“You need to spread your legs a little wider,” Noah said, demonstrating for Shelby Chang how he wanted her to stand. The two of them stood in the courtyard behind Coffee by Constance in the summer twilight, the air muggy and still around them. In the distance the constant buzz of cicadas and other bugs provided a nice background.
 
“How do you know this stuff?” Shelby asked Noah, adjusting her legs to mirror his position.
 
“Well, my father made me and my sister take self-defense classes from a young age,” Noah explained. “He was convinced we were going to be kidnapped and needed to be able to protect ourselves.”
 
“That seems a little extreme.”
 
“He’d received threats about it before, so he was just being cautious. Lianne hated it, and she quit as soon as she could. I really liked it, though, so I stuck with it. Sometimes I wonder—“ Noah trailed off.
 
“Wonder what?” Shelby asked, curious.
 
“Nothing,” Noah said quickly. He didn’t want to tell her he was thinking about his sister. “Now, I’m going to come at you. I want you to use the move we practiced to deflect me, okay?”
 
Shelby nodded, her pretty face, so like her mother’s, setting in concentration. “I’m ready.”
 
Noah lunged at her then, one arm stretched out toward her, reaching to grab her. Shelby did as he instructed: took a single step forward to plant her weight and, when he was in reach, grasped his wrist with her left hand and put all of her strength into shoving the arm just above her wrist, releasing her grip in time to send him spinning away. She took the second step, shoving against him, making him stumble, and then backed away quickly, out of his reach.
 
“Well done,” Noah said approvingly, rubbing at the place on his arm where she’d shoved. “You’re a fast learner.”
 
A barrage of laughter came at Noah from the stairs leading up to the apartment above the shop. Winston and Steel sat there, watching Shelby’s self-defense class. “Pretty soon she’s going to be kicking your ass for real, Noah,” Winston called.
 
“Maybe,” Noah agreed. “But you know that means she’ll be able to kick your ass, too, right?”
 
That shut him up right quick.