“So good to meet you, Megan. I’ve heard good things,” Theo says, extending a hand that Megan accepts with a happy cry.
“Oh, me too! And I love eating at Claudio’s!” She shivers, covering Theo’s fingers with her other hand. “You poor thing, you’re freezing. Do you want some gloves? I think I have a pair in my car. I can run back and get them.”
“No, thank you, I’m fine,” Theo says with a laugh. “My hands are always cold. Cutter spends half of his life warming them up.”
“Luckily, I enjoy my work,” I say, feeling weird standing here between my real love and my pretend one, but not as weird as I probably should feel.
Theo and Megan are both just so…nice. Looking back and forth between them, it’s obvious that they sincerely wish each other well, despite the fact that they’ve both slept with the same man, something I know from experience can make things fucking awkward.
If I knew Theo had slept with Zack, for example, I would want to smash his face in. And he’s my friend—has been since we were kids—not a stranger.
These women are better people than I’ll ever be. The realization makes me even more determined to be the best version of myself. As I said, Megan deserves that kind of man, the kind who will always put her needs first, even when he’d rather punch people and worry about the consequences later.
“Well, hopefully the run will warm you up,” Megan says, releasing Theo’s hand and glancing back at me. “So how long have you two been running with the club? I’ve missed the past few weeks. Beatrice was sick one Sunday, and by the next, I’d caught her stomach bug. This is going to be my first big run all month. I hope I’ll be able to keep up.”
“This is our first big run in years,” Theo confesses, laughing as she leans into me. “So we’re definitely going to be at the back of the pack. But we’re committed to getting healthy before summer so we can hike the Appalachian Trail when Cutter gets back from Europe.”
I nod even though hiking is also on my list of things I hate to do. I like walking if I’m doing it to get somewhere or sightseeing in the city. Random wandering around in nature is a waste of time better spent working up a sweat in the bedroom, not to mention an invitation to ticks just waiting to jump out of trees and give you Lyme disease.
But if my fake true love enjoys pointless nature wandering, then I do, too.
To prove it, I say something about shopping for backpacks and sleeping bags, but thankfully, the organizer calls for us to gather at the starting line before Megan can ask too many questions.
“Okay, see you guys at the finish,” she says, waving as she moves forward to join a group of friends. “Nice seeing you, Cutter, and so glad to meet you, Theo.”
I lift a hand, grinning as I nudge Theo in the ribs, waiting until Megan turns before I whisper beneath my breath, “We’re off to the races, princess.”
“Literally,” she whispers back, glancing around the crowd. “I hope I don’t come in dead last. That man has to be in his eighties, but his calves look way more serious than mine.”
“No, with Megan,” I say. “She bought that we’re a couple. That’s a solid start.”
“It is,” Theo says, nibbling her lip. “Solid enough for us to sneak away and skip the running part, you think? Now that I’m here and surrounded by fit people, I’m more intimated than I thought I’d be.”
“No way,” I scoff, stretching an arm across my chest. “We’re doing this. Maybe there will be a chance to chat with Megan again after the run. We won’t know if we bail like big babies.” I nudge Theo’s shoulder with mine. “You can do this. You’re in better shape than you think.”
She hums doubtfully, but when the lead runner shouts, “Sunday Fun Runners, go!” she bobs into a trot beside me. It doesn’t take long, however, to realize her much shorter legs are going to present a problem. Even running slow, it’s hard for me to match her pace.
“Go ahead,” she says, waving a hand. “I’ll catch up with you.”
“You sure?” I ask.
“I’m sure. I’ll do better if I don’t have to worry about slowing you down.” She smiles up at me. “And you can run ahead and watch Megan’s butt for inspiration.”
“Brilliant.” I laugh and reach out, ruffling her hair before I take off at a faster clip, weaving in and out of the runners ahead of me, scanning the crowd for a sign of the one who got away.
The one I’m determined to keep in my sights from here on out.
