Dammit, he started running alongside me.
I didn’t even look at him. “What are you doing?”
“Running.” There was a smile in his voice as he said, “Do you always run this fast?”
Keeping with the whole compulsive-liar thing, I said, “Yep. It’s okay if you can’t keep up.”
“Oh, I can keep up.” I did glance at him then, and he was grinning when he said, “Last one to Starbucks buys?”
I didn’t have any money on me, but I wanted a coffee more than I wanted to breathe. I could see Starbucks, so I decided to go for it and said, “You’re on.”
I took off, running as fast as my legs would carry me. Thank God there were no people around at that early hour, because I was hard-charging down the sidewalk. I could hear the guy’s footsteps beside me, so I knew he was keeping up, but I couldn’t afford to look over at him or I’d fall down again.
I flew down the block, and when we finally got to Starbucks, I slammed my hands into the door like I was safe on base in a neighborhood game of hide-and-seek. “First!”
I touched the door only a millisecond before the dude, but winning tasted good. He smiled like he didn’t mind losing and said, “A deal’s a deal. Guess I’m buying you a coffee.”
I smiled back at him, panting and feeling like my lungs might explode. “I guess you are.”
We went inside together and ordered, both of us breathing heavy, and he went to the restroom while I waited for our drinks. I slyly watched him walk away, and the view was pretty good. Nice stride—confident steps, prominent calf muscles, rounded derriere; so far, so good.
Side note: This was the weirdest way to meet a guy. I mean, we hadn’t even exchanged names yet officially—even though I heard him tell the barista that his name was Paul—but we were together at a coffee shop. I pulled out my phone and texted Mr. Wrong Number, who must’ve crashed hard the night before because he’d gone radio silent on me after dinner.
Me: Get this. I went for a jog, tripped over a dude tying his shoe and I ate it, complete with bloody knees. But now hot runner dude and I are getting coffee together, which begs the question. Soul mate or serial killer?
“Here.” He came back with a wet, soapy paper towel in his hand that he extended to me and said, “Clean up your knees before they get infected.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really with that, Mom?”
He smiled again and got bonus points for good teeth, grabbed both of our drinks, and gestured with his head for me to follow him to the outdoor seating area. “Really.”
He had my coffee so of course I followed him, exiting the cool air-conditioning and grabbing a table out in the hot, humid summer morning. I wasn’t sure I cared for his bossiness, but I was definitely going to drink his coffee while I pondered that decision.
He picked a spot, and as soon as I plopped down in a chair, I kicked my right leg up onto the empty seat beside me and started wiping my knee.
“I’m Paul, by the way.” He gave me a nice smile, and I noticed that a fairly thick gold chain rested somewhere under his T-shirt.
“I heard.” I returned the grin and pointed to myself. “Olivia.”
“I heard,” he said, his smile growing a little bigger.
I cleared my throat and said, “By the way, did I apologize for almost trampling you?”
He gave his head a slow shake. “You did not.”
“Well, I’m sorry. Although the coffee is delish, so perhaps it all worked out just right.”
He smiled at that, a nice big grin, and said, “You might just be spot-on about that.”
* * *
? ? ?
I WAS NO less taken with Colin and Jack’s showerhead that day than I’d been the very first night I arrived. It was glorious, like hot summer rain, and it made me never want to get out. So much so, in fact, that I tended to take luxuriously long showers and completely lose track of time.
That morning was no exception.
I’d run home—nearly collapsing from oxygen deprivation, of course—and the apartment was quiet when I went in. Either the boys were both still asleep or they’d both already left the house, but neither mattered because that delightful shower was available.
As I washed my hair and carefully shaved around the enormous wounds on my knees, I felt pretty good about the whole run-in with Paul. I mean, the dude turned out to be a total nonstarter. I was meeting him for brunch tomorrow, but only because I’d agreed to it before learning that, one, he’d never heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and two, he and his buddies loved the wings at Hooters.