Wow, way to totally put me in a tight spot, dude. Now I’ll look like a complete asshole if I don’t come back. But if someone found out about it, they’d ask all kinds of questions—questions about me. Then I think about how DeShawn shook my hand, so polite and grateful; how Ricky seemed mesmerized by the insides of the car just like I am; how kid-in-black seems to love Harry Potter…. He kind of reminded me of Daniel, relating real shit to books.
“No, I—I’m not changing my mind. Next Saturday?”
Relaxed Rafe is back.
“Yes, absolutely,” he says, smiling at me. “If it’s going to be a regular thing, I’ll look at our schedule and see if we want to keep it at this time or if another time is better. Do you have a preference?”
“Well, ordinarily I work Saturday mornings until two. If it was in the afternoon, I guess I could still go to work and—” I break off. It was nice this morning to wake up and know that I had something to do but have it not be going to work. “You know what, actually, the morning is great.”
“Hey,” Rafe says suddenly, “did you say you run?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. We should go running some time.”
“Sure, man, that sounds good.”
Rafe nods. “Thanks, Colin. For today.” His voice is warm and when we shake, his hand swallows mine up, embraces it. He holds on a second longer than most guys would, and looks right in my eyes. “I’ll see you soon,” he says. And it sounds like a promise.
Chapter 4
ON A good day, running is when I feel most… normal. The tension slowly drains out of me and after a few miles I’m relaxed, floating, like the buzz off a few beers. I’m weightless, suspended between each step as if I might never land, muscles, joints, blood, breath all working together like the parts of a perfectly functioning vehicle.
“How far do you like to go?” Rafe asks.
“I don’t really keep track. You?”
“About five miles, usually. But I’ll follow your lead, okay?”
I set a steady pace to get warmed up and Rafe follows me, speeding up when I do. After about ten blocks, we settle in, him on my left. His strides are longer than mine since he’s so freaking tall, but I’m faster. He’s steady, each footfall in perfect rhythm, almost like he’s running in place, whereas I know I speed up and slow down a little as the rhythm of my music changes. Since I never ran track, I never bothered with things like keeping a consistent pace or paying attention to how far or how fast I ran. Mostly I just run until I’m tired. Or, depending on the day, until I’m so exhausted that I can’t run anymore.
Today I’m taking it easy, though, because when Rafe texted to invite me to go running, I’d already gone.
It’s kind of nice to have him by my side. Every now and then, I’ll drop the slightest bit back and get a glimpse of lean calves and thickly muscled thighs, of his broad back, sweat turning his white T-shirt translucent along his spine and in the small of his back.
When my thighs start to burn and my knees begin to complain about two runs in one day with a bunch of kneeling on cement in between, I slow to a jog, looking to Rafe, who gives me a thumbs-up.
I jog us back to my house, and Rafe sinks onto the porch steps, breathing heavily.
“You’re fast,” he says, quirking that broken eyebrow at me. His thick hair is bunched into a kind of knot or something, like a ponytail that he folded in half. It should look girly—like a bun or something—but it’s just the opposite. He looks like a warrior, hair tied back for battle. When he reclines on the porch, his arms and neck shiny with sweat, his legs splayed, and closes his eyes, it takes every ounce of concentration I have left not to mold myself to him and taste the salt in the dip of his neck.
He opens his eyes suddenly and I tear mine away so he won’t see me staring, but when I look back, his gaze is steady and he’s smiling a little.
“What are you up to now?” he asks.
“Nothing. Gotta feed the cat.”
“Can I say hi?”
“To the cat?”
“Mmhmm,” he drawls.
“Sure.” The second I unlock the door, Shelby’s right there, attacking Rafe’s shoelaces and making little yipping sounds as the loops flop back and forth. When Rafe squats down to pet her, I can’t look away from the straight groove of his spine and the way his shorts ride up high on his powerful thighs, dark hair dusting golden skin and tight muscle.
“You want to watch a movie or something?” he asks as he entices Shelby to jump for his wiggling fingers.
I clear my throat. “Um, sure. Let me just shower. You can too, if you want,” I say, trying to remember to be polite, which I’m not used to. Sam and Brian just make themselves at home, and Xavier and I have known each other too long to bother with that shit.