Lover (Court University 4)

So that was what I did.

Ramses and I started jogging that first day after my last class. He was getting off of work too and actually offered to pick me up. That felt kind of weird. I mean, for me. I knew we were just friends now, but I thought it’d be best we meet up at a park or something. Of course, he understood, so that was what we did. We’d both shown up with winter running gear on.

And he’d basically looked like a Nike ad.

He was the epitome of in his stretchy black Under Armour, long and lean as it smoothed over his biceps and thick legs. He wore a dark hoodie and shorts over the bottoms and long-sleeved shirt, basically the hottest friend I’d ever had in my entire life. He had dark gloves on and a hat beneath his hood as well, completely ready for the run.

“Ready, buddy?” He grinned that first day, and I suppose I had to be. I still couldn’t believe I’d told him about Alec, but he was right. There was something about us just dishing our secrets together. I told him things I didn’t mean to tell him, and he seemed to do the same.

Hiking up my legs in my stretchy Lycra I allowed him to lead the run into the park, my “hot friend” beside me the whole way. It wasn’t lost on me Ramses had long basically everything, and though I did have to pump extra hard to keep up with him, I liked the challenge. He rarely had to adjust to me, which I caught him doing more than a time or two. For the most part, he wasn’t obnoxious about it.

Though he did run backward a couple of times.

He liked to taunt me, push me, and as it never failed to crack a smile out of me, I let him.

I let him every time.

Before I knew it, a couple weeks flew by like this. Weeks of me rushing through classes just to see my text messages, to see his silly memes or pictures of him bored at the office. He texted me whenever he had time, and I didn’t complain, basically high off the anticipated moments before. I was very aware of how this may have looked from the outside.

I just didn’t care.

I let him send the text messages. I ran with him almost every day and even ignored the fact that he still hadn’t opted out of my class yet. He mentioned looking into a minimester during our runs, one of those classes with a reduced length that had longer class periods. He planned to sign up for one once he figured out how it would coincide with his current work and class schedule. In the meantime, he was still with me, my student.

My student who I ran with and listened to his silly jokes. My friend who talked to me about everything that wasn’t my divorce or his own issues. We probably should talk about these things. I mean, there was a reason we’d decided to dive into the valley of friendship, and it wasn’t just to be around each other.

Or maybe it was.

I liked being around Ramses, the heat of his hard body when we rounded a corner and his Under Armour brushed my white fleece. I liked t

he air of Ramses, how he consumed it with his male essence and heady flavor. I tasted him every brisk step during our runs and probably the same on his end as well. I often caught him staring down at me, his cheekbones haloed and chilled with red tint, his curls shifting and swaying beneath his hat. Our gazes collided a lot while we ran together, talked and enjoyed each other, but never once did we acknowledge the awareness between us. It went unsaid, like our various dramas, and there was nothing wrong with being attracted to each other.

Not when it felt like this, easy with our laughter and banter. I found myself longing to be with him just because he made it easy, and today’s run was no exception. We’d decided to stick to some of the neighborhoods on campus, sprinting through suburbs and uphill. We’d started to venture back when I made the mistake of telling him about my internship during my undergraduate studies. Mistake because Ramses couldn’t take anything and not make a joke about it.

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” he said, basically a visual feast in his sweatpants and breaker jacket. I was starting to get used to how ridiculously hot my friend was, his sweatpants low but fitted tight to his muscular ass, his jacket bulky and thick across his broad shoulders. I may be used to it, but that didn’t mean I failed to notice it. Ramses was hot, but there was no rule that said a girl couldn’t have hot friends.

Yeah, that.

Currently, said hot friend pressed an elbow into my side, an indicator a jostling was coming. Ramses couldn’t help but jostle, and I’d care more if I actually hated it.

Which I didn’t.

Again, it was so easy to be with him it was scary, and I think I needed more fear in my life. If fear was this, I needed more of it. More of Ramses Mallick and his carefree attitude. He grinned at me. “You used to do digs? Like actual digs like some shit out of Jurassic Park?”

Nothing quite so Jurassic Park-esque, but he did get the gist of it. I shrugged. “Not nearly as exciting but yeah. We mostly dug up pottery and stuff.”

It’d actually been the time of my life and the reason I’d gotten into early western civilizations as much as I had. I liked stumbling across and waking up old life. It was like a rebirth and completely exhilarating. Most of my work had been in Africa as well as some parts of Europe. I’d only come back because I had to graduate and had gotten married shortly after that time as well.

It’d been early and exciting days, days before drama, trauma. It’d been days before Ramses, and I forgot about them as quickly as they surfaced with just a flash of his smile. He still handed those things out like penny candy, his jog backwards as he picked up.

“You totally saw a T-rex,” he stated, eyebrows bouncing. “But if you wanna be modest and all tight-lipped about it, whatev.”

“I didn’t.” I shoved him and he grabbed my hands. Trying to get this guy to move at all was hilarious. One, because he was bigger than me, and two, well, because he was bigger than me. He didn’t move an inch, and all shoving him did was get him to cradle me.

He literally brought his entire big body around me, grappling me in a bear hug, which made me laugh my head off and nearly pee my pants. There were days I swear to God I lost a few pounds from sheer laughter due to this guy, but that didn’t mean I refused to fight back. I pinched at his wrists, digging my fingernails in until he cursed and released me.

“Okay, claws are so not fair!” He chuckled, grabbing for me, but I was fast. I bolted off, but since his legs were long, I think I got maybe five feet before one of those Michael Phelps arms of his shot out. He got me completely around the waist, my feet off the ground, and I kicked.

“Ramses! Oh my God. No. Don’t you dare!”