More Than a Hotline Fling

-21-

Juneau's POV

Matthew's passing resonated deep inside me. Both his horrific personal sacrifice and his widowed wife's reactions tore into me. Her raw, open, and honest display of grief was so personal. I was unworthy of witnessing it.

After too much time dismissing Damian's concerns... I get it.

The sobering moment snapped any overreaction doubts I held against Damian's concern for my safety. He brought me to the funeral procession for his own personal reasons, escorting him there and home, but I was honored to pay my respects.

At home, I made some small changes, adding the Citizens Alert app into my phone, and made sure every parting of mine from Damian was offered with love.

Even if I still can't stand those stinky towels. Guess he can't be perfect.

I texted him whenever I arrived at and left work, including lunch breaks. Most often he was too busy but offered the same arrival/departure updates.

Damian also insisted on a code word, an endearment passed between us whenever we were separated that signaled danger.

Sweetheart.

I trusted my life to Damian's judgment, yet uncertain nerves thrummed my heart faster when we walked through a gym's doors at his request. The two-story, glass front, brick-walled interior passed for any normal gym, absent cardio equipment and weights. Black leather boxing bags hung along one wall. Behind a small desk signing area was an open area of rubber floor mats.

A woman stood behind the desk, so hardened my first glance mistook her for a statue. A faint glow from a laptop screen cast a blue glow over her skin, uplighting her facial features. Her braids were pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a square jawline that was the sharpest I'd ever seen. The apples of her cheekbones protruded, carving two downward, y-shaped creases that my best makeup contouring applications couldn't achieve.

Her thick lips parted a seam between the pale upper and brown lower-toned flesh. "You must be Juneau. I'm Regina, your instructor. Welcome to Women Fight Back."

Fight?

The word drew my eyebrows together.

I'm the first body dropped in a zombie apocalypse because I help an 'injured' next-door neighbor who ends up chomping my ankle.

"I..." My spine stiffened. "Am?"

She wore the same black tank top that I did, but the neck on hers scooped over corded, muscular shoulders. A pronounced collarbone stretched her dark skin. Her thin eyebrows lifted. "Are you asking me?"

A weighted pressure on my lower back relaxed the wrinkles I scrunched in my forehead. Before I answered, Regina's dark brown eyes lifted over my shoulder, fixing on my reason for being here. Recognition filled them and she tipped her head. "Damian, go take a seat off to the side."

"Banished," he muttered with a chuckle.

I shivered when the rough pads of Damian's fingers skimmed over my exposed shoulders, drawing my coat into his hands. While I wondered how they knew each other, he pressed a kiss on the back of my head and whispered, "Good luck."

Good luck? Good luck!? He signed me up for this! What -

Tension scrunched a line in my shoulders, drawing them up to my ears. They relaxed seeing the same apprehension hanging in the eyes of four other women in attendance. Our shoes and socks removed, Regina led us to the middle of the mats. Foam mushed in between my toes.