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“Oh, so wearerunning together.”
“What? No. I was talking to myself,” I said quietly. “Go away.”
“I kind of need to go this way to get to the front door.”
I gave him a side eye and put four feet of distance between our bodies. There. Now we were just two random people walking in the same general direction.
It was still mostly dark when we stepped outside, but the air was warmer than I’d been expecting. And it smelled significantly better than Toronto ever did.
I lingered on the stone steps, listening to the soft chirps of small birds and crickets as I waited for Adrien to start moving.
“What are you doing now?” he asked, coming up behind me.
“Waiting for you to start running so I can go in the opposite direction,” I told him, stepping away. No one was watching us. He didn’t need to be inside my bubble, coating all my fresh air in soap and toothpaste and spicy cedar or whatever. I didn’t understand how he managed to smell so good all the time.
I probably should have brushed my teeth first or, at the very least, used the washroom.
The tented sweatpants thing had really thrown me off.
Not that I was still thinking about it.
My skin was buzzing again, my muscles jittery. Adrien didn’t move right away, so I jogged down the steps, flipped a mental coin, and turned left.
Two breaths later, his steps were pounding the gravel behind me. I veered left again, he followed. I went to the right, same thing.
“Stop following me,” I demanded.
“I’m not following you. This was the direction I was going to run in.”
Fuck’s sake.
I stopped, turned around, and started to jog the other way. Guess what he did.
“On second thought,” he said as he casually fell into step beside me, “we did tell my parents that we run together every morning so it might come across as somewhat suspicious if we split up.”
“Wedidn’t tell them anything of the sort. It was all you.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“Uh, no. You were trying to help yourself,” I argued. My feet were starting to move quicker. I had no idea where all this energy was coming from, but I was just so…agitated. The feeling had been gnawing at my insides since dinner. “How embarrassing it must be for you to bring someone home that isn’t highly educated and accomplished and… I mean, I get it. You and I don’t exactly make sense, and you wanted to save face.”
“What? That’s not what I was doing.”
“Bullshit.” I picked up my pace.
“Slow down.”
“Fuck off.”
A low, frustrated growl rumbled out of his throat. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you be civil for two fucking seconds?”
I took a sharp right turn. He didn’t falter.
“With you? No.”
“Why? What the fuck did I do to you?”
That one made me stop right in my tracks. “Is that a serious question?”
