Page 29 of Under His Protection
“The more, the merrier,” Layla says.
* * *
Now that the furniture is out of the way, we bring a couple of chairs from the kitchen to make more seating available.
Liam and Jasmine make a quick run back to their apartment and return shortly after wearing their Taekwondo uniforms—white V-neck jackets with three-quarter sleeves, black trousers, and black belts tied around their waists. Right now, they’re sitting on the love seat, side by side, exchanging their shoes and socks for padded foot protection.
The girls—Haley, Layla, and Erin—sit on the sofa. Jason is in the recliner. Mack and I sit on kitchen chairs.
Jasmine jumps to her feet and offers her hand to Liam. “Come on, handsome. Let’s do this.” She pulls him up onto his feet.
I took a few years of Jiu Jitsu classes when I was a teenager, but I don’t know much about Taekwondo. It’s fascinating to watch Jasmine and Liam’s demonstration. There’s a whole lot of kicking and pivoting and more kicking. While it’s mostly footwork, once in a while they get close enough to physically grapple with each other, and then it looks like it’s turning into a wrestling match. Now,thatI’m familiar with. I did some wrestling in my early teenage years.
Jasmine is tall for a girl, but Liam’s taller, and he outweighs her by forty pounds at least. I can’t tell if he’s taking it easy on her or not, but Jasmine seems to be giving as good as she gets.
“Get him, Jazz!” Layla says, clapping her hands. “Show him who’s boss.”
Liam laughs. “I already know who’s boss.”
Liam signals a time-out, and while he’s bent over catching his breath, Jasmine sneaks up beside him, does a roundhouse kick, and knocks him on his ass.
“No fair!” Liam cries, laughing even harder as he climbs to his feet. “I wasn’t ready!”
“Sorry, babe,” Jasmine says as she walks up to Liam, cups his face, and plants a big one on his mouth. “All’s fair in love and war.”
Liam smiles at her before he pulls her close and kisses her back. “So, who’s next?” he asks.
When no one volunteers, Liam points at me. “How about you, big guy?”
“Me? Hell no. I don’t know anything about Taekwondo.”
Jasmine gestures for Haley to come forward. “How about you, Haley? I’ll teach you a few moves. They might come in handy if you ever feel the need to kick Philip’s ass.”
Of course everyone laughs at that.
I expect Haley to politely decline, but she surprises me when she takes off her boots and jumps to her feet. “I’m game.”
“Go easy on her, Jasmine,” Mack warns.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Donovan.” Jasmine looks amused. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
Jasmine teaches Haley a couple of moves and lets her practice kicking high into the air. It looks like she’s doing a roundhouse kick, and she’s not bad. They mess around for about fifteen minutes, until Haley is breathing hard. Jasmine is barely winded.
I heard a rumor once that Jasmine developed an interest in martial arts when she saw Liam’s twin sister, Lia, giving a demonstration in the martial arts studio at McIntyre Security. When Jasmine saw Lia, who’s quite petite, kicking the asses of partners twice her size, she insisted on learning how to protect herself.
I remember the first time I met Lia McIntyre. She put me and my teammate Mateo on our asses for teasing her. Mateo and I were new hires at the time, and she was evaluating our hand-to-hand combat skills. Mine were pretty nil. They still are. It’s been years since I’ve had any martial arts training. There’s not a lot of demand for hand-to-hand combat skills when I’m spying on suspects from the safety of my truck.
“Come on, Phil,” Liam says. “Want to have a go at it?”
I snort. “No, thanks. I’ll just watch.”
“Have you ever studied any martial arts?”
“I earned a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu, but that was years ago. I did some wrestling in my teens, and I played football in high school. That’s about as physical as I got.”
“My dad wrestled,” Haley says, looking at her father. “Didn’t you? Mom has told me all kinds of stories about you wrestling.”
“I did,” Mack says. “But that was a long time ago.”
