Chapter 7

Cassidy
Cassidy Hope prided herself on her fitness. In high school, she’d put together a conditioning program called sixty minutes of hell, modeled after what the Marine Corps did to turn boys into men. Her father had spent twenty years in the Marines, and she’d grown up around them. When Cassidy had been barely a teenager, her father had been willing to put her up against almost any new recruit. He’d won numerous bets when she would outlast them all.

David Dawson had been her model student. She’d taken him under her wing and taught him to defend himself. In a dojo or on the street, David could hold his own. Towards the end of high school, he’d slacked off on his self-defense training, but she wasn’t sure if she could still take him.

Part of what she wanted to do someday was train people. David had talked to her dad and arranged for her to work with a trainer they’d brought in to improve Lincoln High’s strength-and-conditioning program. She’d learned a lot about what trainers did that she hadn’t really thought of before, but that had just whetted her appetite to learn more.

So, when she stepped onto campus with a rowing scholarship, she’d thought she was ready. She’d done better than any of the other freshmen, but she discovered that rowing felt like the equivalent of sprinting a marathon. The sport utilized every major muscle of your body: arms, legs, abdomen, even the tips of your fingers. Every muscle counted.

She’d worked her tail off and made the novice 8+ team. Their first race had been held at the annual San Diego Fall Classic, where the team had been entered in the Women’s Open Frosh/Novice races. They’d ended up winning by over a minute against the second-place boat.

The real season for rowing would begin in about two months when they were entered in the Las Vegas Invitational.

Cassidy was putting her workout clothes into a duffle bag to go to the gym when her roommate, Pam, came bounding up the stairs.

“David’s on his way over,” she announced, then hurried to her room to get ready.

Cassidy had two roommates in the townhouse they were living in. It was actually owned by David, and he let them live there for free. All they had to pay for was food and utilities. The girls she lived with had been best friends since midway through high school.

There was a fourth bedroom, which David had said to save for him. The townhouse was close to USC’s baseball field. He reasoned he could park his car there and walk to the game or sleep over. They’d put a daybed and desks in the room. The girls were using it as a study room.

Pam was originally from California. She’d moved to the Midwest when her father had taken a job in David’s hometown. Pam was the quintessential California girl, a knockout with blond hair and blue eyes. She made sure to go surfing at least once a week, if not more often.

Tracy had won the head cheerleader spot in her junior year at Lincoln High. She was a year older than both Cassidy and Pam.

Tracy and Pam each had a history with Cassidy’s friend David. Tracy had been his first official girlfriend in high school. From what Cassidy heard, it hadn’t ended well. It had taken David and Tracy a while to start talking again. Now she was probably his best female friend.

Pam and David were linked through their son, Coby. David had offered to marry her—multiple times—but she felt she was too young to do that. Thankfully, David’s parents had stepped up and volunteered to be Coby’s guardians until David was done with college. They’d welcomed Pam with open arms, helped her (and David, of course) to raise Coby, and included her (and David) when decisions had to be made.

Cassidy had accompanied Pam to David’s house in Malibu numerous times. He’d asked her to work with all the little ones, as he called them. Coby was the youngest and also the biggest of David’s children. He didn’t tolerate bullies, so when someone at daycare got hit, pushed over, or bitten, he could be expected to retaliate.

They were still too young to really teach how to defend themselves, but she could teach them some ways to avoid conflict. She’d worked with them to try to avoid confrontations altogether. They now knew to run away from biters. They were also taught to tell an adult. Currently, she was working on stop means stop.

Another reason for Cassidy’s visits was that David’s dad was teaching her to cook. For her, it was a win-win because on every visit, she got a home-cooked meal for free.

“Honey, I’m home!” David called out.

Cassidy came downstairs to find him sitting at the island in the kitchen, loving up her cat, Precious. That lasted until ‘the cat from hell,’ as David had dubbed her, clawed him. He dumped her on the floor and shook his head.

“I knew better,” he admitted.

“If she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t have let you in the house,” Cassidy said.

She also noticed that David wasn’t bleeding. Precious tended to draw blood if she had it in for someone.

Cassidy found David looking at her with an open mouth. He cleared his throat.

“You’re wearing a dress.”

She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Tracy and Pam had convinced her to do a makeover to lose her tomboy look.

“It’s a wonder you passed all those AP classes in high school,” Cassidy shot back. “You, on the other hand, look terrible. What happened to you?”

Pam and Tracy joined them in the kitchen.

“Before you change the subject, tell me about you wearing a dress,” David said.

“What’s wrong with me wearing a dress?” Cassidy asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress other than for a school dance,” David said. When he caught the look the three girls gave him, he quickly added, “It looks good.”

’Nice save,’ Cassidy thought.

“You know, you can borrow it if you like. With your legs, you would look better in it than what you have on,” Cassidy rejoined, causing her roommates to giggle at David’s expense.