Little Miss Dynamite

The bloke had at least six inches and four stone on Lana, and none of it seemed to be doing him a bit of good. He came at her with a lazy overhand right, the kind of shot that worked fine on someone who didn't spend her Tuesday nights getting cracked in the face for fun, and Lana slipped it clean, dropped her hips, and swept his lead leg out from under him before he'd even finished falling forward. He hit the mats with a thud that rattled the water bottles on the bench, and the whole gym let out a groan that was half sympathy, half delight.

"Stay down, Gary," she said, offering him a hand he didn't take. "Your pride's already dead. No point dragging the rest of you with it."

Gary groaned something that might have been a swear word and rolled onto his back, staring up at the strip lights like they held the answers. Lana bounced on the balls of her feet, chest heaving, blood singing in her ears the way it only did after a good clean drop. Her ponytail had given up the fight entirely, loose strands of blonde stuck to her temples and throat, and she wiped the sweat from her eyes with the back of her glove, grinning at nobody in particular.

This was the only church she'd ever bothered attending. Sweat, mats, the particular smell of rubber and old effort baked into the walls of a gym that had seen better decades. She loved it with a ferocity that frightened people who didn't understand her, and she'd long since stopped trying to explain it to the ones who did.

She was still catching her breath when she noticed him. Corner of the gym, near the free weights, not doing anything so obvious as watching, but not exactly not watching either. Five-foot-ten of him, thick through the shoulders in a way that looked earned rather than gifted by a personal trainer with a nutrition plan, arms folded across a chest that strained the seams of a plain grey compression shirt. Dark hair, damp at the edges. A jaw that hadn't seen a razor since yesterday morning, and an expression that sat somewhere between amused and unimpressed, which was, in Lana's extensive experience, a very rare and very dangerous combination.

He caught her looking. Didn't smirk exactly, more a slow curl at one corner of his mouth, like he'd already decided something about her and was waiting to see if she'd catch up.

Cheeky sod, she thought, and turned back to Gary, who was finally hauling himself upright with the wounded dignity of a man who'd be feeling that in his hip for a week.

She told herself she wasn't going to think about the stranger in the corner. She lasted four minutes.

By the time she'd peeled her gloves off and made her way to the water station, towel slung round her neck, she'd half convinced herself he'd wandered off, gone back to whatever gym he usually haunted. Instead he was there, filling a bottle at the cooler, close enough that she caught the smell of him, clean sweat and something warmer underneath, cedar maybe, or just skin.

"You've got a nasty sweep," he said, without turning round. Northern vowels, flat and unbothered, the kind of voice that didn't need volume to carry.

"I've got a lot of nasty things," Lana said. "The sweep's just the one you can see."

That got her the smirk properly this time, full and unguarded for half a second before he tucked it away again. He turned, and up close he was worse, or better, depending which part of her was doing the judging. Brown eyes, the kind that looked warm until you noticed how still they were, like they were doing sums behind the calm.

"Ethan," he said, holding out a hand that had its own scars scattered across the knuckles, a match set for hers.

"Lana." She shook it. His grip was firm without trying to prove anything, which she found more unsettling than if he'd crushed her fingers to make a point. "You're new. I'd have noticed you."

"Just moved down. Was training up in Leeds before." He nodded towards the mats, where Gary was limping off to nurse his ego in the changing room. "That sweep. Krav Maga, not jiu-jitsu."

"Bit of both," she said, folding her arms, cocking her head at him. "You know your stuff, then."

"I know enough to recognise Little Miss Dynamite when I see her drop a bloke twice her size."

Lana's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you've heard of me."

"Everyone's heard of you." He said it like a fact, not a compliment, which somehow made it land harder than if he'd been trying to charm her. "Southampton girl breaks men for fun, refuses to be tamed, terrifies every fella who tries to take her for a curry and a Netflix night. That about cover it?"

"That's the family-friendly version." She stepped closer, close enough to make most men shuffle backwards, testing him the way she tested everyone, seeing how much space he'd give up. He didn't move an inch. "The full version comes with a warning label. Most blokes read it, get spooked, and run for the sensible ones. The ones who bore me to actual tears within a fortnight."

"Sounds like you've been dating accountants."

"Worse. I dated a man who alphabetised his spice rack and asked if we could 'discuss my feelings' during foreplay." She shuddered, only half for effect. "I nearly walked into the sea."

Ethan laughed, low and short, like he didn't do it easily but meant it when he did. "I'll try to avoid discussing feelings during anything important, then."

"Bold promise for a man I've known ninety seconds."

"I'm good for it." He capped his water bottle, eyes still on her, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and intended to spend a good chunk of it right there. "Roll with me tomorrow. Proper roll, not this warm-up nonsense you were doing with what's-his-name."

"That wasn't warm-up, that was me being merciful."

"Right. Well, I don't need mercy."

"Everyone needs mercy eventually," Lana said, but something in her chest had already lit up, bright and dangerous, the way it did before a fight she actually wanted. "Fine. Tomorrow. Two o'clock. Don't be one of those blokes who cries when a woman taps him out."

"I don't cry," Ethan said. "I might, however, buy you a drink tonight instead of waiting for tomorrow."

