Her Coach Wouldn't Take My Money, So I Paid Her Another Way novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Hands

Rae pays the only way Gina will allow by wrapping Gina's hands, and the wrap turns into a kiss on the ring apron until the bread delivery man pounds on the door.

On Thursday I brought two coffees and a plan.

It was ten to six, and the street was dark and freezing.

Gina unlocked the door for me in a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up, and she looked at the cups.

"I told you no money," she said.

"This isn't money. It's coffee."

"Same thing."

"It's not. Drink it."

She took the cup, and she drank, and she didn't argue.

I considered that a win.

"Sit," she said. "Show me what you learned."

I had watched four videos on my phone.

I sat on the bench and wrapped my right hand by myself.

It came out lumpy and too loose, and the end flapped.

Gina watched me with her coffee in one hand and no expression at all.

"That's a disaster," she said.

"I know."

"Come here."

She sat beside me, took my hand and unwound it, and began again with the same slow care as before.

I let her do the whole thing.

When she finished the second hand, I said, "Now you."

"Now me what?"

"Sit down. Give me your hands."

Gina went still.

"I wrap my own," she said.

"I know. I've watched you. You do it in about forty seconds, and you do it like you're angry at the cloth."

"It works."

"Gina."

I held up the roll of red cotton.

"You won't take my money. So I'm paying a different way. You gave me my hands this week. Let me do yours."

She stared at the roll for a long time.

Then she sat down on the bench, turned toward me, and put both hands out on her knees.

Her wrists were thick and corded, and there was a white scar across the back of the left one.

I took the left hand first.

It was bigger than mine, hard at the knuckles and warm at the center of the palm.

I started the loop around her wrist the way she'd shown me.

"Who did this for you before?" I asked.

"My father." She watched my fingers. "He ran this gym for thirty-one years. He's been gone ten."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Thumb goes through. Tighter."

I pulled it tighter.

Her breath caught, a very small sound.

I took the cloth across her knuckles, one pass, two, and then down between her fingers, and she spread them for me without being told.

I slid the cotton over the soft skin between each one.

Gina's eyes were on my mouth.

I knew it without looking up.

"You're slower than I was," she said. Her voice had gone rough.

"I'm learning."

"You're doing it on purpose."

"A little."

I tucked the end under and pressed it flat against the inside of her wrist, right where I'd felt my own pulse jump on Tuesday.

Hers was hammering.

"Fast," I said quietly.

Gina laughed, one short breath through her nose.

"I haven't had breakfast."

"That's not why."

She turned her hand over under mine, and her fingers closed around my wrist.

Neither of us moved.

The gym hummed around us, a refrigerator motor and the heater ticking in the ceiling.

"Rae," she said.

"I know."

"I'm your coach."

"For six sessions." I leaned in. "And you won't let me pay. So technically I'm not your client."

"That's not how coaching works."

"It's how this works."

I kissed her.

It was a light kiss at first, my mouth against hers, testing.

She went absolutely still.

Then she made a low sound in her throat, put her wrapped hand behind my head, and kissed me back.

It was nothing like Dustin.

Dustin kissed like he was checking a box.

Gina kissed like someone who had been waiting a very long time to be asked.

Her mouth was warm and sure, and it tasted like coffee.

My hand slid up her arm to the hard curve of her shoulder, and she pulled me off the bench and into her lap.

I straddled her thighs, and I felt her whole body take my weight and hold it.

Her free hand spread across the small of my back and pulled me flush against her.

I gasped into her mouth.

"Ropes," Gina said against my lip. "Come on."

She stood up with me in her arms, and I laughed out loud.

She carried me three steps to the ring and set me down on the apron, so my back was against the bottom rope.

Then she stood between my knees and looked at me.

I was in leggings and a gym shirt I'd bought on Wednesday.

My hair was tied up, my wrapped hands were shaking, and I had never in my life wanted anyone so much.

"I'm not stopping," Gina said.

"Good."

"Rae."

"If you stop, I'll hit you with my lumpy wraps."

She grinned, wide and surprised, and I saw her whole face change.

Then she kissed my jaw and my throat, slowly, and her hands slid under the hem of my shirt and flattened against my ribs.

Her thumbs found the place she had pressed on Tuesday, and I arched into them.

My heels hooked around the backs of her legs.

I pulled her closer, and her mouth came back to mine, hungrier now, and the ring rope creaked under my shoulders.

"You have no idea," Gina said, breathless, "how long I've been waiting."

"For me?"

She stopped.

Her forehead came down against mine.

"For someone to ask," she said.

Her hands slid higher and I stopped thinking about anything else.

The front door rattled.

Someone pounded on the glass, hard, three times.

Gina closed her eyes.

"That's the bread guy," she said. "He delivers to the diner next door and he always tries our handle."

I started to laugh, and I couldn't stop.

She laughed too, helplessly, with her face in my neck.

When the knocking finally stopped, she lifted her head and looked at me with a kind of wonder.

"Come back tonight," she said. "After close. Nine o'clock."

"Dustin's night."

"He's out by eight-thirty." Her thumb brushed my lower lip. "I'll make sure."

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