As with Thursday, Lucas isn't in the training room when I arrive, so I begin undressing. Just as I remove my underwear, Lucas enters the room with a box in his hands. He takes one look at me and snorts.

"I'd thought you changed in the changing room on Thursday," he tells me as he locks the doors to the room. "And only dressed after in here since the door was locked then. Guess you prepared in here, too. What would you have done if someone else wandered in while you were butt-naked?"

"Let them know," I say. "That I was going to be practicing my powers in here, and that my clothes wouldn't stay on when I used them. My assumption is that most people using this place are understanding of such things, especially if they've had similar experience with their own abilities."

"Yeah," he confirms. "Once you warm up, we'll get started with the skill training. You can put on your shorts for the warmup if you want, or leave 'em off since you'll be taking them off when you finish."

"Just a quick stretch," I start stretching. "My body's all achy from the workouts and my work today."

"What did you do?" He sets the box down, and I see that it's full of bright yellow tennis balls.

"I spent five hours on my knees, picking up trash, sorting it into bags, then scrubbing spills out of carpeting," I answer. "With some chair-stacking and some vacuuming involved as well. I had to get the water changed thrice. It was disgusting."

And the hot guy at reception helped me each time. Fortunately, my low libido kept things in check and I didn't have too much discomfort. My discomfort with Lucas is a bit different, since he's actually seeing me naked and is someone I find hot. Even my low libido has its limits, and while it hasn't done anything yet, there's always that chance it will.

They even offered to pay me an extra thirty-five to stay another hour and finish everything up. Since I was already there and it wouldn't have interfered with me getting here, I agreed because extra money is extra money.

"Jeez," Lucas says. "Were you at a daycare?"

"A conference hall, cleaning it up after a bunch of kids spent the night there for a lock-in."

"That can be even worse."

"It was worse."

"You've done daycares before?"

"Yup."

"Alright," he chuckles. "Finish up your stretches, then we'll begin."

I finish up my stretches, then grab my shorts and bring them to the barrier before climbing over it. Since I'm going to be shadow-walking first, it'd be pointless to put them on.

"How does this work?" I ask. "If it's skill training rather than just training? And why are there tennis balls?"

"First question," he picks up the box. "Is me to you. How comfortable do you feel with training naked today?"

"Isn't my training always going to be naked until I can pull clothes with me?"

"No," he clears his throat. "I mean remaining naked the entire time. From start to finish. Having it flopping about as you run around for two hours."

"Am I training my ability or my body?"

"Both," he sets the box on the barrier. "The training today will involve you shadow-walking at various distances. Your goal will be to catch the tennis balls before they hit the ground. I was thinking we could have you do this the entire time. After the initial batch of jumps, you'd then do one anytime you had the magic to reach the ball. Basically, you'd keep yourself empty."

"So part of it's just training my agility and reflexes, part of it's my power," I say. "And if I did the random jumps trying to grab the balls every few minutes, I'd end up naked each time, so I could either wear the shorts and put them back on after each jump, or just leave them off the entire time and let you ogle me since it'd probably be hard to ignore."

Even if I'm a scrawny guy, it probably would be difficult to avoid ogling at least once with me running about naked. As long as I comment on it first, he probably won't feel guilty over it and know that I'd understand and won't get upset if I catch him at some point.

I'd probably be too focused on catching the tennis balls to notice, anyway.

"Uh, yeah," his cheeks flush. "That's part of why I was asking how comfortable you were with that."

"Well," I say. "There's a first time for everything. So how do we do this? You throw the ball, then I try to catch it?"

"Even better."

He pulls a ball out of the box, then throws it down. There's a pop as it connects with the ground, and as it moves back up, the ball disappears in a flash of light, continuing on its path a few feet to his right as if it had been bounced there instead. He holds out his hand, and the ball flashes above it, continuing its arc up before dropping down into his palm.

"I can use light to move things about without going with them, too," he holds up the ball. "That's an advanced technique, and you'll probably have to spend many months, possibly a year or more, to reach that point."

"That's pretty awesome," I say.

"So what I'm going to do," he tells me. "Is bounce the ball, and as soon as it starts to go back up, I'll send it somewhere. Your goal will be to catch it before it hits the ground. If it's within ten feet of you, shadow-walk to it. Otherwise, try to close the gap yourself."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Only ten feet?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "If you try beyond that, you'll probably drastically decrease how many you can manage. Try to close the gap as much as you can, but don't do a step any shorter than five feet. Remember to remain aware of your surroundings, hurry but be careful, and that chances are high you'll crash into things or fall. Don't stress over not catching the balls, but do your best to even while you're between the jump attempts. You should manage to do somewhere between thirteen to twenty jumps total during this session as long as you stick within that range. Act as if catching the balls when you aren't doing a jump is just as important as when you are."

"But don't stress?" I ask.

"Yep," he says. "Treat both types of catches the same. Your skill training is a mixed training. Agility and ability. More agility than just navigation, I mean. This will help you with the split-second decisions needed to properly run through here."

"Okay," I say. "Let's get started."

"Head to the center," he tells me. "I'll start once you're there."

I nod, then make my way to the center while resisting the urge to look behind me and see if he's checking me out as I walk just because it's there. Barely after I reach the center does the first ball appear in my vision, telling me that he was at least watching me.

The ball is about nine feet away, bouncing into a shadow. Drawing on my power, I step through the shadows and try to catch the ball, only to miss. Attempting to grab it as it continues to drop, I fail, and it hits the ground, then vanishes in a flash of light.

