Page 10 of Jett in Jeopardy

Feel like a run?

He was in the slow season now, so he might have time to slip away from the hotel, even early in the afternoon.

Three dancing dots popped up on the screen, showing he was responding.

Meet you on the boardwalk.

The tension loosened inside me a little, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. I changed into my running gear and then slipped out through the back entrance of the bar.

The boardwalk edged the beach at the bottom end of Oceanwind Square, running past the front of Daniel’s hotel. Calling Oceanwind a Square wasn’t actually accurate. The Square was more of a strip, with shops and restaurants, most with apartments above them, lining both sides of Oceanwind Lane up toward the intersection where it was crossed by Shore Drive. On the other side of the intersection, Oceanwind Lane snaked up a steep slope between the thick clumps of trees and colorful cottages and homes, the residential area of The Square.

Daniel was waiting for me on the boardwalk in front of his hotel, just like he said. He nodded to me, and we started to run, not really saying anything else. Our footfalls thudded over the wooden pathway, barely audible over the relentless rush of the surf crashing against the wet beach. The gloomy skies from earlier had darkened considerably since this morning, and the cold air stinging my face and hands smelled of rain.

“So,” Daniel said. “I saw the kid from the bar leave your place this morning. Alistair’s friend.”

Jett’s former roommate, Alistair, worked at the hotel with Daniel. He, like me, knew Jett and his friends a little better than most of the other college kids hanging around The Square.

I glanced at Daniel next to me, but his mild expression was exasperatingly difficult to read. I shrugged. “He drank too much last night, and it was late, so I let him sleep it off at my place.”

Daniel cast a sidelong glance my way. “Is that all?”

I didn’t need to look at him to know he was smirking at me. I could hear it in his voice, but kept my gaze trained straight ahead. “What else would there be?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there might be something bugging you since I can’t remember the last time you wanted to go running at two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“I was just feeling cooped up.”

“If you say so.”

We fell into a companionable silence, just our breathing, the sound of the waves and seagulls squawking overhead. Daniel wouldn’t push me to say more. He’d just wait until I was ready to talk—which was somehow just as irritating as if he’d nagged me with questions.

Looking back, it was amazing to me that Daniel and I had become such good friends. We really hadn’t liked each other much when we first met. He and Ryan had been friends since they were kids, and I was in love with Ryan. For a while, Daniel and I had been competing for who would be president of the Ryan Morley fan club. Now, though, things were different. Ryan was gone, and Daniel and I were all we had.

After Ryan died six years ago, I don’t think I would have survived without Daniel. The sheer agony of losing him, of having him ripped suddenly and unexpectedly from life, would have swallowed me whole without Daniel’s frustrating stubbornness.

I would have probably let myself waste away, curled up on my kitchen floor where I had dropped after coming home alone from the hospital without Ryan by my side. Daniel wouldn’t let me, though. He’d showed up every day, bullied me to shower, get dressed, eat. At the time, I’d been less than gracious about the whole thing, wishing he’d just leave me alone, and I’d told him so—harshly, but Daniel wouldn’t back down.

Eventually, he’d pushed for me to leave the house again, nagged and cajoled me into paying attention to the bar and running the business Ryan and I had bought together just a few years earlier. And he’d encouraged me to hire Priscilla as manager for days when I just couldn’t.

After a while, it all became routine. I just did it, the showering, the eating, the running of my business without Daniel’s nagging. It was muscle memory now.

We reached the end of the boardwalk, turned and started back, running again in companionable silence. Though, I could feel Daniel looking over at me periodically, no doubt debating whether he should push me to say more or let me broach the subject. I decided to take pity on him.

“He’s too young,” I said.

“For what? You’re both adults,” Daniel said, reasonably.

“I’m thirty-six. He’s just a college kid. There’s got to be at least ten years between us. We have nothing in common.”

I thought about him bending over the arm of my couch, presenting that gorgeous ass, and how well his lithe frame fit under me as if he’d been made just for me.

Daniel shrugged. “The guy Alistair is living with is our age, and they seem to be doing just fine.”

“Get back to me in ten years and tell me how they’re doing,” I said, sounding entirely too cynical, even to me.

“Is that what you want?” Daniel asked. “Long term?”

I held myself against sudden panic, wrapping around my chest and squeezing, turning my breath shallow.

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