Page 19 of (Un)Expected

I nodded, lifting myself off the couch, needing some space to clear my head. Maybe I should go for a run, something to get this itchy feeling off my skin.

“It wasn’t good.”

I turned to face Adam, stopping in my tracks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” He laughed. “It was like kissing your cousin. Everything about it felt wrong.”

My jaw dropped. No, literally, that shit was almost on the floor. “Wait, wait, wait…” I said, crossing my hands in the air. “You’re telling me you had a fan-fucking-tastic date, and when you kissed her, there wasn’t anything?”

“Nope,” Adam said. “Nothing. Even my little soldier wasn’t feeling it.”

I shuddered “Dude, you gotta stop talking about your dick in the third person. You know that shit freaks me out.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

“I don’t give a single fuck about his feelings,” I sighed. “So that’s it? You’re done with Alex?”

Adam shrugged. “We decided to be friends. It’ll be cool having someone to hang out with while we’re here. Hell, maybe you can come with us and make sure no one thinks we’re dating.” He groaned. “You know, after Theo gets here and rips me a new one for trying to have a life.”

Adam decidedto spend the rest of the afternoon going over the movie’s script, so I grabbed my running shoes. When I stepped outside, I started toward town, impulsively deciding to test out one of the trails I found yesterday. It didn’t take long to run across the bridge, the road leading right to Main Street. Despite the chill in the air, there were still a fair number of people loitering around, but fewer seemed to be on the beach.

I continued down the street, heading away from the cluster of businesses and toward the thick woods. My legs were aching from the exertion, and my back called out for me to stop, but I kept pushing, needing to feel that rush I used to crave.

So many days, when life got too heavy, I’d head out into the world, letting my feet guide me where they wanted. But that was years ago, back when my problems were much more minor than I realized. Now, it took a lot longer to escape the things that chased me.

As I hit the trailhead, I paused, stretching out my spine and legs. Maybe today, I’d try to push myself to see if all that physical therapy had made an impact. While I looked around, my phone rang out from my armband, and I hesitated when I saw the picture on the screen.

Shit.

Taking it out of the pouch, I place the phone up to my ear.

“How’s my favorite girl?” I said, trying to hide my guilt.

A loud chuckle filled the line. “You say that to all the girls.”

“Yes, but you know I only mean it with you, Dani.”

She sighed, trying to hide how much she loved my cheesy lines. “Checking in. It’s been three days, and I haven’t heard a peep outta you. Keeping yourself out of trouble, right?”

“Trying.”

“Good,” she said. A voice in the background called her, so I knew our all-too-brief time was up. “Gotta go, but you know you can call anytime you need. Miss you, Cole.”

“Miss you too, Dani.”

We ended the call with little fanfare. As I resumed my run, the phone call lingered in my mind. Should I have told Dani about what was going on with Adam? No, definitely not. Not that Dani wouldn’t understand, but she had always drawn a firm line in the sand. Our relationship was about us, not him, but it wasn’t that easy for me to turn it off. When a guy has had your back for over twenty-five years, you don’t walk away from him. Ours was a bond no one else could ever understand.

The trail twisted and turned through the forest, going deeper until I could no longer hear the sounds of town. My only focus was my breathing and my feet hitting the ground, one after the other. That was my favorite part of working out and the reason I got back into it when I had lost my other outlets. It was a chance to clear my head, to focus on my body and none of the other shit tying me down.

It worked.

Usually.

Today, though, my thoughts kept going to Alex and what Adam said about their date. How the hell could he not have chemistry with a girl like that? Shit, I saw the pictures, so I knew something had happened between them, and based on the images, I started to think a lot more went down than an awkward kiss.

Not that it mattered to me—they were consenting adults, and they could do whatever they wanted. But Alex had been stuck in my head for the past few days. I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I wanted to know more about her.

As I turned past a thick brush, my mind still entirely focused on Alex, I slammed into someone, sending them flying back into the dirt.

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