My Cobra Guy

Episode Two

Johnny's head felt like a watermelon - too heavy for his shoulders and full of soggy mush. He'd had a case of Coors Banquet easy, and then passed out before he could do anything more than sloppily kiss Monica, a hot little number he'd found at the bar. He woke up feeling like shit physically. Then, he remembered Carmen and felt like shit all over again. Fuck. Were they actually a couple? Did sleeping together once make them one in her mind? They hadn't spoken in person in almost two days. Her texts had been short and mostly about Miguel and training. She was still pissed he was attacked, again, but didn't blame Johnny this time. Why do women have to make shit complicated?

He avoided looking at Daniel, who babbled about some useless stuff while he had the kids weeding the garden. Maybe that's why Danielle had so much money; kids paid him to come work around his dojo. Maybe Johnny should try to do the same; he needed some work done on his apartment wall that he hadn't gotten around to yet.

Well, if he had to watch this sappy excuse for training, he might as well try to motivate the kids.

"Yeah, keep going. Pull those weeds. Show them who's boss!"

Sam glanced up at him and rolled her eyes but he ignored her. She was a prissy little shit, but Miguel liked her so he would try not to be an ass. Well, not too much of one, anyway.

"This'll be real useful when you get attacked by a petunia!" Johnny called, just to irritate her, and hopefully Daniel. Dammit. He shouldn't have said that; he didn't want to deal with Daniel today. He still felt weird about yesterday afternoon. He wasn't sure what that had been about and he didn't want to think about it.

"Are you afraid?" Kreese's voice taunted in his head. "What happens to the weak? The weak don't have a right to survive, and you think you're teaching these kids? Ha! To be a coward like you?"

As if his head wasn't hurting enough, he didn't need that asshole's voice bouncing around in there. Fuck you, Kreese. You're going down.

Daniel clapped his palms together with a loud crack. "You gonna stand around all day, or are you gonna help these kids?"

"You guys are doing such a fine job, why should I interfere?"

Daniel shook his head at him but he was grinning. Then he stepped closer and lowered his voice. "So what was that all about yesterday?"

Johnny shrugged nonchalantly but he wouldn't look him in the eye. "What are you talking about?" His eyes roamed over the yard but he couldn't think straight. Did little Danielle have to stand so close?

"You knocked me down, gave me this weird look, then ran out of my dojo like your ass was on fire."

"I don't know what you mean. I was just tired of your bullshit, is all." He still couldn't meet his face, but he began stretching his arm behind his head, as if he were about to start exercising. Take a hint and fuck off, Danielle. His body felt heavy and his headache was raging. He had enough on his plate without being reminded of his weird reaction yesterday.

"Well, can we just focus on the kids today?" Daniel always had to use his hands when he talked, moving them around near his chest like he was playing an invisible keyboard or something. "We need to go back to basics. Start fresh."

Start fresh. Hah. "More of your feel good crap? Do you ever hear yourself? How much of a bitch you sound like? You're gonna make those kids turn into— Hey, you, what're you doing?"

Sam held out her hands as the other students fished money out of their pockets and wallets, handing it off to her. "We made bets on how long you two could go without arguing."

"She won," said a ginger kid with shaggy hair falling over freckled cheeks.

"Yeah, we all thought you'd last an hour at least. Didn't you beat each other up enough yesterday?" asked some scrawny dude.