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Dominic
Naturally,I’d read the letter and practically had steam coming out of my ears. Instead of doing the wise thing and cooling off before responding, I fired off what I thought at the time was a real gem.
Mr. Lockwood,
Rest assured, one of us is and has remained a professional.
Sincerely,
Up Yours
It wasthe sort of email I kind of wished I could retract as soon as I sent it, but that wasn’t how emails worked. So I had braced myself for his fire-laden response, but it never came. Dominic just kept on going about his business like nothing was wrong, which almost made it worse. It felt like things had cooled and heated up at the same time, and I wasn’t sure how that made any sense.
I also knew I still needed to finish the interview with him, and I didn’t quite have enough yet–not enough to stake my job on, anyway.
I had a feeling he was going to really shut down on me if I made him agree to meet with me again after the way the ice cream interview ended. But that was okay, because I had the perfect plan to catch him off guard.
I smiled at the genius of my plan as I strapped on a brand new pair of sneakers. I was in a park outside the office. It was some ungodly early hour of the morning and I was disgusted to see that dozens of people appeared to be awake and happy about it. The sun wasn’t even awake yet, but my dumb ass was.Correction.My scheming, clever, ass was awake. Why, you ask? Because Dominic Lockwood went for a brisk jog around the park every morning at this hour. I knew as much because I’d bribed Marcus with chocolates and he blabbed.
So I was going to start running at this hour, too. Dominic would admire how similarly fit I was to him. Out of mutual respect, he’d start chatting with me while we ran together around the park every morning. Besides, he probably would be too tired to be guarded while he was exercising. All I’d need to do was keep up with him, and within a few runs, I’d have all the material I could ever want for my interview.
It was pure genius.
The only snag was that I hadn’t officially gone for a run in… well, since the last time a P.E. coach threatened to fail me if I didn’t. The other times I’d gone over roughly four miles per hour on foot involved spiders and one case of chasing after a guy I thought was a member of a boy band I liked at the time–don’t worry, I was way younger. That was at least two or three years ago.
I spotted Dominic starting his jog down the sidewalk by the lake. He was coming my way.
Oh, shit. Game time.
I did a quick approximation of a warm up while I waited. I figured he’d reach me in about a minute or two. I’d only had time to lift my hands over my head and do a little swirl of my hips when I realized the bastard was comingfast.He wasn’t jogging. He was running like his life depended on it with long legged strides that ate up the distance between us.
He came blazing down the sidewalk toward me and I tried to sprint after him. Dominic passed me, then did a double take over his shoulder and stopped. He pulled an earbud loose and narrowed his eyes at me. “Darcy? You jog?”
I bulged my eyes, brain in full panic mode. This wasn’t how I saw this going. For some reason I’d pictured casually falling into pace beside him and saying something smooth like, “come here often?” But at least he wasn’t asking me about the email. Maybe if I pretended it never happened, he would too.
Instead, I was standing there already sweating for no clear reason and my legs were starting to cramp in protest of the merethoughtof going for a run. “I’ve jogged before,” I said.
“What is this?” he gestured his hands, looking around as if expecting some prank crew to come running out. “Did you follow me here?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.“What? No. Get over yourself, Mr. Lockwood. This is a pretty park and I wanted to start getting a little exercise before work. Is that a crime?”
He stared just long enough to let me know he didn’t fully buy my explanation. “Were you trying to catch up to me just then?”
I waved him off, scrunching up my face and laughing. “Uh, no? I was just starting my run until you stopped and interrupted me.”
Some emotion glinted in his eyes that I couldn’t read. He tilted his head slightly and put his earbud back in. “Enjoy your run, then.”
I grimaced and started slogging along once he sped off. What a complete disaster. Now if I left, it’d look obvious that Iwasfollowing him. If I stayed, it meant I actually had to jog. Why didn’t I factor this in when I made my plans? I hated jogging. Actually, I hated all exercise.
I dragged myself around the path for nearly half an hour. I was sweating my ass off, clutching my sides from cramps, and developing knee problems by the end of it. I also had to watch Dominic go flying by me every few minutes as he lapped me. It was utterly embarrassing.
When I couldn’t go any more, I slumped into a bench and tried to catch my breath. My body was upset with me.Very upset.Everything hurt and I considered calling a cab instead of walking the few blocks back to my apartment.
Dominic came to a stop when he saw me sitting. “You’re already finished?” He was sweating, but not as much as me.
I threw my hands up. “I might need to research other forms of exercise.”
He sat down on the bench, close enough that his thigh was touching mine. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Did Marcus tell you I jog here?”
