Chapter 9
OLIVER
No. Absolutely not. There’s no way that I’m going running with Aaron when he looks like that. We’re going to have a serious problem. Mainly, I’m pretty sure I can’t run with an erection. I haven’t tried, but I’m pretty sure my assessment is accurate.
“You about ready to go?” he asks while grabbing his foot and pulling it back toward his ass. Everything—and I do mean everything—about his body is on display. Where am I even supposed to look? At the bulging thigh muscles? His round ass? Or at the clearly visible bulge? “Oliver?”
“What?” I’m definitely supposed to be doing something, but I forgot what. For once, I’m pretty sure my ADHD isn’t the problem.
“I asked if you were ready?”
I look down at what I’m wearing. A pair of joggers, an old college t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. He might be comfortable in shorts and a long-sleeved tee, but there’s no way I’m going outside in fifty-degree weather in shorts.
Scratch that. I’m never going to be caught dead wearing shorts like that. Aaron’s pulling them off, but my knobby knees won’t look good on display.
“Yeah, I just need to grab my shoes.” The offending black ones that I’ve kept in the box since I bought them. Part of me didn’t believe we’d end up running together.
“You’re going to get hot.”
“I doubt it,” I say. Aaron doesn’t argue with me, which must mean I’m right.
It takes me a bit to get the shoes on and laced up properly, but eventually, I’m out of ways to kill time.
I’m also very thankful I put on a pair of tight briefs.
The running part I’m sure of, but at least my sweatpants haven’t become obscene.
My neighbors will appreciate that, even if Aaron doesn’t.
“Alright, let’s go.”
It’s not quite that simple. First, we have to take the elevator down—Aaron suggests the stairs, but I’m not even sure you’re allowed to use them unless there’s a fire—and make it out the front door.
Immediately, the spring chill hits me. It’s not cold, per se, but there’s a decent amount of wind today.
I shiver a little and wrap my arms around my body.
Too hot, my ass. I might freeze to death.
“Alright, we’re going to start nice and slow. We’ll walk for five minutes, then do a series of run-walk intervals to get you started.”
That doesn’t sound so bad. Walking, I can do. I don’t more than is strictly necessary, but I can.
He hits a few buttons on a complicated watch before declaring that we can start.
Five minutes is basically forever when walking silently next to someone. What do people talk about while running? I always assumed they talked about… running. So far, I don’t have anything monumental to say about it.
“So,” I start.
“We’ll do our first run in ten seconds.”
Nevermind. His watch beeps with a countdown.
“Go,” Aaron says to me. He picks up his feet and starts jogging, pulling away from me immediately. I scramble to get my legs under me and convince them we have to go faster. It takes a second for the message in my brain to reach my limbs, but it does eventually.
This isn’t so bad. I expected it to be much worse, but so far, it’s easy. Maybe I had it wrong back in high school. Did I fake all those illnesses in gym class for nothing?
I pass Aaron, whom I have mixed feelings about. On the plus side, I’m no longer staring at his pert ass. On the downside, I’m no longer staring at his pert ass.
“You might want to slow down. The goal is to run slowly, not as fast as you can.” Aaron stays a few paces behind me.
I try to take his advice, but my body is unwilling to comply. By the time he yells to me that it’s time to walk, I’m a mess. Sweat drips from my forehead as I pant, partly bent over.
That. Was. Terrible.
I was right to avoid this all those years. “How far?” I gasp. Surely that was at least a mile.
“It doesn’t matter.” Aaron puts his hand on the small of my back to encourage me to keep moving. Hopefully, he isn’t covered in my sweat now. Gross. Well, unless it comes from bedroom activities.
“I want to know.” My breathing returns to close to normal as I keep putting one foot in front of the other.
“Less than point one mile.”
It takes me several seconds to understand what he said. That can’t possibly be right. I look around and realize we didn’t even go a whole block in that time. “How long did we run?”
He doesn’t want to tell me. “Today’s run intervals are thirty seconds.”
Thirty seconds? Thirty seconds. I’m dying after thirty seconds. Suddenly, my brain is spiraling. If I’m dying now, how will I ever run a whole three miles? At this pace, that will take me a month.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aaron says as though he can read my mind. “It’s a process. It’ll get much easier as we continue to go along. I promise.”