Chapter Seven
Theodora
It’s fine that Cutter ran ahead to get closer to Megan.
It’s perfect, in fact. That’s why we’re here, and feeling sad and abandoned is stupid, and I don’t enjoy being stupid.
Doing my best to banish the tight, irritable feeling, I concentrate on drawing in deep breaths of clean sea air and keeping pace with the stragglers at the back of the pack. Yes, the eighty-year-old guy passed me a while ago, but I’m still ahead of the soccer moms gossiping at the back of the group and the skinny guy with the red nose who looks like he might be fighting a nasty case of spring allergies.
I’m going to call that a win. With a genuine smile, I head up the hill through the park, determined to catch up with the next cluster of people before we reach the turn onto the riverbed trail.
One second, I’m chugging along, proud of my progress and wondering if maybe I might end up being a runner, after all. The next, I’m tripping over my own feet and going down hard.
And fast.
I cry out, arms flailing forward, but my reflexes are stunted by too little sleep and too little physical activity in way too long. Before I can reach out to catch myself, my chin smacks against the pavement.
The impact rattles my bones, and hot pain rips across my skin wherever it hits the ground. The taste of blood floods my mouth.
I moan, rolling over onto my side, each movement announcing another place where I’ve done myself damage. There’s a hole in the knee of my black leggings, and a bad case of road rash, filled with grit, peeks out from the ravaged fabric. Both my elbows ache, and the throbbing in my chin echoes an unhealthy pulse in my mouth, where I must have chomped my cheek on the way down.
I’m still sucking breath and fighting not to cry like a kid who took a fall off her skateboard when Cutter appears beside me, dropping to his knees on the pavement to rest a hand on my back.
“Shit, Squirt. What happened?”
“I fell,” I force out tightly, swiping my sleeve across my mouth. “Because I’m a klutz who sucks at existing.”
“No, you’re not. You’re just bad at tying your shoes,” Cutter says, shifting around to crouch by my feet and quickly and efficiently retie both sets of trailing laces. “Here, let me see your chin. Look up.”
I do, grimacing as the movement disturbs the gravel stuck in my torn skin.
“Yep, you messed yourself up pretty good, princess.” He gives my upper my arm a squeeze. “I don’t think you need stitches, but we should head to the emergency room just in case.”
“No, I don’t want to go to the emergency room.” I fight a fresh wave of tears. “I just want to go home, crawl in bed, and give up on being sporty for the rest of my life.”
“That sounds like a good plan, but let’s get your face checked out first. You don’t want a scar on your chin.”
I sniff. “I don’t care about my stupid chin.”
“Well, I do. I enjoy your pretty face just the way it is. So come on, up we go.” He slides his arms under my knees and around my back, and before I can insist that I’m fine he scoops me up off the ground and starts back the way we came.
I wrap my arms around his neck with a wince. “I can walk.”
“I think that’s debatable at this point.”
“Not funny,” I say, my voice thick.
“Kind of funny,” he counters with a smile. “Everyone falls down sometimes. Don’t be embarrassed. And I don’t mind carrying you. Gives me an excuse to skip weights today.”
“Well, at leas
t there’s that.” I glance over his shoulder to where the other runners are all disappearing down the trail leading into the dry riverbed. I scan the last few visible silhouettes, but none of them have blond hair or elegant long legs.
Megan is nowhere in sight, which means Cutter is being nice to me just...because.
Because he’s a decent guy.
And because he honestly wants to be my friend.
Before I realize what’s happening, tears are slipping down my cheeks.
“To be honest, I was going to skip weights, anyway, since someone got me up at the crack of dawn to—” He breaks off, pausing at the edge of the crosswalk leading into the park at the center of the town square. “Hey, there, are you crying? Shit, if it hurts that bad, we can call an ambulance, Theodora. Don’t be a fucking hero.”
