A couple of the kids catcalled us until I turned with my hands on my hips. “Whoever tells me the rules gets me on their team.” Suddenly, I was surrounded by fifteen children all talking at once. Not my best plan, but they seemed to have forgotten the kiss.

I hadn’t. My body sang with the need to touch her again. Like that perfect pass right into the hands of the receiver. The jumble of rules boiled down to ‘don’t get hit’, and I rubbed my hands together. I spent most of my time trying not to get hit.

Nadia and I ended up on opposite teams, but I wanted to make this about the kids rather than an excuse to invade her space. Okay, I may have gently tackled her once, but when the catcalls started again, I changed tactics.

The little boy she’d been talking to when I came in still had streaks on his cheeks, so I hoisted him up and chased around one of the bigger kids with him giggling madly in my ear. I put him down to a chorus of me next.

Coach could learn a thing or two about conditioning from this class. For forty-five minutes, the kids ran me ragged. Despite my sore muscles, I couldn’t stop smiling every time my eyes strayed to Nadia.

When she called an end to the game, I offered up a prayer of thanks. The kids scattered to gather their belongings, and I found a water fountain to douse my overheated face. Without a towel, I used my shirt to wipe off the drips. A strangled noise in front of me made me look up in time to catch Nadia staring at my stomach.

Her eyes shot back up to my face, and I grinned, glad for every minute I spent training. “Not bad, huh?”

She cleared her throat. “You did good.”

“I can see why you do this. Tonight was fun.”

To my surprise, I wasn’t just trying to prove that I could hang. I’d genuinely enjoyed myself. If I hadn’t already scheduled more hours than I had in the day, I could see doing this as a regular thing. We turned to watch Pantsy organize the chaos of parent pickup, and Nadia smiled.

“It was, but it’s not always. These kids come from all kinds of family situations and often this is the only safe place they have when their parents are working or just gone.”

I caught her hand to link our fingers. “I get it. You give them the security you never had.”

She nodded quietly and waved at the last of the parents leaving with their kids.

Pantsy flipped the sign on the door to closed, then sagged against it. “Remind me again why I volunteered to do the final dance class.”

Nadia smiled. “Because you love proving to little girls that beauty and power aren’t mutually exclusive.”