Uppercut {a pedro pascal au}

six

Pedro

"Am I going up against you?" Maisy quizzes, inching closer, wringing her hands.

We got back from Miami yesterday, and since I had a free afternoon and Malakai went down for his nap, I proposed we have our first boxing lesson. We're now in my home gym, a room with a treadmill, equipment for recovery work, a speed bag on a reflex stand and a suspended punching bag.

I chuckle, shake my head at her. "Maybe next time. First, you need to learn the basics."

"Basics," she echos, nodding once. "Right."

She comes closer, taking in the room. As she passes by the punching bag over to me, she reaches out, running her fingertips along the black leather and gives it a gentle push. The bag swings outward before returning back to her.

I observe her, studying the gentle crease between her brows and the twitching half-smile on her cherry lips.

Clearing my throat, I ask, "Do you know how to punch?"

Maisy purses her lips, looking unsure of herself. "I think so."

"Show me, then."

The blow that she delivers to the bag is weak at best. I immediately notice a handful of things that she's doing wrong. When she pulls her arm back and peers up at me, I'm trying my hardest to hold back a smirk.

"What?" she frowns.

"Nothing." I suppress a smile. "It's just...that was cute."

"Cute?" she parrots, narrowing her eyes. She steps back and holds her arm out in invitation. "You do it, then."

"Gladly."

The chain hanging from the ceiling rattles when my fist makes contact with the leather. The punching bag swings forward in an arc before hurtling back in my direction. I stop it with my palms. There's a small smile playing on my lips as I turn to face her.

She crosses her arms over her chest, which enunciates her tits, pushing them up and together. And if I don't go half-hard. I get the idea that wearing a pair of basketball shorts might've been a bad decision.

"Fine," she grumbles. "Tell me what to do."

I have her stand in front of the punching bag, and I stand beside her, studying her posture. "First of all," I start, "you need to make sure that the position of your feet matches the position of your arms."

"What do you mean?" she asks, shooting me a confused pout.

I want to make a joke about her dad owning a boxing academy and how he has a daughter who doesn't know the basics but decide against it. "Like this—," I reach for her shoulders before pausing, my fingers only inches away from her skin. "Is it alright if I touch you?"

She nods wordlessly. I correct her form, slanting her torso to the side before reaching for her arms and bending them at the elbow so that her fingers—now curled into loose fists—are suspended in front of her face.

"If you're angling yourself this way," I say, mimicking her stance, "you need to make sure that your right foot is leading you. But if you stand in the opposite direction—," I change sides, adopting a mirror image of my previous position, "—then it has to be your left foot. Got it?"

"Got it," she says confidently. In her deep concentration that same crease is digging into the space between her eyebrows, and I itch to reach out and flatten it with the pad of my thumb.

"Also," I continue, wrapping my fingers around her delicate wrists, "when you punch, you can't drop your other hand. Keep it up at all times—you need to guard your face."