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I think he’s as crazy about her as I am.
I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling. I need to be careful. I don’t know her that well yet. It’s possible that as soon as she realizes how I feel about her, she’ll turn into Felicity, and start making demands I can’t deal with. I don’t think she will—she’s an entirely different fish from Felicity—but I can’t tell.
Gus stirs, stretches, and yawns, sees I’m awake, and pads up the bed to give me a kiss.
“Morning, dude,” I murmur, ruffling his ears and kissing his nose. “You want to go for a run?” As quietly as I can, I get up and open my case, looking for a fresh pair of shorts and a top.
“Hello, you two.”
I turn to see Sidnie smiling at us.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” I walk over to the bed and bend to give her a kiss.
She returns it sleepily, then shakes her head as I straighten. “No, I was already rousing. Are you going out?”
“I thought I’d take Gus out for a run.”
She sits up. “Can I join you? If you’d rather go alone that’s fine, I don’t mind.”
My eyebrows lift in surprise. “Do you run?”
“Mm, most mornings. I doubt I’m as fast as you though.” She chuckles.
“Then sure. Come on. It’s a beautiful morning.”
“Are you wearing running shoes?”
“Normally I would, but I’ll go barefoot on the sand.”
“Okay.” She finds a T-shirt and shorts in her bag, and after a brief visit to the bathroom, the two of us and Gus head out to the elevator and go down into the lobby. We head over the road, stop for Gus to have a pee on the grass, then descend onto the beach.
“What an amazing morning,” she says.
The sun is just appearing above the horizon, flooding the Pacific with golden light. The sky is coral and amber, still dark blue to the west, but there’s not a cloud in the sky.
We walk down to the water’s edge, while Sidnie fixes her hair back with an elastic. The shallows, not yet warmed by the sun, are cool on my feet. There’s hardly any wind and thus few waves, and the water rolls elegantly up the sand before drawing back and leaving it dark gold and glistening.
Following the water line, we walk for a few minutes to warm up, then start jogging. I start slowly, then set a medium pace as I realize she can easily keep up with me. Gus runs alongside us, bounding in and out of the sea.
We run for about twenty minutes, then stop to catch our breath and play catch with Gus, throwing sticks into the sea for him to swim out and fetch before we start heading back.
“You want to race?” I ask her, feeling the need to pick up the pace now I’ve warmed up.
She laughs. “Absolutely not. Go on, spread your wings. I’ll catch you up.”
I stop and pull her into my arms, then kiss her, holding her head with one hand. Her curls flutter around us, and she laughs, then sighs and melts against me, returning the kiss with enthusiasm. When I finally move back, her eyes sparkle in the sunlight.
“Go on,” she whispers.
I turn and head back up the beach, gradually increasing my pace as I find my stride. It’s a glorious run, the wet sand springy beneath my feet, the sea breeze cooling my hot skin, and as I draw the salty air deep into my lungs and my muscles grow loose, I feel exhilarated. My race was the hundred meters, but I also competed in the two hundred, four hundred, and fifteen hundred meters as a kid, and I’m still fairly fast at all of them. By the time I slow as I approach the hotel, I feel full of energy again, as if the rising sun has filled me with its light.
I stand there, hands on hips, catching my breath as I wait for Gus and Sidnie to catch up with me. When she arrives she’s red-faced, and she bends over at the waist, her breaths coming in gasps.
“Fuck me, you’re fast,” she says. “I knew you’d won that trophy, but I didn’t realize just how fast you were.”
“Well, not as fast as I could be, but yeah, not bad.”
“What did you run the hundred meters in?”
