Lochlan Molloy, eating ice cream at two in the morning. Talking about his mother like she meant everything to him. Watching me with something that isn't calculation or expectation or agenda.
I don't know what to do with any of that. I have never let myself get to that point with any man before.
“Can I ask you something?” he says.
“You're going to anyway, right? No matter what I say?”
“Uh-oh, does that mean you’re getting to know me?” He lets out a breathless laugh. “Why the hell do you run like a damn gazelle? Or rather, what are you running from?”
I think about lying. Giving him some surface answer about cardio and stress relief. But it's almost five in the morning and we're alone in the dark, and for some reason, the truth comes out instead.
“I guess I’m running from expectations, obligations, responsibilities… all the things that crowd my life when I’m Adriana Colonna, CEO. I don't have to be anyone out here.” I pause. “It’s just me. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Or myself. It’s a no-judgment zone.”
“I get that.”
“Do you?” I glance at him over my shoulder.
“Yeah.” His breathing is more even now. Still heavier than mine, but steady. “For me, it's the car. The Mustang I'm restoring. When I'm under the hood, covered in grease, it's just me and the engine. Nothing else exists.”
That explains the grease-stained manual on the coffee table I'd noticed earlier. And the pile of books about car restoration in the master bedroom.
“How long have you been working on it?”
“Three years. It's a '69 Mach 1. The previous owner treated it like garbage. I'm bringing it back to life, slowly but surely.”
And just like that, I peeled back another layer.
“That sounds... peaceful, actually.”
“It is.” He's breathing easier now, finding his rhythm as we head back to the building while slivers of orange and pink paint the sky. “There's something about taking something broken and making it whole again. Figuring out what it needs. Being patient with it as you nurture it back into being.”
I glance at his profile. There's something in his voice that tells me he's not just talking about cars.
“Is it close to done?”
“Another couple of months, maybe. Depends on which parts are available. Some of them are hard to find. I've got a guy in Miami who tracks down originals, but it takes time. I have an associate in Miami, Nik Malakov, who found me the original steering wheel. Took him six months.” He pauses. “You should see it sometime. When it's finished.”
It's not quite an invitation… or is it? I should probably just take it as something he’d say in passing, but it makes my stomach flip anyway.
“Maybe,” I say.
“You ever work on cars?”
I almost laugh. “No. My father thought it wasn't appropriate for a DiMicheli woman to get her hands dirty. At least not literally.”
“But figuratively?”
"Figuratively, I've been covered in dirt since I was old enough to understand what the family business actually was.” I shake my head at the irony. “Twenty-two years spent building something clean. Something legitimate. And now I'm running the very thing I tried to escape. But you don't get to choose your family.”
“No. You don't.”
We keep running, an understanding between us. We're both products of fathers who saw us as pieces on a board. Who still see us and use us that way. And we’re both trying to figure out who we are outside of that, wondering if we can ever really exist fully outside of it.
Dammit, I don't want to have things in common with him. It's easier if he's just the enemy, the obligation.
But he's not making it easy.
We run the last few blocks in silence. The city is starting to wake up around us. Delivery trucks rumble, a couple of joggers pass us by.
