"Guess I can't fault you for that," she allowed, moving to stand.
"Why are you rushing off?" Ellie asked. "You seem stressed. Stay and hang out for a bit. Ryan is going to be over with Gabe in a bit too. You spend too much time kicking asses and not enough time relaxing on your own."
She wasn't wrong.
Faith knew her schedule wasn't an optimal one. She even realized that it was slowly but surely catching up to her. She wasn't handling the overnights and then somewhat early mornings as well as she used to. Hell, she used to be able to be at the bar until three or later, go home, crash for three hours, then get up and teach a class with no problem. Lately, though, it was getting harder. She hit her snooze on her cell at least three times every morning even after a solid five hours and then climbed out of the bed full-on zombie until she was showered, caffeinated, and on her way.
Another couple years. That was all she needed. She could power through.
"I have a class for teens at a gym," she said, shrugging. Some classes, like the ones at the Y or the ones at women's shelters, she did those for free, for the greater good, to make sure if any man ever tried to put his hands on those women without permission again, they could fucking obliterate them.
Because that was the resolution she had made herself after she got her own ass handed to her by a man. The first and mother effing only time that ever happened. She would never let a man hurt her or any other woman that she could help. That was when she got serious about training. Her face was a swollen, bruised, stitched mess when she walked into that first mixed martial arts studio and demanded they make it so it could never happen to her again. Those four men had taken in her face, taken in her determination, and made her into a concealed weapon.
It was her mission to turn as many other women into concealed weapons as she could.
She never missed a class.
"Give your poor human punching bag hell, sweetheart," Xander said, giving her a smile and squeezing her wrist as she moved past.
She made her way to the gym, one she only ever did classes at once every couple of months- when they had the demand for it. It was just basic self-defense moves- how to get out of a forward choke, a back choke, rape position, all the usual stuff. And Xander was right; she used a real man in her demonstrations. Womens' biggest issue with self-defense was actually putting their hands on another person, always growing up to be taught to be gentle, to keep their hands to themselves. All those classes that made you hit a mat or go half-force with a partner, yeah, those were bullshit and a waste of time and money.
If you wanted to learn how to take a man down, you had to take a man down.
That was why when she walked up in front of the large, shining plate glass windows of the gym, Trey was standing out front waiting for her in all his six-foot-three, solid-as-a-rock-, gorgeous Puerto Rican perfection. Trey had been one of her trainers when she was seventeen, only being twenty-three at the time, but having been in various forms of martial arts since he could walk. Literally.
"Ready to get beat up?" she asked, opening the door and going in.
"Always. The teen girls are always the most brutal," he said with a warm smile as they walked past the front desk and toward the class room at the right of the building, only sectioned off by more glass walls.
"Did you bring..." she started to ask when Trey threw his gym bag at her. "You're the best," she said, giving him a smile as she moved off toward the bathroom to change into the black yoga pants and tight, sleeveless spandex top in a bright pink color- the outfit she left with in the laundry at Trey and the other guys' gym to be cleaned every week.
When she walked back out- hair in a ponytail, rolling her shoulders to get rid of some of the tension, most of the class was already standing around, many dressed like her, others in loose tees and basketball pants. Pretty much all of them, though, were staring at Trey with various degrees of obviousness. To which Trey was completely oblivious as he stretched out a little, having discarded his hoodie, leaving him in black basketball pants and a very tight deep gray wifebeater that clung to his abdominal muscles like a second skin.
She couldn't blame them for staring; he was fantastic looking.
But luckily, or unluckily for her, depending on your view, he had been like a big brother to her for years.
"Ready?" he asked as she walked over, making her smile a sly little smile, knowing they both enjoyed sparring more than almost anything.
"Oh yeah..."