“Like you’re his Mr. Miyagi?” she asked, disbelief clear in her tone.

Gabe bit back a smile. The Karate Kid had been his favorite movie when he was younger. He’d even watched it with Angi one summer, sitting on the floor in his grandmother’s cramped office. The VHS tape had been his prized possession until the day his mom knocked it off the old dresser where the TV sat and then stepped on it.

He could have found the money to buy another copy, but at that point he’d learned all the lessons he needed from the teen flick. Instead, he’d gotten a job sweeping floors at a local gym near their apartment in Albuquerque and begun his transformation.

“I don’t know karate.”

“But you know lots of ways to defend yourself or even hurt someone, right?” She turned slowly. “I heard you were Special Forces or some kind of sniper or—”

“Something like that,” he agreed noncommittally. He refused to discuss his time in the army with Angi. No way would he taint her with the violence he’d seen, the things he’d done.

“Are you teaching Andrew the techniques you learned?”

He shook his head and picked up a bolt of red velvet ribbon. He’d been using it to create lopsided bows for the front window. Gabe might not have the artistic eye or gift for design that his grandmother had, but he liked using his hands to create something instead of destroying what he touched.

“Mostly I have him clean up and pump him for tips from his little friend about how to display gift items in the store.”

“An updated version of wax on, wax off?”

A chuckle bubbled up from his throat as he thought about the karate lesson from the movie, couched in everyday tasks.

“Sometimes dusting is just dusting,” he assured her.

She studied him for a moment and then nodded. “I wouldn’t be all that upset if you wanted to show him a few moves.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” She looked sad and desperate and a little wild. “You aren’t the only one who knows what it was like to be bullied. I don’t want him to be a victim.”

“There are other ways for Andrew to defend himself than learning how to fight better than the kids who pick on him.”

“Like what?”

“Walking away or talking to an adult or—”

“If you say turn the other cheek, I’m going to scream.” She waved a hand in the general vicinity of his chest. “It’s easy to go all pacifist when you’re a big, burly ex-army stud with rippling muscles and badass vibes radiating off you like an electrical current. Andrew is just a small kid with a gentle heart who’s been targeted by jerks who are stronger and meaner than him.”

She continued to tell him about her son, as if Gabe hadn’t spent enough time with the boy to understand his issues. But Gabe’s mind had, unfortunately, snagged on a few of the words she’d used to describe him. A badass stud with rippling muscles. That couldn’t possibly be how Angi Guilardi saw him.