Page 128 of We Drank the Dawn

That made Peter chuckle, but the smile on his face wasn’t one of real laughter. It was sad, like he understood in a small way. “We could run.”

I threw a glance at him and my exhale lifted like a cloud.

“We wouldn’t fall off the edge of the earth, and we probably wouldn’t even escape Comfort. But we could run.”

Unsure what he meant, I stayed silent.

He continued, “It might make you feel a little calmer. And me, too. I’ve felt anxious.”

“Wait.” My hand fell away from my lips. “You want to actually go for a run?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“It’s pitch black out there.” As soon as I’d said it, I realized how dumb it was.

Peter’s face split with genuine laughter. “If I’m not allowed to be afraid of the dark, neither are you.”

For a second, I took him in—the resolved expression on his face. He wasn’t joking. He was genuinely offering to run off the stress with me. Something twisted deep in my chest because there weren’t many men in my life that I trusted.

Only Tag. And even trusting him was new, practiced.

But at that moment I realized Peter was reaching out of his darkness, straight into mine. And I’d never be able to put to words how much that meant to me. Blinking a few times, I asked, “You serious?”

“Yeah, I am.”

I tapped my light against the side of the bunkhouse. “Alright. Lemme get my shoes.”

Stepping into the bunkhouse, I shoved a flashlight in my pocket, grabbed my shoes off the rack, and laced them up on the front porch. “You ever ran in the dark before?”

“Nope.”

“You think you can?”

“Should be able to.” He shrugged. “I ran in the arena, didn’t I?”

I gave a nod, remembering that. “We’ll go down the driveway?”

“That’ll work.”

He started stretching his legs, and I did the same, grunting against the tension that kept them tight as guitar strings. I followed his lead, genuinely not sure what types of stretches I should be doing. But he seemed to know, flowing from one arm to the next then doing his legs, once muscle group at a time. “Are you a runner?” I asked.

He gave a shrug. “I’ve done some running. Mainly because of Sarah.” He shook his head with an affectionate huff. “She had a half-marathon on her bucket list.”

“That’s cool.”

He nodded. “Yeah, we had fun.”

Peter wanted to leave his cane, and I promised to let him know if I saw any obstacles.

We launched, silently running down Meadowbrook’s long driveway like it wasn’t almost two o’clock in the morning. Like the entire world wasn’t sleeping. Gravel crunched and horses in the pasture raised their heads as we shuffled by.

I finally asked, “Have you got ahold of her yet?”

“No. She has my phone number blocked. But I keep leaving her messages.”

“She can still get those if she blocked you?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m just leaving them for me.”