“Sure,” she said, gazing up at the blazing sun. “If by treat you mean blisters, heatstroke, and shin splints.”
He glanced around at the growing number of people heading toward the park entrance. “Well, if you want I can buy you a hot dog and leave you sitting on a bench with the rest of the inactive fatties.”
“Hey!” She jabbed her finger at him. “Not everyone who sits on a bench in Central Park is an inactive fatty. Some of them read.”
“I know.” He grinned. “I’m often one of them. Reading is my other favorite hobby, remember?”
“Not really. That little factoid was so boring that my brain had to reject it or risk falling into a coma.”
He tilted his head toward the entrance of the park. “Come on. No more stalling.”
She trotted after him as he wove around the various ice cream vendors and rented bicycle tours. “So how big is Central Park exactly? How far do you usually run?”
“There are a couple of different paths. Just follow my lead and holler when you get tired.”
“Tired, my ass,” she grumbled. Long-distance running might not be at the top of her bucket list, but she was still in pretty good shape. “I’ll lead,” she snapped as she quickened her pace to a jog and sped past him. “Try to keep up.”
Thirty minutes later, Julie realized her mistake.
She tried to hold in a wheeze and contemplated asking passersby if they had an inhaler. Not that she was asthmatic, but it was possible that she’d been just a wee bit overoptimistic about her fitness.
Turned out she’d underestimated a few things.
Namely, hills.
And the sun.
Oh, and the fact that Mitchell apparently had a motor shoved up his ass, because the man had not slowed down.
“You okay?” he called from where he was jogging in place several feet ahead. He’d passed her about five minutes in but had stayed within her visual range. It didn’t take a genius to see that he was holding back for her.
“Oh, this is great,” she said, catching up to him and bending at the waist to put her hands on her knees as she gasped. She eyed a nearby baby drinking from a bottle. Milk was hydrating, right?
“Come on, we’re only a couple of miles in,” he said, still jogging in place. Correction—he was practically jumping.
“What the hell are you so excited about?” she asked around pants. “We’re running in a big circle, right? It’s not like Santa’s sleigh is at the end of the run.”
He gave her a sympathetic look. “We can just walk for a while if you want. I probably set the pace too fast. I’m so used to running with Evelyn, I forget not all women are cut out for it.”
Something red and dangerous flashed before Julie’s eyes, and she forgot all about the fact that her throat felt like sawdust and the sweat between her boobs could have filled Lake Superior.
He had not just thrown the ex-girlfriend at her, had he?
“Let’s go,” she said, faking energy she absolutely did not have. “I’ll follow.”
He shot her a happy grin, and as Julie forced her screaming calves to chug after him, she had the sneaking suspicion that she’d just been played. Again. He’d known that the mention of an ex-girlfriend would spur her on.
Then she forgot about everything except putting one foot in front of the other. Mitchell had disappeared around a bend. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was already on a second loop, ready to lap her.
Surely she wouldn’t die here. Would she? Was this the way she was meant to go? Collapsing in the middle of Central Park, where some tourists from Minnesota would find her body and take pictures with their big-lensed camera? And then what if they decided to sell the pictures? Then Stiletto would probably be forced to print an obituary featuring an image of her with a sweat-stained crotch.
Just when she was about to cry, she saw Mitchell just a few feet ahead. Well, it looked like a few feet. It felt more like a mile or five.
She told her body to kick into high gear for those last steps with her head held high, but who was she kidding? If there had been a wagon nearby, she’d have fallen into it and begged a homeless man to push her to the nearest hospital.
Julie finally reached him in all of his shiny, reflective gear and slumped onto the bench beside him. He handed her a water bottle and a hot dog.