're afraid or something, but they must
always
stay up. So, I come down, and you...?"

"Snap my hands up to your shoulders."

"Right, very good. Now you've got me by the shoulders, and I start choking you. Now what?"

"Left hand over your forearm, hook the fingers over the wrist, not grabbing, hooking, so he can't hurt my thumb."

"Not
he
, Leora,
me
. You have to believe
I'm
the bad guy." He tightened his grip on my neck, made it more real.

I snapped my right arm to his wrist, tried to pull his arms down and away with my elbows as he'd showed me.

"OK, so I'm too strong, now what?"

I couldn't speak. Trey wasn't pulling any punches. He was really strangling me! I felt the blood collect in my face. I lifted my pelvis as high as I could,
slammed
it down, giving my elbows extra strength to push down and away against his arms and finally loosened his grip from around my neck.

I saw him smile at my success (yeah, and I'm supposed to believe he wants to hurt me?)

I didn't even take a breath, the next steps came to me like second-nature. I slid left, put my foot on his hip, then the other,
pushed
him away! Then I kicked him in the face,
hard
!

"OK, OK, OK! Stop!" He held his hands up. "Thank the blooming Lord I'm wearing head gear!"

I stood up, exhaled triumphantly.

"Well done, Leora. But we will practice it more. You're lucky you worked out for so many years. Gives you an edge."

I nodded, exhausted. "So when can I actually learn to kick some ass? I mean, that Krav Maga stuff?" All we'd done in the previous week had been self-defense stuff, not the Israeli Army solution to all problems East and West of The Holy City.

Trey undid his hand-wraps, walked to the edge of the ring, leaned back once on the ropes. "I guess we could start now." He grinned. And something told me I was in for one helluva lesson...

Trey started with the basics, the philosophy. "Krav Maga is about threat neutralization, simultaneous defense and offense, and
aggression
. It's street fighting, Leora. Now I understand you're a boxer?"

I nodded.

"Sadly, as a woman, that won't help you much. If you're a man, sure, boxing—if you're good at it—is great self-defense in the streets. Boxers spend years honing that one punch so that, correctly placed, it will knock a guy out. But a woman needs more than that.

"Krav Maga is deadly, ruthless. Man or woman. It's an anything-goes philosophy, find a stone, a stick, dig your fingers into your attacker's eyes, kick his nuts, then kick them again, break his nose with the heel of your palm."

Trey's eyes went dark, his face stern. His ebony skin was gilded by the setting sun shining in from the gym's high windows.

"The main thing to understand, Leora, is that Krav Maga is about lack of restraint. Do what you can, when you can, defend yourself at all costs. You get that?"

I did.

And then he showed me.

And then I
really
understood.

-2-

The moves were ruthless, thumbs in the eyes, elbows to the cheekbone, maximum destruction by extending the knee way back and pulling the guy down by the lapels before
slamming
up into his crotch. The goal was permanent damage. Then doing it again. Simultaneous kicks and punches, blocking, hitting.

The damn thing empowered me. I felt myself wanting to take someone on, wanting to be given a chance to beat the crap out of that guy in that warehouse who'd sucker-kicked me in the ribs. By the end of our two-hour session, my chest burned like wildfire. In the corner of the ring, I dropped cross-legged, unable to stand anymore.

"You did good," said Trey, ruffling my hair like I was some kid as he slid out under the ropes.

In the distance, I heard a slow clap.

I looked up. And there he was, backlit by a solitary lamp. My man.

Conall smiled, looking slick in his trench coat, his hair styled back. "You look sexy in that corner, babe."

I smiled at him, flashing him my black mouth guard. Then I gave him the finger. He walked up to me, kissed me through the ropes. The kiss was heaven after two hours of hell, fresh ice cream on an empty stomach.

I must've tasted like shit, but Conall never let me know it. "Shower?" he said.

"Do I stink that bad?"

He rolled his eyes, pretended to faint.

"Watch out, buster. I can pack quite a punch these days!" I held my fist up, but it felt like I was lifting a ten-ton anchor. "Oh, who am I kidding? I couldn't fight off a kitten right now."

I somehow got myself out the ring and onto the gym floor, fell onto Conall's arms and he held me there, kissing my god-awful sweaty hair while I almost fell asleep on him. I thought of staying there, kissing him some more. Then I decided against it. "No, I better go shower or you'll dump me for polluting the environment or something."

He said nothing. I looked up at him. He was looking away. "Conall?"

He looked down at me. "Oh, sorry, what was that?"

Hmmmm
. "You OK?"