“I’m not being a hero.” I swipe at my cheeks. “I’m being stupid. I just… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He glances up at the crosswalk signal and back at me, seeming to debate something. Finally, he sets me gently onto my feet and pulls his phone from his pocket.
“What are you doing? I don’t need an ambulance,” I insist. “Seriously, I—”
“I’m not calling an ambulance. I’m calling an Uber to get us back to your car faster. I’ll impress you with my muscle mass later.”
“I’m already impressed,” I say, sniffing. “I couldn’t carry you.”
“That’s because I’m not a delicate flower.”
I arch a brow but stop because it hurts to move my face. “I am not a delicate flower.”
“You are. Very delicate. Except for your boobs, but I’m not supposed to talk about those so pretend I didn’t say that.” He taps at his screen again and exhales. “Okay. Our driver is five minutes away. We’ll be back at the car and on our way to the hospital in fifteen minutes or less.” He rubs a careful hand up and down my upper arm. “So no more tears, okay? It’s going to be all right.”
“Thanks.” After a quiet moment, I add, “I think I’ve just been lonely. I mean, I see Bridget once a week or so, but my parents moved away, and Colette is in deep with Fernando, and my girlfriends from culinary school work crazy hours, too, and…” I sniff and do my best to shut up, but the words keep coming, proving I haven’t mastered the art of shutting up, after all. “And well, my friends are nice to me when we text, and in comments on social media and stuff, but it’s not the same as someone being nice to you in person.” I swipe at my nose with the back of my hand. “I just like to be with people in person. Is that so crazy?”
“No, it’s not. Not at all.” Cutter’s forehead relaxes and his green eyes—“slime green,” I vowed to call them when we were in high school and he was always on my last nerve—soften until he looks almost sweet. Almost. “I’m lonely, too, sometimes. Weirdly enough, it’s usually when I’m in bed with someone. Like in bed, in bed. Right in the middle of—”
“I get it,” I cut in before he shares the gory details. “But that’s not really weird, Cutter. Sex is supposed to mean something.”
“Is it?” He grins—crookedly, wickedly—but I’m not going to fall for the bad-boy act this time.
Cutter is a lot more emotionally aware than he lets on.
“I think so,” I say. “At the very least, you’re naked and vulnerable with another person. That should feel special. When it doesn’t, but you do it anyway, I imagine that would make you feel lonelier than if you’d just kept your clothes on in the first place, you know?”
He narrows his gaze, studying me so closely I start to wrinkle my nose, but stop because that hurts, too. “What?” I ask. “Do I have something on my face? Other than blood and gravel?”
“No, I just…” He shrugs and turns to scan the road. “It doesn’t matter. Where the fuck is this guy? The map said he was just around the corner.”
“Tell me,” I insist. “If we’re really going to be friends, we should be honest with each other, even if we don’t always agree.”
“I was just…” He takes a breath, chewing the corner of his full bottom lip before he asks with a disarming grin, “So what about us? That night. Was that special to you? Even a little bit?”
I hesitate, cursing my tired brain for getting me into a tricky situation. But like my mom always says, the truth might not always set you free, but at least you’re not throwing garbage out the window while you’re telling it. “That’s a hard question,” I finally answer. “What about you?”
“I asked you first.”
I cock my head, but he doesn’t look away or offer a way out. I peek back at the street, but there’s still no car pulling up to the curb. “In some ways, yes,” I say with a sigh. “In other ways…I didn’t allow it to be. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” he says, hesitating before he adds in a softer voice, “So in what way was it special?”
Before I can answer, a black Toyota Camry stops beside us, and the passenger side window buzzes down. “C. Comstock?”
Cutter looks past me, irritation flickering briefly in his gaze before he smiles and lifts a hand. “That’s us.” He steps off the curb to open the door before turning back and reaching out a hand. I take it and let him help me into the car, partly because I’m still feeling unsteady from my fall and party because it feels nice to have someone take care of me.