She should have said no. She had a rule about new gym faces, something about not mixing sweat and tequila with men she'd have to see three times a week for the foreseeable, but the rule had never had to stand up against a jaw like that, or a voice that low, or eyes that didn't flinch when she leaned in.

"There's a pub across the road," she said. "Fair warning, I'm a nightmare after two ciders."

"I've survived nightmares before."

"Not this one, sweetheart."

The pub was the kind of place that hadn't been refurbished since the nineties and had no intention of starting now, all sticky carpet and a dartboard nobody used and a landlord who called everyone love regardless of age or gender. Lana claimed a corner table while Ethan got the drinks, and she watched him move through the small crowd, unhurried, solid, the kind of man other men instinctively made room for without quite knowing why.

He came back with her cider and a pint for himself, and slid into the seat across from her, close enough that his knee brushed hers under the table and neither of them moved away.

"So," he said. "Little Miss Dynamite. Where's that come from?"

"Won a fight in about forty seconds when I was twenty-three. Fella was twice my size again, thought he had it in the bag. My coach shouted 'she's a bloody stick of dynamite' from the corner and it stuck." She took a sip, licked the foam off her top lip, watched his eyes track the movement. "Suits me. I go off. Bright and loud and then it's over before anyone's ready."

"I like things that don't end quickly," Ethan said, mild as anything, like he was discussing the weather, and Lana felt that land somewhere low and warm.

"Careful," she said. "That's the kind of line that gets a man's hopes up."

"I don't say things I don't mean." He leaned back, arm along the top of the bench seat, studying her the way he'd studied her on the mats, patient, unbothered by silence. "You're not what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"Louder, maybe. Everyone talks about you like you're a fire alarm with legs."

"Oh, I am." She grinned, sharp and quick. "You've just caught me between explosions."

Across the bar, a man in a rugby shirt who'd clearly been building up courage for the last ten minutes finally wandered over, all confident shoulders and a smile that had probably worked on someone once. "Alright, Lana? Fancy a proper drink, not that cider muck?"

"I'm good, Dave," she said, without looking away from Ethan. "Busy."

"Come on, one drink—"

"Dave." Her voice dropped a register, flat and final, the tone she used on men who mistook persistence for charm. "I said I'm good."

Dave took the hint, eventually, slinking back to his mates with the wounded expression of a man who'd tell the story later with himself as the victim of some terrible injustice. Ethan hadn't moved, hadn't puffed his chest out or made a show of it, just watched the whole exchange with that same dry amusement.

"You didn't feel the need to help," Lana said.

"Didn't look like you needed it."

"I didn't. Most men would've tried anyway. Territorial nonsense."

"I'm not most men."

"Everyone says that. It's usually a lie."

"Ask me again in a month," Ethan said, and something about the certainty in it made her pulse trip.

She studied him properly then, over the rim of her glass, cataloguing him the way she catalogued opponents before a fight, looking for the tell, the weakness, the place where the confidence would crack. She didn't find one, which unsettled her more than finding one would have.

"I'll be honest with you," she said, because honesty was the only currency she'd ever really trusted. "Most blokes who try to keep up with me end up either terrified or exhausted within a few weeks. I'm not talking about the gym. I'm talking about everything else. I've got needs that scare people off, Ethan. Sexual, I mean. I've had partners tap out of that too. Leave me finishing myself off in the shower because they've got nothing left after round one and I'm nowhere near done."

She watched for the flinch. There wasn't one.

"Sounds like you've been sleeping with children," Ethan said, and there was something in his voice now, lower, rougher round the edges, that made the hair on her arms rise.

"You reckon you're different."

"I reckon most men your reputation has scared off never actually turned up to find out." He leaned in, and the space between them shrank to almost nothing, his forearm resting on the table, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off him. "I work remote. Cyber security, my own company, so I answer to nobody's clock but mine. I train five, six days a week because sitting still makes me want to put my fist through a wall. I don't get bored easy and I don't scare easy, and when I say I don't cry, sweetheart, I mean it in every sense you're imagining."

"That's a lot of confidence for a man I've known two hours."

"I don't do half-measures. Never have." His voice dropped further, that low Northern rumble she was starting to feel in her back teeth. "You said most men can't handle you."

"Most men can't."

"Try me," Ethan said.

Two words. Flat, unhurried, delivered like a simple fact rather than a challenge, and somehow that made it land harder than if he'd shouted it from the rooftop. Lana felt it settle low in her stomach, a pull she hadn't felt in longer than she wanted to admit, not since before the string of forgettable men and their forgettable stamina and their even more forgettable attempts at pillow talk. She looked at him for a long moment, at the stillness in those brown eyes, the way he hadn't so much as blinked, and something in her chest that had been clenched tight for years loosened just a fraction, dangerous and thrilling all at once.

"Two o'clock tomorrow," she said, finishing her cider in one long pull, standing up before she did something reckless in a pub with sticky carpet. "Mats first. We'll see about the rest after."

"I'll bring my A game," Ethan said, unfolding himself from the bench, close enough that she had to tip her chin up to hold his eye.

"Bring all of it," Lana said. "I don't do leftovers."

She walked out into the night with her pulse doing something it hadn't done in years, wondering, not for the first time but with a great deal more urgency than usual, whether she'd finally found the one man daft enough, and maybe good enough, to actually keep up.