He forced a smile. "Sure, sorry, I just had my mind on something. You said you'd shower?"

I paused before answering, trying to gauge him...

I got on my toes and pecked him on the cheek. "Yes. I'm going to shower. I'm not
that
tired, by the way... Know what I mean?"

He smiled, and this time it was real. "Good to know."

Before I entered the showers—which Trey always made sure were empty when we trained, because they had no separate showers for girls!—I saw Conall walking over to Trey. And they spoke much as he'd spoken with Brad that night at
Chillout
.

When I got back, Trey was gone. Conall wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "How was it?" he said, his face evincing nothing about his earlier concerns.

"Freaking awesome! This stuff is deadly."

"I know."

And by the way he said it, I knew that he did know. I knew that he knew it intimately. I didn't ask about it.

-3-

We all met up at
Red-Light Diner
, a coffee-bar-slash-club in the West End of London. Although the name might suggest it, it
wasn't
a stripper joint. But apparently they did have one seriously hot-looking ladies night every Thursday night. (I never went, but Kayla did once.)

There was one dance-floor on the upstairs level. On the first floor, where we sat now, they served food and drinks under neon lights. The floor was decked out with fifties-diner-style seats and silver tables. Endless flatscreen TVs lined the walls showing everything from Fashion TV to BBC news (
snore
) to the latest Grand Prix (
double snore
.)

Meeting up here had become a regular thing since I'd started training with Trey. Correction: Since
we'd
started training with Trey. Kayla was also learning self-defense but she'd hit her exhaustion limit yesterday and had spent the day in London today shopping and drinking coffee. Probably also looking at guys.

Whereas Kayla and I were doing 'girl-training' in the late afternoon, Brad was apparently doing some bad-ass fight-for-your-life training in the day. Today he had a blue eye.

"Doesn't he look sexy?" said Kayla, her arm intertwined in his. Her orange hair glowed under the neon lights while dance music blasted down at us. She moved her lips to his shiner but he flinched away as soon as she touched it.

"It was a cheap shot, wasn't it, Trey?" said Brad.

Trey gave a confident chuckle. The guy really was a monster in size. Large and powerful and deadly attractive with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. It had crossed my mind several times to ask him who the special lady was in his life but, from what I could tell, there was none. I didn't know Trey well enough to go ahead and ask that. He kept a distance even though we trained every day together. It was very much a student-teacher
Karate Kid
kind of relationship. I could see why he and Conall were such good friends. Two dark souls never talking about their fears but intimately understanding them in each other.

I thought of Alex, missed her suddenly and sharply. Hoped she was happy. And then I looked at Kayla, and realized she and I had that same relationship. These were not merely my friends anymore. They were fast becoming my family.

But Trey never felt like a third-wheel (or fifth-wheel as the case may be.) I  assumed he was one of those 'the job doesn't allow a relationship' kind of guys. He was always relaxed, confident, charming. He reminded me of Denzel Washington a little.

Both Trey and Brad wore tank-tops. Conall had on a dress-shirt under his coat. The three of them could form a strippers club and make all the girls in the world slaver and drip desirously for them. The thought made me smile.

The way they looked—their size, their confidence, that occasional glance around their shoulders that made each appear like he was on the lookout for bad guys—gave me another idea of what kind of trio they could be. "You guys could form some type of Bad-Boy Gang or something, you know that?"

Trey gave a deep chuckle again, sipped his Sprite
. I'd never seen him drink alcohol. "The job doesn't allow that," he said, smiling at me. He and Conall exchanged knowing looks.

"And what job might that be?" I shouted, trying to make my voice heard over Lady Gaga's.

Trey's eyebrow cocked ever so slightly and a smirk lit up his face up. "You won't catch me that easily," he said from behind his glass. "But if we did form a Bad-Boy clique, we'd need a name for it."

"Bad Ass Motherfuckers!" cried Kayla.

I almost spat my drink out.

Just as she said it, a song came on:
West End Girls
, by the Pet Shop Boys.

"West End
Boys
," I said.

"I like it," Conall said. "But we'd have to include the rest of the guys."

"Who?" said Trey. "Smokey and them?"

"Yip."

"Ah, them buggers all do what I say anyway. Just count them officially in."

We raised our glasses and toasted it.

By the end of the night, Kayla was singing West End
Boys
on the countertops. Brad smiled at her from his seat. The real West End Boys—Conall, Trey, and Brad—chilled out, sat back, didn't seem to talk shop at all. It was as if there was no worry in the world tonight.

Oh, how wrong I was. And how good these boys were at hiding things...