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Seven miles.
“Do you run cross country?” I breathed the words out with difficulty, trying to control a wheeze. I ran sprints and short distances. Not this…hell. How on earth she managed it with asthma I would never know. I was impressed despite myself.
“Used to. Now I just run.”
“You should talk to the coach.”
She slanted a look at me, wondering, maybe, why I was being somewhat nice for a change. “I don’t have time for sports.”
The timer on her machine beeped and she bumped her speed down two notches.Thank Christ.I did the same.
“You don’t have to cool down just because I am,” she said.
“No…I don’t usually run long distances. This is good enough for me.”
“Mm.”
My temper flared at the dismissive tone of her voice, but I tamped it down, instead lowering the speed increment again when she did the same. “Why don’t you have time for sports?”
She was at a fast walk now. “Because I need to finish my coursework so I can graduate, get a job, and start working my ass off to make sure my sister is taken care of.” She didn’t look at me as she answered, instead wiping her face with the towel that was slung around her neck.
I had questions—lots of them. I didn’t want to ask too much too fast, though… didn’t want to seem… interested. Better to play it cool. “Why do you have to take care of your sister?”
“Because I have to.” She bit the words off and slowed to a stop. “Because there’s no one else.”
“Are you guys… are your parents… ?” I stopped my machine also, turning and hanging over the arm rail to look at her. Part of me didn’t want to hear her answer. If her parents were dead, that meant she was like me. An orphan. It meant I might possibly need to cut her some slack.
She was chugging from a water bottle she’d placed near the treadmill and I watched her throat move with the action. I’d never been attracted to a woman’s throat before, but hers was sexy, a narrow, fragile column that I could imagine my hand curled around. Finished, she capped the bottle and looked at me. “No,” she replied. They’re not dead.” She started to walk away. “But they may as well be.”
“Jude.” She paused but didn’t turn. “You’re right about me being an asshole.” I walked behind her, until my breath on her neck caused her to shiver in reflex. “It’s nothing personal.”
She tilted her head, and I took it as an invitation to slide a finger along its slope, enjoying the fine tremor just under her skin. “Does that mean you’re going to stop?” she asked, voice husky.
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. “I can’t.” My finger dropped, and I stepped back. “I won’t.”
“Right.” The word was a whispered mutter, something defeated in its sound. And yet her posture as she stalked away was stubborn. Tough.
She wouldn’t give up easily. But then, neither would I.
Chapter 10: Ezra
After the door closed behind Galen, I exchanged a look with Baron and flopped down in the one armchair, arms folded behind my head. He went into the kitchen and started hunting for something to eat. He was a pit—he ate twice as much as everyone around him and never got filled up.
“He’s such a dick,” I groaned. “But holy hell, did you hear her squeal?”
Baron didn’t laugh. “This is fucked up,” he said instead. “That girl hasn’t done a thing to us and we have no idea what her story is, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. What do you mean, what her story is?”
“Do you really think she’d want to stay here with three random dudes if she didn’t have to? She doesn’t know us. She has no reason to trust us. Obviously, there’s a reason she’s here.” He pulled a tub of peanut butter from the cabinet and dipped a spoon in it.
I watched in disgust as he put the entire glob in his mouth. I could just imagine that sticky, glue-like feeling of it on the roof of his mouth, and shuddered. Give me a peanut butter cookie and I was fine. But a big mouthful of it? Gross. “Huh. You think she was lying about Housing?” Baron had a near creepy instinct for people, so if he thought there was something strange about her insistence on staying then I was inclined to trust him.
“No. I don’t think she was lying. She wouldn’t have had the paperwork with our names on it. But there’s something about it that’s bugging me.” His voice was thick.
“Why don’t you put that crap on some bread? Or crackers?”
“Nah, I’m going to make a turkey sandwich in a minute. This is just to tide me over.”
