Page 55 of For the Record

I nodded against him and unwrapped one arm to hold up a thumb. His right hand left the throttle to tap my thumb before forcing my hand back to his waist.

His left leg moved in some way and his hand pulled the throttle again as we slowly inched forward and took off through the parking lot. My hair whipped around the helmet from the wind, and I suddenly wished I’d brought a hair tie so I wouldn’t have an entire bird’s nest on my head later.

Looking both ways, Adam turned out to the highway and began heading down the road. Adrenaline pumped through me as he sped up, and I clung to him harder. More than ever, it was apparent that I had my whole life sitting in Adam’s palms right now. And no matter how thrilling this was, I knew I was always going to be safe with him.

Currently Playing: More Than a Woman by The Bee Gees

***

“Adam.” I huffed out a heavy breath. “I can’t keep…going.”

“You’ve got it, honey. You can handle it.”

“It’s…too…much.”

“You know what you’re doing.”

I halted my sprint halfway up the hill, my thighs burning with a deep fire and my chest heaving. Adam paused alongside me, chest certainly not heaving. Our eyes locked, and amusement flashed across his face. My lips curled.

“I just heard it.” I huffed a laugh but then winced because my breath was not a commodity to be wasted on crude fifteen-year-old-boy jokes.

At what point did you get the so-called ‘runners high’? This was my fifth day of running with Adam. Each day, he tacked on an extra turn down the road, or he would make me walk up and down his driveway until we hit the goal that he tracked on his fitness watch. Five days, and I felt like my legs belonged in a bowl of blue raspberry Jell-O rather than attached to my body. If I was going to be any type of high, it was going to be from the sheer amount of extra strength ibuprofen I would be popping like candy tonight.

If it was only the exhaustion in my legs, that would be one thing. If it was just the deep ache in muscles that caused me to let out the most pathetic whimpers when I got out of bed in the morning, then I could probably manage to finish this thing.

But it was the breathing that did me in. Fighting to simply fill my body with its required level of oxygen while not getting so lightheaded I’d tell my friend/husband that short shorts were made for legs like his was where I drew the line.

Adam said it was a mental game, more so than physical. He said it was your mind telling your body that you can’t push any further, and when you do, you suddenly become aware that you are capable of more than binge watching three days’ worth of your favorite sitcom in only five hours. His words, not mine.

“Let’s talk about something.” He continued his light jog, but I could see he was itching to sprint, like his long legs were caught up in a tiny box next to mine. He’d slowed his pace for me.

What I wanted to talk about was the fact that this man had kissed me last night with enough passion to burn the entire house down. He’d lifted me up onto his countertop and had set me down with a brisk good night before going to his room and locking the door. I knew it was locked because about an hour later, when I eventually peeled myself off the counter, I checked to see if he was still awake and wanted to explain further what his mouth was doing touching my mouth in a way that was kind of concerning for feminism.

Our homemade pasta never saw a boiling pot. Instead, I freaked out and dumped the entire thing into the trash and told myself I would make more when I wasn’t replaying a kiss in my head over and over and listening to my high school self’s in the mood playlist.

Adam cleared his throat. “To get your mind off it.”

It was a crime that he could get a sentence out without a hint of whining.

“Let’s not talk at all,” I wheezed.

“Has your mom tried to call you again?”

I could hear her shrill voice now, shouting about divorce rates and warning that a man like Adam isn’t for me. Pregnant. I wanted to scoff, of course she would assume that. In her mind, no one would marry for the sake of love and happiness. Not that that was what this was. But it did make you wonder how she possibly could have managed to get with my dad, who was practically a tattooed, burly version of a butterfly.

“No.” We slowed our pace downhill so I could catch my breath. “I don’t plan on answering if she does. She can email me all the menacing thoughts that brew in her Wicked Witch of The 90210 brain.”

Adam sniffed in amusement. We walked in comfortable silence for a moment. The sun was just peeking over the hilltops behind the tall buildings in the distance. Distant sounds of traffic and construction lulled in the background, but closer to us, was my newest running playlist. It mostly consisted of my favorite early 2000s hits that Adam claimed showed my true age. The smell of dew on the grasses of houses around us coincided with fresh, clean air. It felt like being out here was a reset to your senses when you slowed down. Made you pay attention to the little things. A dog digging an escape under a white picket fence. A car starting. A man in a suit walking to it to go to work. Adam’s consistent breathing. Adam’s shorts swishing with every steady step. Adam’s arms swaying front and back. Adam.

“And your dad?” He knocked into our silence. “Does he remember you telling him everything?”

“Surprisingly, yes.” It was almost funny, really. The man usually didn’t remember whether he had already eaten breakfast most mornings, so by eleven o’clock, he’d had four bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios. But somehow… “Every time I call or go up there, his first words are ‘Hello, Mrs. Wells.’”

Adam smiled at the ground at that.

“It’s like he’s been truly waiting for this for years. Like it was somehow cemented in his brain.”

Not to say it wouldn’t leave again soon. The memories came and went for him, and I wasn’t going to hold him to a standard that required him to strain more than he needed to.

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