Signs of Life by Melanie Hansen

Author:Melanie Hansen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 9781634761789
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2015-09-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

LUCKILY THE week flew by. Kai’s science class was going to start a unit that involved dissecting frogs, and since there was no way in hell he would give scalpels to those kids, he enlisted Shauna’s help. The day before the lesson, she spent two hours after school painstakingly cutting open each formaldehyde-soaked frog and removing its organs, laying them carefully next to the body so the kids could study them the next day. It wasn’t 100 percent ideal in terms of learning the in situ anatomy of the frog, but it was better than nothing.

Kai sat at his desk and graded papers, laughing at Shauna’s occasional exclamations of disgust and teasing her with “Some nurse you’ll be if you get grossed out by frog guts!”

She threw him such a dirty look he pretended to brush dust off his shoulders, making her grin, the smile lighting up her face. Kai was gratified to see it. Shauna had been very subdued lately, and he was worried. She turned in her missing papers, saying Dante had been sick and she hadn’t had time to do them before they were due. Kai suspected sadly she was killing herself trying to make sure an ill, miserable Dante didn’t cry and disturb that asshole she and her mother were living with.

The frog lesson went well, all of the kids engaged in learning for once, and Kai enjoyed the banter and enthusiasm they showed even as they pretended to gag and throw frog hearts at each other.

Then that Wednesday night was his first after-school self-defense class. Loren arrived with four off-duty female cops, and Kai had enlisted three of his female Krav Maga students, including Elise. All of the women and girls who initially signed up for the class were in attendance except for Shauna, the one Kai worried needed it most. She’d told him her mama got called in to work early, and there was no one to watch Dante.

The group sat around in a circle, and Kai talked to them about the principles of self-defense: incapacitate and escape. He and Loren demonstrated a few of the moves, then he and Elise did, and the women were all wide-eyed with wonder. One of the off-duty cops took them through a series of stretching and calisthenics to get them warmed up, and then the rest of the hour flew by as they started learning the first basic moves. Everyone was exhausted, sweaty, and sore when they were done, but they were chattering excitedly amongst themselves as they gathered their things in preparation for leaving, and all of the women assured Kai they would be back the next week.

He and Loren high-fived each other, grinned, and said their good-byes. Kai made sure everything was cleaned up and the facilities staff knew they were done with the room before heading out to his Jeep and home.

When he checked his mail, there was a white envelope from the lab his health insurance used for testing, and after he

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.