“Tired?” he asked.
I felt butterflies start to take flight in my belly.
“Yes,” I admitted.
Though I was feeling better most of the time now, I still had quite a bit of fatigue to battle on a daily basis.
“Did you talk to your doctor about it?” he asked.
“Yep,” I repeated. “He lowered my dosage on my medication today, actually. We talked about the side effects of it, as well as my fatigue. He said it’s just something that’ll go away over time. He cleared me for activity as well. I asked him if I could start running again, and he said as long as I kept myself well-hydrated, that I could do anything that I want to do. Though, he stressed that staying hydrated was a must—multiple times.”
“Then it must be important,” he teased, squeezing my shoulder.
I turned into his body slightly and smelled him—discreetly, though.
At least, I hoped it was discreetly.
He smelled good. Like pine needles and something else that I couldn’t quite define. Deodorant? Cologne?
I wasn’t sure.
But whatever the smell was, I liked it.
His arm loosened around me, and for a second, I thought he was going to drop it, but the only thing he did was reach for another roll and shove it into his mouth before going back to his original position.
I grinned and continued to tell him about my day.
“What did you run before?” he asked. “Distance or sprinter?”
“Distance,” I answered. “I was on the cross-country team in high school. I love running. Ish. I love it after I’m done. During the run, I hate it with a passion.”
He squeezed my shoulder.
“I loved running, too,” he admitted. “Like you, I used to run in high school. Then the explosion happened, and I haven’t run as much as I want to since. But, I love running. I love the mindlessness of it. The way I can just forget and feel like absolute shit for hours on end.”
“Hours?” I asked. “How far were you up to before the accident?”
“Eighteen miles or so,” he admitted. “That’s why I’ve bulked up so much since I was a teen. Going from running as much as I did to doing a fraction of that and adding in strength training now has really changed my body. I don’t think I could run a 15K right now without dying.”
I touched his leg, right above his knee.
He stiffened slightly but didn’t remove my hand.
I left it there because I felt like this was a poignant moment in time. As if something important had just happened, yet I didn’t know what.
“You haven’t even tried to run?” I questioned.
“I’ve run shorter distances,” he said as he reached for his glass of tea.
I looked up at him as he drank, not removing my head from his shoulder, but tilting my head slightly so I could watch his throat muscles work.
God, he was sexy.
He’d trimmed his beard in the last three days since I’d seen him.
Not enough that I thought I would consider him as no longer having a beard, but a deep five o’clock shadow, but enough that I could still make out some skin underneath the curly brown hair of his beard.
“Maybe when I’m up for it again,” I said as I tilted my head back down. “We can start running together. Though, I was only up to about nine miles. The fifteen-kilometer run was my favorite to run. Anything past that and I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted to go because I had to hold some gas back for later…you know?”
His arm tightened around my shoulder. “Yeah, I know. The more mileage I see, the longer that it takes me to run it mile wise. I go from running seven-minute miles to nine-minute miles by the last one. My consistency sucks.”
I moved my hand from his leg, and I felt him sag in relief.
I idly wondered if I should’ve kept my hands to myself altogether, and started to move away from him, but his arm wouldn’t let me go.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, reading my mind.
I licked my lips. “Are you sure? I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“I like your hands on me,” he replied. “I just don’t usually have anyone touch me like you do.”
I stiffened. “I can keep my hands to myself…”
“No,” he answered quickly. “It’s not that. I just…nobody’s touched me like that since the accident.”
Experimentally, I allowed my hand to move back to his thigh, but higher up this time, not quite decent, but not quite indecent either.
As in, if I moved my hand up six inches, I’d be in indecent territory.
“You’re worried?” I asked.
I didn’t add on to that question, but I knew he’d know what I meant.
“I’m not worried,” he paused. “Per se, but I’m self-conscious. My body’s not the same as it was before. I’m scarred. I have pieces of metal still embedded in my body in places. My lower half is even uglier than my upper half, and my legs? They’re ugly.”