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going to tell her how it was. This was crap—his kids hanging out with her and lying to him. He wasn’t going to have it, but the words weren’t coming.
    Kym touched his arm and that huge breath he’d sucked in stuck in his lungs.
    “Look,” she said just as Jacob jumped in the air lifting his right leg and then switched his left leg out and kicked the pad the teenager was holding. “He’s a natural.”
    Yes he was.
    But that had done it. He looked down at her. “They don’t have my permission to be here.”
    She nodded as though she knew that. That infuriated him even more.
    “Mr. Larson, why don’t we step into my office and discuss this.” She smiled.
    “I don’t think I need to.”
    But she touched him again. “Yes. Yes you do.” She began to walk away from him and, as if he were under some spell, he followed.
    John Larson walked through the door of her small office where she talked to parents and signed students up for classes. He was a big man. Though he hadn’t had to duck to get through the door his head nearly grazed it.
    “Please have a seat,” she offered as she sat behind her desk.
    He looked around for a moment and then back out the small window where he could see his daughter try the same move her brother had tried before, but she fell.
    On instinct he moved to the door, but when she jumped back up and got in line to do it all over again, he stopped.
    “Listen, Ms. O’Bryne, I didn’t agree to them being part of all of this.”
    “I know. They said I shouldn’t discuss this with you.”
    “They what?” He moved to the desk and rested his large hands on it. “You knew my kids were lying to me?”
    She stood and met him eye to eye as he leaned over her desk. “I knew that you were too busy working to wonder where they spent their time after school. They chose to spend it here.”
    “They told me they were playing soccer.”
    “They’ve been learning martial arts, sir. And they are doing a dang good job of it too.”
    He stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not paying for this. I didn’t agree to any contracts or anything.”
    “I never asked you to pay.”
    He moved his hands to his waist. “You expect me to believe you’d just give them lessons?”
    Kym stood straight. “Yes.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “Sir, I don’t lie.”
    “And what is with all the sirs?” He sat in the chair in front of her desk as if he no longer had the energy to stand any longer. “All week it has been yes sir, no sir.”
    She smiled. “Then they are learning discipline.”
    “By saying that—that’s discipline?”
    “It’s one step.”
    She sat down behind her desk again and rested her hands, her fingers laced, atop it.
    “Jacob is a fine young man. He needs some structure.”
    “And your kind of structure costs lots of money.”
    “Again, I didn’t ask you to pay for classes.”
    He ran his hand over his chin and she could hear the whiskers rub against his palm. “And why is that? I’m a business man. You can’t expect to make a living giving away your service.”
    “Jacob and Abby both have been helping out to earn their classes.”
    “Abby is six. What could she possibly do around here?”
    Kym worked very hard to keep the smile from forming. “She has cleaned bathrooms, dumped trash, swept the floor, straightened chairs—shall I go on?”
    “And that’s good enough for them to take a class?”
    “It seems to be amicable.”
    John ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Jacob has done his homework every night this week.”
    Now she smiled. “And when he’s turned in his perfect assignments to me to look at he’s received a stripe on his belt.”
    He sat silent for a moment. The anger in his eyes had diffused.
    “Listen, I don’t want to owe you anything. And them doing odd chores for you…”
    “Those odd chores were our agreement.”
    He nodded. “You’re sure about this? You’re not going to change your mind next week and tell me I