Page 12 of Mark my Words

“Yah two are both about tha same age,” he said with a shrug like that was the only reason to be interested in someone. “Yah don’t have a girlfriend, right?”

“Not right now.” I shook my head. I don’t even know why I was confiding in him. It wasn’t like my personal life was any of his business.

“Or a boyfriend?”

I frowned as I looked down at the smirk on his face. “No, not one of those either.”

“No judgment here, man. It’s cool if yah like dick.”

You are a dick. “And you wonder why people around the office think you’re a jerk.”

“Hey, I only call ’em as I see ’em. You’re kinda a pretty boy.”

As he racked the bar and sat up on the bench, I hoped I could step back and make my escape. My run the previous day had been crap since my mother got into my head with her ‘abandoning the family’ rhetoric. I knew she was wrong, but it still bothered me to think that I was letting people down.

“Are we done?” I asked him as he moved to a weight rack and picked up a seventy-pound free weight. I stuck to the forties or fifties and tried to fatigue the muscle by maxing out my reps. Whatever floated his boat—and his obnoxious biceps—and got me out of here faster.

“Yeah, I guess yah can go do yah aerobics class or whateva,” he joked.

“I’m headed to the treadmill, but I’m sure I’ll catch you in Zumba later this week.”

I knew that Isobel could be found in the dance studio sometimes. Adrian was almost creepy enough to stalk her if he knew that information.

Trying to focus for once, I headed to the treadmill, set it to a seven, and started running. The last week had wreaked havoc on my mental and physical health. Sometimes I watched the people behind me in the mirrors, not in a creepy way, but simply general observations on human interaction. But today, I was trying to stay in my lane.

In my peripheral vision, I saw a toned, pair of pale slender legs start to move on the treadmill next to me. There were plenty of available machines in the room, but apparently, this person couldn’t respect personal space. It was unwritten gym etiquette to leave space on either side of a runner unless the machines were all occupied.

After I’d clocked my first mile, I slowed to a jog, wiping my face with my towel and glancing up as I placed it back into the cupholder. The pair of slender legs belonged to Kristine. Her face was intensely focused as I watched her out of the corner of my eye, those white earbuds shoved into her ears again, the swing of her long ponytail hypnotic to watch as she kept a steady cadence.

Female athletes were typically bulkier than Kristine’s slim but curvy build, but it was clear that she had an innate athletic ability. I wondered if she’d been in sports when she was younger. She’d have made an impressive distance runner with how her arms naturally carried while she ran. The momentum of your body could be a powerful thing. Part of our conditioning had been learning proper running form and then fine-tuning it with a stick in our hands.

Watching Kristine’s hands pass by her lower cheeks as she increased her speed drew me to the fact that she had on a pair of tiny shorts—extraordinarily little shorts—with venting slits up the side that revealed a good amount of thigh. In the office, she was always buttoned up, wearing long-sleeved blouses and fitted slacks, rarely skirts, but she wasn’t exactly the epitome of girly.

Trying not to be utterly creepy in my observation of her, I quickly resumed my jogging pace. I returned my focus to my reflection in the mirror or the numbers on the panel of my treadmill. My brain wasn’t even registering the music in my ears because I wondered what kind of music she listened to while she ran. I usually pulled up an app with playlists suited to keeping an even cadence, but I knew she created her own running soundtrack.

I didn’t even know what was wrong with me. My fixation with her was growing the more time we spent together. She was a piece of work sometimes.

I let out a harsh breath—my steps faltering—as I recalled how her soft pink lips had parted when I read to her. I’d had to leave the office after that before my voice started squeaking like a pubescent boy’s. The scene had been steamy before I found myself reading it aloud to a woman whose eyes had dilated to the point they appeared a deep hunter green. Add to that the flush that appeared on the creamy skin of her neck, and I was fucking adjusting myself like a high school boy caught in gym class with a hard-on.

A cough from my right startled me out of my dangerous thoughts, and I pressed the button to slow my treadmill as I looked over at Kristine, who had finally noticed I was running next to her. She glanced at me before screwing the cap back on her water bottle, eyes guarded.

“Who is stalking who, now?” I challenged as she settled it back into her cup holder. She must have turned her music down when she slowed, her fingers tightening on the water bottle and causing a plastic crinkling noise.

The glare she gave me should have corrected the situation in my shorts, but it only caused a flare of heat to surge through me as I raised an eyebrow at her reflection in the mirror.

She huffed, readjusting her earbud, then took off at a steady jog, averting her eyes to the open tread on her other side.

Fine, I could ignore her too. Glancing down at her screen, I noted the speed and set mine a bit faster, my legs burning as I broke into a run. She narrowed her eyes as she glanced back at me, and I watched her hand reach forward to adjust her speed again. So competitive.

She didn’t know who she was challenging. I ran six miles daily—as long as I could fit it into my schedule—and my stamina would surely outlast hers.

Waiting until she wasn’t looking, I snuck my hand forward and sped up again, welcoming the burn in my lungs as I watched the mileage start to track faster on my screen.

Of course, she couldn’t help herself, so moments later, I smirked, trying to keep myself from laughing as she sped up again. I knew she was competitive, but this wasn’t only in reaction to some office rivalry.

Half expecting her to fly off the back of the treadmill, I watched as she pushed herself off the belt and settled into a steady run. A novice could never maintain that cadence without fatiguing quickly, so I was impressed at how well she held her form.

Tiny beads of sweat had started to build at her temples, and I watched one track down her flushed cheek and onto her neck. The same pink mottling she had in the office the other day was visible on her skin right above the low-cut neckline of her tank top. Fumbling, I reached forward and slowed down my tread, picking up my water bottle and taking several large gulps as I tried not to focus on how her modest chest appeared as it bounced under that athletic tank.

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