Iawake to a gentle kiss on my forehead and the feeling of Andrew’s arms pulling me toward him.Can this be my alarm clock every day?
I open my eyes to see his wonderful smiling face and his chiseled bare chest.Ahhh, I could get used to this.
“Good morning, sunshine.” He smiles.
“What time is it?” I ask him, trying to copy and paste this moment into my memory.Who knows when I will have a morning like this again?
“It’s 8. I’m meeting Brendan to lift at 10:30. I figured you might want to go for a short run and then make some breakfast before you go home.”
What did I ever do to deserve him?I finally begin to wake up enough to assess our surroundings. His laptop is lying on the bed next to him. I point to it. “What’s that for?”
He shrugs casually. “I had a little inspiration early this morning, so I wrote things down while the ideas were fresh.”
I smile and kiss him on the cheek. “My little writer.”
“Hey, I’m not little!” He crosses his arms. “I’m almost six-three.”
“You’re right. My big writer?” I give him a questioning look, and he nods in approval.
“We should get out the door. I need an hour to let my food settle before I go lift.”
“Roger that! Let me get changed.” I grab my running clothes from where they got thrown onto the floor last night.
He slips on a shirt, and I sigh a little in disappointment. He must see the look of despair on my face because he laughs. “Don’t worry, you’ll see me like this again soon.” He kisses me on the cheek while I pull my hair into a ponytail. “Ready?”
I slip on my shoes quickly and strap on my watch. “Yeah, let’s go. We can just do three miles today. I’m craving pancakes this morning, and I want some time to make them.”
“Pancakes, huh?”
“Wait, do you have blueberries?”
“Yeah…” He gives me a weird look.
“Then yes. Let’s make pancakes.”
He smiles and guides me out the door. We cut across the lawn, and we wait a couple of houses down for my watch to load. I can’t risk my parents somehow seeing that I am just now leaving for a run. One can never be too cautious.
The run is short and sweet. Andrew seems in a good mood this morning, being extra affectionate and smiley.
He somehow pulls me into a game of would you rather, but when he brings up college in one of his questions, I become distracted. I keep thinking of Dani’s insistence that we talk sooner rather than later about how Andrew and I are going to handle being so far away from each other in a matter of weeks. It makes my stomach turn sour. I know we should have the discussion, but I’m afraid of messing things up. Everything is going so great now.
Andrew still seems pretty chipper, but his smile falters once as he asks, “Are you okay? You just completely zoned out on mylast question.”
“Yeah.” I shake it off. “I was just thinking about the race and whether we will be ready for all those obstacles and mud. Do you think we should be elevating our training somehow? You know, army crawling in the middle of our run and stuff?”
He gives me an astonished look as if I’ve lost it. Maybe I have, but I wish he wouldn’t think so too. “I think we will be fine. It’s not like we are racing for a time. We already established this is supposed to be for fun, not a competitive race. I thought you were trying to get away from that?”
I sigh. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just like to be prepared.”
His rising smile nearly cracks me open, ready to profess everything that’s on my mind. “I know you do. That’s one of the things I adore about you.”
Before I can start a conversation I’m not ready to have, I spit out, “We’re almost back. I’ll race you home!” By the time the last word is out of my mouth, I’m off at a dead sprint toward his house.
I peek over my shoulder to find Andrew right on my tail. I speed up until I’m sprinting as fast as I can for the last one hundred meters back to his house. Naturally, I cut across the yard again to the front porch and then raise my hands to cradle my head while I catch my breath.
Andrew follows along one second later, doing the same. “That wassonot fair! You had already taken off before you even said anything about racing.”
I shrink back and give my best ‘I’m sorry’ look. It seems good enough for him because he wraps his arms around my shoulders and brings me in for a hug before opening the door and walking us into the kitchen.
