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“We can take it slow,” he offered.
“No. I need to move,” I argued. I hadn’t had a good workout since the shooting and I craved those feel-good endorphins. I wanted my body to work hard. I wanted the challenge. Most of all, I wanted Asher to stop looking at me like I was fragile and delicate. I needed to erase that look of pity he carried around with him.
“Show me what you’ve got,” I taunted as I rose from the deck.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.” He jogged down the three flights of stairs that ended in the driveway.
“I can handle it.” I waggled my eyebrows. My confidence was high. I was excited to be out of the house.
Asher chuckled. “We’ll see.”
He pivoted on his heels and darted into the woods, ducking under a low limb. I took in a big gulp of air and followed him onto the trail.
The beginning of the trail was mostly flat. We kept a steady pace, and I was certain Asher had been teasing me for the fun of it. I had to watch where my feet landed, but fifteen minutes in to our run and I relieved it wasn’t as hard as he had made it sound. But then we turned and started running uphill. My week of inactivity and recovery bit me in the ass. Hard. I needed to stop, but didn’t want to admit it.
I pushed myself to keep Asher’s pace. I forced myself to follow him, even though the distance between was growing. He leapt over a fallen log and it was the last straw. I couldn’t go any farther. My side ached with a nasty cramp. My breath was no longer even. I steadied myself against a tree. Asher was out of sight. I wondered how long it would take him to notice I wasn’t on his heels any longer.
I leaned into the tree, sucking in big swallows of air.
I looked up when I heard his footsteps ahead on the trail.
“Shit, Journey. Are you ok?”
I nodded. “Just a cramp. No big deal.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and jogged toward me. “I knew it was too much.”
“No. It’s not too much. I just need a break.”
“I pushed you. I shouldn’t have.”
“Not everything is your fault, Ashe.” I stared in his eyes. It was one of the things I had vowed not to do, but he was standing next to me. Even with an entire forest surrounding us, there was nowhere to move. No escape. I looked into the rivers of emotion and saw how much hurt my words caused.
“Yeah, everything kind of is.” He stood facing me.
My heart was about to beat out of my chest, but it wasn’t from the hike. It was from. From how the energy changed when he looked at me that way. From how I reacted to the nearness of his lips.
“Do you think when the cramp lets up you’ll be able to make it back to the house, or do I need to carry you?”
My eyes widened. “You are not carrying me.”
“You want to test that option?”
I tried to back up, but I was pressed against the tree. He could fling me over his shoulder in an instant if he wanted.
“I can walk out. Give me a few minutes.” I crouched to the forest floor. “It doesn’t mean you can’t keep running. You should go. I can find my way back to the house. It’s one trail.” Maybe my pulse would return to normal if he would leave.
“You know I can’t do that. It’s not safe to leave you alone.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard in the middle of the woods. There is no one out here. No one at the cabin. There are no people. No one, Asher. We’re completely alone.”
I saw the flicker in his eyes. We had been avoiding each other inside the house. Entering and exiting rooms as if the other had a contagious disease. We barely spoke to each other all day. We could pretend we had things to do. Pretend we weren’t irreversibly drawn to each other. Pretend that the solitude of the cabin was haunting each of us when we climbed in bed in night.
Now, it was the emptiness of the forest. The knowledge that for a solid week Asher and I had been alone. Dancing this dance all by ourselves.
Nine
Asher