I’m always the one who looks after other people, who cooks for them and organizes group activities and brings them care packages and homemade birthday cakes and gently nags them if they aren’t taking care of themselves. Even with my mom and dad, I spent a lot of time in a parental role. They took care of the nurturing stuff, but as first-generation immigrants, there were times when I had to step in and help them over a language barrier with our landlord or the cooks at the restaurant or the man driving us to the airport to catch a plane to visit family in Mumbai.
Usually, all of that is fine with me. I like looking after the people I love. It makes me feel useful and happy. But I’m not usually so worn out or spending so much of my time alone, drooling in front of the television from midnight until two in the morning because I’m ramped up from the stress at work and too tired to do anything else.
It feels nice to have Cutter fuss over me as we transition from the Uber to my car and he drives me to the urgent care clinic by my parents’ old apartment building. Joking and chatting with him in the waiting room while we sip cups of nasty complimentary coffee is even nicer. By the time the doctor patches me up and assures me I should heal nicely with no scars, I’m feeling more content and relaxed than I have in longer than I can remember.
“Want to head back to my place and brainstorm our next steps over lunch?” I ask as Cutter and I step outside into the sun. “I’ll make you something yummy to thank you for the road rash rescue.”
“How about we pick up tacos on the way back to your place and watch a movie instead?” he suggests, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. “And maybe take a nap on the couch after? I could use some rest and taco therapy.”
“But what about your timetable?” I ask, letting Cutter take the driver’s seat even though I’m fine to drive. But he’s a good driver, and I’m enjoying not having to make decisions for once.
He shrugs. “We can afford to take an afternoon off. We made progress with Megan this morning, and you need to rest and heal up before you head back to work tomorrow.”
“Bleh, work.” I lean back in my seat as he pulls out of the urgent care parking lot. “I don’t want to think about that yet. Let’s think about tacos, instead.”
“Excellent idea. I prefer Taco Terror on Madison, but I’m open to suggestions.”
“Taco Terror is perfect. They have the best queso.”
Cutter makes a growling noise. “Hell, yes. I forgot about that. We’ll get two orders.”
“Three,” I insist. “I don’t always go overboard with queso, but when I do, I like to be really scandalous about it.”
He laughs. “Good. I like you scandalous.”
>
I narrow my eyes his way, but I don’t warn him to stay inside the lines. Teasing is part of his nature, and I’m starting to like Cutter au naturel more than I ever expected. He’s a mess, but he’s also a good friend to have by your side when the chips are down.
Or when you need some queso to dip them in.
We load up on so much Mexican food, we should be ashamed of ourselves, but we aren’t. We spend the rest of the afternoon happily gorging ourselves on my couch, watching back-to-back episodes of a creepy haunted house series we both missed when it came out last Halloween.
By five o’clock, Cutter is asleep on one side of my couch, and I’m nodding off on the other, my feet tangled with his under the fleece blanket we’re sharing and a part of me wishing we were spooning, instead.
It would be nice to be tucked against him, all cozy and safe in his arms.
But his arms aren’t safe. I’m happy to stop at snuggling, but Cutter isn’t a snuggle-and-done type of guy. If I give him an inch, he’ll take a mile, and I meant what I said when we started this—I’m not going to sleep with him. If I do, I know I’ll feel cheap and sad after, and I’m smart enough to head off those unwanted feelings at the pass.
As long as I stay smart, the next three weeks could be really fun. I enjoyed sharing the day with Cutter more than I ever thought I would, especially considering injury and a hospital visit were involved.
Yes, I think sleepily, everything is going to be all right. As long as I keep my head on straight.
But when I wake up with my head miraculously on Cutter’s chest and the cable receiver says it’s eight p.m., I don’t get up and show him to the door. I just snuggle closer to his yummy-smelling skin and go back to sleep, promising myself I’ll be strong tomorrow.
Tomorrow…
Or maybe the day after that…
Chapter Eight
Bang on Loosely Page 7