If he was anyone else, I wouldn’t believe them. But this is Aaron. I think everything that comes out of his mouth is true. That’s not necessarily a good thing. In fact, it’s probably something to discuss with a therapist.
“Get ready. We’re going to do another thirty seconds. This time, try to run slower.”
I groan loudly because I’m not trying to hide my displeasure, but when his watch beeps, I pick up the pace again. No matter how hard I try, I can only find one speed—too fast, but also too slow.
We repeat this process a million times. Okay, Aaron says we do it five times, but I’m not sure he can be trusted with the counting. By the time we make it back to my building’s front door, I’m basically a pile of goo. My legs hurt. I’m way too hot. My clothes are drenched with sweat.
There’s something else, too—a weird feeling of accomplishment. I absolutely hate running, but I kind of like the feeling of having finished a run.
“Ready to crochet?”
No, I’m ready for a cold shower and a beer. Probably at the same time. “Let’s do it.”
AARON
Oliver has been in the shower for an extraordinarily long time. I started looking at the clock when I first realized it had been a while. Since then, it’s been ten minutes, and the water is still running.
Do I check on him? Leave him there and hope for the best? Honestly, I’m not sure.
When he asked if I wanted a shower, I waved him off.
I didn’t break a sweat running with him, which I can tell annoys him to no end.
I did my run, the one on my training plan, this morning so that I could focus on being next to Oliver for his run.
That one nearly broke me. Speed work always does.
I much prefer running long to running fast, but both are necessary if I want to keep improving my marathon time.
Doing this light effort—which was mostly working—was a good way to shake the lead out of my legs.
Poor Oliver looked like he was about to pass out at the end of each segment.
Learning how to slow down, not run at the fastest pace possible, is a skill that comes with time.
Until then, he’s likely going to continue feeling this way. Beat up, out of breath, and exhausted.
The water finally turns off, letting me breathe a sigh of relief.
At least he’s not dead in there. I pull the sweatpants I brought on over my running shorts.
This pair is perfect for running but not so great for lounging.
I’m aware they get described as skimpy. That’s what I love about them, though.
I feel like I can run without the fabric getting in the way.
Since I mostly run either straight from my home or from my car, it’s not like I’m hanging out in them in public.
Oliver liked them.
A fact I shouldn’t care about. It was impossible to miss the way his mouth hung open as he stared at them.
I didn’t say anything, in case he was embarrassed.
I like it, though. A fact I hate admitting even to myself.
Yeah, he’s already seen me naked, but him looking me up and down like I was a big meal?
That stroked my ego in a way that doesn’t happen very often.
We’re just friends, so I’m not supposed to want him to think of me that way. Or enjoy it when he does.
“Sorry, I took forever.” Oliver comes into the living room looking sheepish.
Did he jerk off thinking about me? I immediately cut off that particular train of thought. Too many of my nights in the past couple of weeks have been spent thinking about him while my fist was wrapped around my cock.
Not on purpose. I tried desperately not to think about him. No amount of porn could get him out of my mind.
“No problem. Are you okay?” I can’t keep from checking in. I feel somewhat responsible for him, especially when it comes to running.
“No,” he says, his hands coming to his hips. The low-slung joggers he’s wearing slide down a little farther, revealing a thin strip of skin. Not that I’m looking. “Every muscle in my body hurts. Some of which I didn’t even know existed until today.”
“Yeah, that’ll get better with time. Give it a couple of weeks and your body will adjust.”
“A couple of weeks?” His voice squeaks as his eyes go wide. “I’m going to feel like this for weeks? I thought it would get better after today.”
“It will, but not as much as you’re hoping. Building up the kind of necessary stamina, both for your heart and muscles, takes repetition.”
“Fine. Are you ready to crochet?”
It’s not fine, that much I’m sure of. The word drips with sarcasm.
Instead of arguing, I let it go, a move I’m going to consider a form of personal growth.
I could sit here all night insisting I’m right.
It wouldn’t change anything, especially in Oliver’s mind.
The only thing that will convince him is time.
“Let’s do it.” I’m sure he’s anxious to switch positions, to be the one in a position of authority for a little bit.