Page 63 of Prime Time Romance

I’m hot.

I’m dehydrated.

I’m exhausted, and my stomach is grumbling because our morning crime schedule didn’t include time for breakfast.

My god, I’d give my left arm for an Egg McMuffin right now.

My footsteps start to stagger.

There’s even a point where I swear I do smell eggs and bacon.

But the road ahead seems to grow even longer with every step.

The heat makes the horizon a blur.

When a man comes into my line of vision, I’m sure he’s a mirage.

His body glistens in the morning sun as his arms and legs pump rhythmically with my beating heart.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

He’s shirtless.

He’s running.

My body floods with a feeling of euphoria.

Spencer.

Our date last night may have fallen a little flat, but maybe I was getting too ahead of myself. Expecting too much.

Maybe this, here, is the storyline we were meant for. I’ll collapse into his arms from sheer exhaustion. He’ll tell me that Poppy came to his beach house, frantic because she lost me, and that he, sick with worry, didn’t even have time to put on a shirt before he tore out the front door to come to my rescue.

The sun behind him is casting a hazy glow that forms an angelic halo next to his sun-kissed skin.

He looks like a god.

A bronzed god.

Except Spencer would never be described as bronzed.

He’s an SPF 50 kind of guy.

A soft cream color on a summer day.

The runner gets closer, and I realize that it’s not Spencer coming to rescue me.

It’s not Spencer at all.

“Josh?”

He removes an earbud from his ear as he slows his run to a walk.

“Brynn. What are you doing way out here?”

I don’t want to answer that question.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”