I smile. “For what?”
“Uh…” he eyes the door. “For uh, getting dinner with me.”
“I made you take us out.” I can’t help but tease him a little. It’s too fun.
He rubs at his chest. “Well, it was nice. Anyway.”
“It was. We should do it again sometime.” His eyebrows shoot up and I grin. “As friends.”
“Right. Yes. Friends.” He nods and hits the table again. If he keeps manhandling the thing, it’s going to break in half. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at the station, or the soccer games. Wherever.”
“Yeah.” I purse my lips.
He stands.
“Hey Ward,” I say, and he turns back at me. “I like your smile.”
I bite back a smile of my own when the brooding fireman and ex-military hero blushes.
I’m running. And I’m dying. I should not have eaten mac ‘n cheese for lunch. But I didn’t have time to make anything else between all the orders I’ve been trying to complete the last two days.
“Make it stop,” I pant beside Maddie, who looks as if she’s flying like a beautiful gazelle over open plains.
“We can quit when we’ve made it a mile,” she says easily.
She tricked me. She told me to put Crew in the stroller and we’d go on a walk for donuts. But we are not engaged in the far superior sport of walking, and there are no donuts to be found. I’ve been duped.
On top of that, Crew has been screaming and threatening to jump out anytime I slow to a breathable pace. I had to bribe the kid with a show just to get in the stroller, and ever since, he’s been making demands like he’s King Tut.
“I hate this.” I grunt. I’ve got a side ache, and a foot ache, and everything ache.
“Stop being a baby. If you’re going to eat junk, you have to get some exercise so you don’t die before Crew graduates.” Maddie preaches the same lesson at least once a week.
Blah blah blah, you’re gonna die, blah blah blah.
It’s not like I eat ice cream for every meal. But I also think life, and food, is meant to be enjoyed. Maddie wouldn’t know, since she cut out chocolate and carbs in high school.
I try to roll my eyes, but that requires energy I don’t have. “If I have a heart attack now, it’s your fault.” She should have started me off with some basic physical fitness. Like yoga, or two-pound dumbbells. I am not an athlete. Clearly, I can’t even stay upright on bikes.
“We are almost done. If you would stop complaining, this would go a lot faster.”
“Faster, Mommy, faster!” Crew cheers from the stroller. At least someone is enjoying my pain.
After two more minutes, I’m positive Crew will be the one pushing me home in the stroller.
“That’s a mile,” Maddie announces.
I make it the two steps off the path before my body collapses onto the grass beside the trail. I pant at the sky. I see stars.
“You need to keep walking,” Maddie tells me, but I’m through listening to her. She’s the reason my body is shutting down right now. Her advice is officially worthless to me.
“I want to go fast again.” Crew kicks at the stroller.
I’d rather die.
“Stay here and breathe,” Maddie says before she takes off with Crew, pushing him at a much faster pace than we were previously going. It makes me sick just watching her.
No, wait.
