He nods solemnly, sweat making a halo around his hairline now. “I owe a lot of favors to a lot of creatures.”
We hit the half-mile mark, and for a moment, the conversation slows. I wonder what Asher’s really thinking, if he finds these “set-up” dates as artificial as I do. Our publicists and the studio coordinated this, but maybe there’s some cosmic law that all fake relationships must start with a bit of real chemistry.
By lap three, our breathing is heavier, but not desperate. I feel looser, more myself. Even my shoes feel better.
“What do you hate in people?” he asks, and it’s so blunt I almost trip.
“People who don’t love cats,” I say, “and people who make fun of waiters.”
He laughs, but not at me. “Cats, huh?”
“I have convictions and cats are magical,” I say, and for a moment I think about the thousand pettily selfish things I see every day in this city. I could have rattled off a hundred more.
“Your turn,” he prompts, and I don’t even have to think about it.
“What’s your worst injury?”
He’s quiet for three steps. “Not counting the time I cracked my skull on a dock, or the time I almost lost a thumb to a mandoline slicer?”
I shake my head. “Those are boring.”
He slows slightly, enough for us to jog side by side instead of in front-back formation. “Honestly? The first time I realized I couldn’t go home again. That I’d changed more than the people I grew up with, and that if I went back, they’d just stare at me like a science experiment.” He doesn’t look at me, just at the hedges as we pass. It is more than I expected, and I like it.
We keep going. The running, the rhythm, it works better than any therapy appointment I’ve ever had.
By lap five, there’s a commotion ahead. Two men with long-lensed Nikons are pretending to photograph the flower beds, but they adjust their positions every time we get near. I glance atAsher; he doesn’t break stride, but rolls his eyes like, “Here we go.”
He leans in and whispers, “I’ll race you to the bench. Loser has to give the first fake quote.”
Now it’s on. I sprint, and we both laugh, and the sound of shutters clicking is momentarily drowned out by how happy I am to be running, to be entirely in my body, to be seen by someone who’s seen all this before.
I collapse onto the bench first, but he’s just behind me, hands on his knees, grinning despite the chaos. The paps edge closer, one even calls out, “Is it love, you two? Are you training for a rom-com?”
“Give them a show,” I say, and Asher reaches over and slings an arm around my shoulder, mugging for the cameras with a hundred-watt smile. It’s a little cheesy, but it’s also him, and for the first time, I don’t feel like I’m faking anything.
The photographers hover, unsure if we’ll say more. Asher just pulls me in tighter and says, “No comment, unless you want to sponsor my next 5k.”
I snort. The men leave, satisfied, and Asher looks at me, his face more serious now.
“You’re good at this,” he says, meaning the acting, or maybe the running, or perhaps just proximity to madness. “Better than you think.”
I shrug. I want to tell Asher that I had to be. That, for girls like me, being good at it was the only ticket out.
Instead, I say, “You too. And hey, you won the race.”
He laughs. “Technically, you did, but now you have to buy me brunch.”
The run back to the cars is lighter. I’m not sure where the morning went, but somewhere between laps, I stopped dreading the date and started wanting it to last longer.
At the parking lot, he opens the door to his car, a battered Jeep that is not what I’d expect from someone so high up the tax bracket. I realize I’m stalling when I linger at my own car, watching him stretch his hamstrings through the window.
He rolls down the glass. “Do you, uh, want to go somewhere cool?” There’s a pause. “Like, eat actual food, not just Instagram about it?”
I nod, just once. “Yes,” I say, and peel off the parking brake. “Lead the way.”
He drives like he runs, aggressive but careful, making a show of every stop sign. I follow him twenty minutes out to the coast, to a fish taco joint that looks like it’s one permit violation away from being closed forever. He gets out and holds the door open for me, even though it’s one of those that weighs fifty pounds and swings back on your knees if you’re not fast enough. The inside smells like cilantro and chlorine and the ocean, and I realize I’m starving.
We sit at a booth with a view of the water, far enough away from the bar that nobody cares who we are.
