“You need any help?” I rasped.
Her shoulder muscles were pulling and bunching as she grumbled under her breath, and I watched her struggle for a few seconds longer before I bent down and helped her reach the part of the belt that she’d been struggling with.
She breathed a sigh of relief when it was in place, then looked up at me. “Thanks.”
“You need any help?” I repeated.
“Uh.” She looked at the work she had left to complete, then said, “Well, kind of. I guess. I told your daughter that I would go to the four o’clock class today at Jiu Jitsu, thinking that I’d get it done in time. But then I realized they sent me the wrong belt, so I had to call them and get them to bring me another one. But then they took four years to get it here. But she also said that she’d be okay waiting for another day. But she seemed really excited to do it today when I called her about an hour ago…”
“Jiu Jitsu?” I asked.
“Yeah, didn’t you give her permission to do that?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “But I didn’t know you did it.”
“I started it when I could afford to pay for the classes about two years ago,” she answered. “I love it.”
I loved Jiu Jitsu, too.
That was why I recommended it to my daughter.
Though, I hadn’t realized that Eedie was going off participating in classes.
“I wanted her to go to my friend’s gym,” I said.
“Which one?” she asked, standing up and leaning a hip against her car.
“Slow Roll next to that cookie place,” I said. “It’s…”
“That’s my gym.” She beamed. “That’s the one I told Eedie to go to.”
“My gym, too,” I muttered. “You’re Castle’s second prodigy?”
Castle, the owner of Slow Roll, had been talking about his second prodigy for a while.
He thought the girl—though he’d never given me her name—had been the best there ever was. He’d talked about her a lot and said how much potential she had.
She’d zoomed through all his classes, and had the chance to go pro if it hadn’t been for her lack of desire to go pro.
Castle had been devastated, because that was the second woman he’d thought could go somewhere in life—the first being his daughter, Shaw—that hadn’t wanted to.
Castle was a BJJ—Brazilian Jiu Jitsu—expert and had the highest of the high qualifications. He’d been a professional MMA fighter since he was a teen and had taught everyone everything he could. He loved the sport that much.
“I can’t believe he calls me that.” Silver flushed a beautiful shade of pink.
I wanted to taste that shade with my tongue.
“He’s proud of you,” I said. “He wanted—though past tense would mean he doesn’t still want that for you—you to go pro.”
“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just that…that’s not my calling. I love the sport, but that’s just not what I want to do with my life.”
I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What is it you want to do?”
I was dying to fucking know.
I wanted to know everything about Silver Donahue that there was to know.
She flushed. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”
