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It was only after beer number three for me, and beer number four for him, that I realized that we’d somehow domesticated our relationship.
We’d gone from being brand new to acting like an old married couple, in the span of two weeks.
“Lock,” I said. “I’m going to tell my parents about you.”
He frowned.
“Tell them about me how?” he asked. “They already know about me.”
I flushed.
“I meant that we’re together,” I corrected him. “That we’re seeing each other.”
Understanding dawned in his eyes.
“Well, since we’re on that subject.” He paused. “We have a family dinner tomorrow night. My entire family is going to be there. Parents. One of my sisters. Aunts and uncles. We get together once a month at my parents’ place, or my aunt’s place, and we play board games. Eat shit.”
“Two days of eating like shit.” I widened my eyes at Lock. “How will you survive?”
He grinned. “Tomorrow is my long run day. I’m just gonna call this carb-loading.”
I snickered.
“How long is your long run this week?” I asked curiously.
He looked like he didn’t want to tell me.
“What?” I asked.
“You called me crazy for doing eight last week,” he said. “That wasn’t even my long run. I didn’t have time to get a long run in since I had to work that day.”
I poked him in the chest with a piece of pizza.
He looked down at his bare chest that now had a smear of pizza sauce near his clavicle, and wiped it off before sucking the sauce into his mouth.
I felt all hot and bothered just by that one move.
“How many?” I asked.
“How many miles?” he teased.
I went to poke him again, but instead of it touching his skin, he bent down and took a massive bite.
“Hey!” I cried out. “That’s my piece!”
“If you don’t want me taking bites, you better keep it away from me,” he teased. “And I’m running twelve tomorrow.”
“Twelve kilometers?” I wondered. “What’s that in miles?”
“Seven and a halfish,” he answered, grinning wide now. “But I’m talking about twelve miles, not kilometers.”
My mouth fell open.
“You’re going to run twelve miles?” I gasped.
“Yep,” he confirmed. “Pace convinced me to do a half marathon with him benefitting fallen heroes next month. I’ve been training for it ever since.”
I shook my head.
“That’s cool,” I said. “And fun. And crazy.”
He snatched up the last piece of pizza before leaning back in the couch and groaning.
“I’m going to be so slow tomorrow,” he murmured, rubbing his abs.
Yes, abs.
The man still had abs even after putting away three pieces of pizza, a large order of fries, half a milkshake, and a half of a burrito.
“You disgust me,” I told him. “Tomorrow I’m going to gain five pounds and you’ll still have abs.”
He patted his belly.
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But you also have to think about the fact that I usually eat fairly healthy. And there are days that I don’t have abs. Tomorrow will probably be one of them.”
I scoffed.
“I highly doubt it,” I countered. “You’ll probably wake up tomorrow with a ten-pack.”
He took a bite of the pizza and shrugged. “If I have a lot of water retention, my belly’s not nearly as well-formed. Trust me, it happens. And with the amount of fucking salt we just ingested? It’s a very real possibility.” He tilted his head. “You know, you could run the 5K that they’re doing as well as the half marathon. A month is enough to prepare to run that.”
My eyes widened. “You want me to run a 5K? That’s a lot!”
It was…kind of.
“You said you ran,” he pushed.
***
Lock
She started gathering her trash, dropping all of it into the pizza box before taking it to the kitchen.
There she threw everything that she could away, then walked the pizza box to the back porch where I kept the recycling bin.
Once she was back, she had a concentrating look on her face.
“What?” I asked, finishing off the last bite of my pizza, then guzzling down the rest of my beer.
“I’ll run with you.” She paused. “But I’m not a very good runner. I can run…it’s just not any fun.”
My lips twitched.
“I don’t think running is fun for anybody,” I admitted.
She frowned. “Then why do you do it so much?”
I shrugged.
“I feel accomplished when I’m done,” I admitted. “Though, it’s fucking daunting as hell when Pace, who has no fuckin’ legs, can whoop my ass as bad as he does. He consistently finishes at least four to five minutes ahead of me when we run. It’s intimidating, to say the least.” I grinned. “You want to come up there with me tomorrow? I can run the last mile with you.”
“Mile?” she asked. “I thought you said you wanted me to run three?”
“I did,” I confirmed, walking my own trash to the trash can and throwing my beer cans into the trash.
She rolled her eyes, pulled the beer cans out of the trash, then walked them to the recycling bin on the back porch before once again locking the door.