There's a popping sound nearby, and I look over to see a ball bouncing up about fifteen feet away. Hurrying, I start to make my way so that it's within the ten-foot range, only to catch my leg on a block, causing me to fall and slam my head against another block.

That hurts, but only mildly. Thank goodness these things are padded, and thank goodness the floor is, too. Rising, I wait for the next ball to appear, and this time try not to fall as I close the gap of about seventeen feet. I only manage to shadow-walk to it right before it hits the ground, the ball vanishing in a flash of light.

Lucas and I continue at this, and though I find it difficult, I also find myself improving. Within an hour, I'm no longer tripping over the blocks in my haste, though I'm still failing to reach the balls in time. It takes me an hour just to manage to touch one, and I'm starting to suspect that Lucas is intentionally putting the balls just-beyond my range.

Or at least, most of them. A few are within my range, and I'm able to reach them quickly, but catching them is different. Half the time, I miss them entirely, and the other half, I slam into one of the padded blocks in my attempt to grab them.

With the time it takes me to be able to shadow-walk at least five feet again after using up my magic, I still try to catch the balls just as he instructed. I still fail to, as he seems to have a sense for when I'm able to shadow-walk again and is sending the balls between them far enough that I can't just move around or over a couple of blocks, but actually need to navigate a bit.

Another half hour passes before I realize two things.

One, Lucas seems to be able to send things to where he can't see. He mentioned on the first day something about being able to travel even to shadows I can't see. Does that mean he can do the same, and that there's some sort of sense that can help with that? Something to ask when I'm a bit more advanced.

Two, some of these balls are a bit too far for me to catch. There's no way I can manage to reach the ones twenty feet away or more without shadow-walking, and even then it's iffy depending on how many blocks I have to get through or over.

When the first ball too far for me after I realize he's doing that on purpose pops up, I remain exactly where I am, making no move to go for it. The next ball is close enough that I can make an effort, so I do, barely missing it and slamming into a block. This continues for a few minutes, with me not bothering to go after the ones that are blatantly out of my reach.

"Good!" Lucas eventually calls out. "You've figured out not to go after the ones you know you can't reach! Don't waste your energy on things you can't manage, Kieran! That translates to the shadow-walking, too!"

So that's what he was going for. He was hoping I'd figure out to do that on my own. Or rather, that I'd figure out not to do that.

As the training session starts to come to an end, I start saving up my magic even when there are balls within five to eight feet of me or that I can get to there. When a ball I'm confident I can get to about ten feet away pops up, I shadow-walk without stopping and charge forward as soon as I come out of the shadow.

Doing this cost me a little more magic than I expected, and there's a slight disorientation that causes me to stumble when I come out of the shadow. However, I do my best to catch myself and continue forward, jumping over a block, then dashing around one before weaving around another.

Reaching out, I try to grab the ball while it's low and end up smacking it with my fingers instead. At the same time, I lose my balance and start to fall. The ball bounces off a nearby block and flies back at me, smacking me in the forehead as I crash to the ground.

Laughter fills the air, then Lucas appears beside me, holding out my shorts, the ball in his other hand.

"That was a pretty nice attempt," he says. "You always stopped stood still for your jumps, so when I saw you saving up, I was thinking you were going to try doing a jump as you ran into a shadow instead. Didn't expect you to bolt as soon as you exited."

"I still failed," I complain.

"You did," he says. "I didn't expect you to catch a single ball tonight, Kieran. However, you still busted your ass off trying to. You got better. You learned. Come tomorrow, you might just be a little bit better at running across the arena. Come on, get up."

He holds out a hand, and I take it and let him pull me to my feet.

"I'm all sweaty and gross," I say. "I'll probably take a shower before heading home this time."

"Okay," he says as I reach for my shorts.

Before I can grab them, there's a sudden lurching of everything and I'm sent crashing into Lucas as he's sent tumbling backwards, tripping over the low block he was standing in front of. We land with me lying on him with my head on his chest, and his hands on my arms in his attempt at catching me.

For a moment, we're both quiet, and I know I'm a little uncomfortable at this. I mean, I just fell on a hot guy while butt-naked. Thank goodness I'm not… wait, what? Since when?

My cheeks burning with embarrassment, I hastily pull myself off of him and help him to his feet, then grab the shorts and slip them on. We both stand here awkwardly for a moment, then he gives a small cough.

"Since you put in some extra effort today," he says. "Want to head down to the diner with me for a post-training dinner? My treat, of course."

"You don't need to do that," I tell him.

"I know I don't," he says. "But I figured we could chat about how you feel about the training so far, maybe make some small talk. And maybe make it up to you for pushing you so hard today, too. I kind of went faster with the balls than I meant to, and you went the entire two hours of it without complaint about it, only your own failure at the end."

I want to decline him, because it means him spending money on me. But something tells me that declining this offer might hurt the chances of getting to hang out with him as a friend, and after having hung out with him a little on Tuesday night, I find myself realizing that I really need a friend. Until now, I didn't realize just how lonely I was without anyone to call even a friend.

"Alright," I tell him. "Let me take a shower first, though. I feel gross."

I almost told him that he shouldn't make a habit of this, but that same feeling tells me not to. Paying for something like a meal might be something he doesn't think much of, even if the other person can't reciprocate. He might take offense if I say something like that.

"Meet you at the desk?" I ask.

"Meet you at the desk," he says, then disappears in a flash of light.

Cheater.