She bared her teeth and shook her head no.
“We don’t just work out in practice. I work out two hours a day on top of practice. Keeps me in shape. You know, gotta keep that eight pack alive somehow.”
“Will I ever live that down?” She sat on the floor and sighed.
“Lamb…” I teased. “Never.”
“Fine… Let’s run.”
“Cool—”
“On one condition.”
“Boo.” I gave her a thumbs down.
“Hey!” She stood abruptly. “You haven’t even heard my condition!”
“Okay, fine. You have five seconds.”
“Patient, aren’t you?”
“One…”
“Fine!” Kiersten grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and thrust it in my face.
I was just about to say two when the paper landed on my lap. With a sigh I picked it up and started to read.
Ways to live, I read.
My heart clenched in my chest. Did she know about me?
1. Kiss a hot guy. 2. Go skinny dipping. 3. Finish one fruity drink with the little umbrella. 4. Read Pride and Prejudice all the way through. 5. Learn how to swim. I paused. “You don’t know how to swim?”
Kiersten’s eyes flickered to the ground so I kept reading.
6. Make two real friends. 7. Get off my antidepressants. So I’d been right about one thing. She was depressed, but why? What girl, as perfect as Kiersten, would be depressed?
8. Go bungee jumping. 9. Eat cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and try to eat a beet. 10. Fall in love. 11. Get heart broken. 12. Fall in love anyway. I could help her! Oh, not with all of them. I mean, she couldn’t fall in love with me. I wouldn’t let her. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us, and she was eighteen. I sighed and folded the paper back in half.
“So?” She twisted that glorious red hair around her fingers. “What do you think?”
“Let’s do it.”
Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. Before I knew what was happening, she’d charged toward me and wrapped her arms around my neck. Um, if that was the response I was going to get for helping her with a silly list, I was going to freaking buy her her own island before I… The thought died in my head. Ironic.
“You mean it? It’s not weird? I’m not weird?”
I kissed her cheek. “Not weird, and I did tell you I wanted to help you with all things crazy, right?”
She nodded. A piece of lush red hair fell across her face meeting her flushed cheek like a caress.
“Good.” I kissed her cheek again. Mainly because I could. “I say we can get most of this done before Thanksgiving.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.” I helped her stand. “You know… minus the whole falling in love part.”
Kiersten laughed. Damn, I loved that sound. “Right, well, I figured go big or go home.”
“My kinda girl.” With a wink, I put the paper back on her desk. “Now put on a shirt so guys don’t lust after you. We, my dear, are going for a run.”
Chapter Sixteen
At least running next to him meant I wasn’t running from him, that was progress… right?
Kiersten
When Wes said we should go running, I mistakenly thought he meant jog. You know, as in go kinda slow, not like a bat out of hell.
The guy wasn’t even talking.
But he was sweating.
So I guess it was a good trade off, especially considering he’d opted to run without a shirt. I, however, had to look much less than sexy as I gasped for breath next to him.
“We’re crossing something off your list right now, you know,” he said in a perfectly normal voice.
My side sliced with pain as I wheezed out, “Oh yeah, what?”
“You want off your anti-depressants.”
“So you’re…” I coughed. “Trying…” Holy crap I was going to pass out. “…to kill me?”
“Negative.” He chuckled. Seriously. How. Was. He. Breathing? “Studies show that hard exercise, the kind that evokes physical pain, actually releases happy chemicals in your brain which heal emotional as well as physical pain. Kind of like a drug. Running is the quickest and most efficient way to get those happy chemicals in your body. You start running, and I guarantee that you’ll feel better, possibly good enough to go off your drugs.” He stopped running. Thank God.