Two Hard

by Amy Brent

  “You should come out and watch sometime,” Linda said. “My cousin is competing in a race next week. He's been training for months. This is the first time he's going to an official event. It's a lot of fun to watch.”

  “I don't know,” Sharise said. “I'm not sure if that's my sort of thing.” She didn't even like going to football games or that sort of thing. An extreme race like this sounded like more than she could handle.

  “Well, think about it. My cousin always likes having a few extra people around to cheer him on.”

  “I'll see,” Sharise said. She had to admit that she was a bit curious, despite her reservations. It would certainly be a new experience.

  Linda kept asking her about it for the rest of the week, until Sharise finally decided that her curiosity had to be sated. It had developed into a sort of morbid curiosity. They headed down to the obstacle course on a cloudy Saturday afternoon. It was a bit chilly outside, and Sharise was bundled up in her jacket. There was a huge crowd of people there when they arrived. Some of them were runners, stretching and getting ready for the race. Others appeared to be coaches and assistants, helping the runners prep for the race. Then there was the crowd of friends, family members, and people just there to watch. Race officials moved through the crowd, registering the runners and giving them their numbers.

  Sharise mingled with Linda and her cousin for a little while, chatting and asking about what the race would be like. A good number of Linda's family members had shown up to show their support. Sharise hadn't met most of them before, but they turned out to be a fun group of people.

  Then, right before the race was about to start, she heard someone call out her name.

  She looked around, wondering who could possibly be there who knew her. She didn't have any friends who were involved in racing. She spotted a figure trotting towards her. When he got closer, she recognized that it was Ben.

  “Hey there, Doctor Sharise,” he said. He held out his hand and she shook it. He had a firm, strong grip that went well with his muscular physique.

  “Ben,” she said, giving him a concerned smile. “I didn't think you'd be here today. How's your leg?”

  He patted his leg, grinning at her. “Been doing fine. A bit of pain, but nothing I can't handle. I'm ready to run today. I'm pumped.”

  Sharise looked at his leg. It certainly looked fine, but the real damage had been on the inside. There was no way of knowing how well the bone had knitted together. “Did you have your doctor clear you for this? You could seriously hurt yourself.”

  “My doctor said it's okay. I'm not worried about it.” He grinned, stretching his back out and limbering up for the race. “I've been prepping for this for months. No way I'm sitting it out.”

  Sharise frowned in concern. There was nothing she could do about it, even if she thought it was a mistake. She wasn't Ben's regular doctor, and even if she were, all she could do was offer him advice. It was up to him if he wanted to risk his own health on such a foolish endeavor.

  “Just be careful out there,” she said. “If you feel any pain in that leg, you had better sit the race out. Respect your body's warning signs.”

  “Sure thing, Doc,” he said with a smirk. She could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't taking her seriously. He seemed like the type who liked to live dangerously, no matter what anyone else said.

  The runners were starting to line up. Sharise nodded to the lineup and said, “You'd better get going.”

  “Wish me luck,” Ben said. He winked at her, then jogged over to the starting line and joined the other racers.

  Sharise joined Linda and the other spectators while they waited for the race to start.

  The runners took off, and the race was quite a spectacle to watch. The runners trudged through a muddy field, then raced up a hill, before rappelling down a zip line and into the main obstacle course. Some of the runners slipped and fell on their faces when they trudged through the mud, but they picked themselves back up and kept on pushing through the race. During one leg of the race, the runners had to race across narrow wooden beams, and several slipped and fell off, landing on the muddy ground several feet below. They had to climb back up onto the beams and get back to their feet before they could keep running. Sharise felt her muscles aching just looking at it all.

  Towards the end of the race, the runners had to drop down onto their bellies and crawl under a line of wooden logs suspended low over the obstacle course. They trudged through the mud, slithering and pushing with their elbows and knees until they made it to the far end. There, they pushed back to their feet and started racing across the field, pumping their legs high to hop over wooden slats that covered the last hundred yards.

  When they were nearing the end, Ben and Linda's cousin were at the head of the line, pushing hard and leaving the other runners behind. Sharise leaned forward over the railing at the edge of the field, watching as they ran for the finish line. For a few moments, it looked like Ben was going to pull ahead. Sharise found herself rooting for him to win, and she clutched at the railing, tense, waiting to see how the race would end. But then his leg caught on one of the wooden hurdles and he fell over, landing hard across the wooden slats. He cried out in pain, his limbs tangled among the hurdles. One of the runners stopped to help Ben back up, while the others raced for the finish line.

  Linda's cousin took first place, to the cheering of his friends and family in the audience. While they were cheering, Sharise hurried over to check on Ben. Several people had carried him off to the side and set him down on the ground. He was clutching at his leg, his face scrunched up in a painful grimace. Sharise knelt by his side and started to look him over, trying to determine if he'd re-broken the leg. There was no sign of blood, but his skin was purple and bruised.

  “Lay down and hold still,” Sharise said. She asked one of the people helping her to take off his sweatshirt, and they bundled it up and shoved it under Ben's head. “How bad does it hurt?”

  “It's not too bad,” Ben said. His face was scrunched up in pain and he had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out. “I'll be okay.”

  “Stop trying to be so tough,” Sharise said. “You'll be lucky if this isn't broken again.”

  She gently prodded his leg, checking where it hurt. He winced in pain at her touch, but not badly enough for her to think that it was broken. “You'll need to get down to the hospital,” she told him. “I don't think it's broken, but you need to get an x-ray just to be sure.”

  “I'll be fine,” Ben said. He touched his leg against the ground, pressing down on it a bit. “It doesn't feel too bad.”

  “You really shouldn't put any weight on it. I'm serious. Don't make me get tough with you.” Sharise gave him her sternest glare, the one she reserved for the most troublesome patients. He'd already risked himself by going forward with the race despite his injury. She didn't want to see him putting himself at further risk just because of his own stubbornness.

  He grinned, his eyes lighting up, almost as if he enjoyed her getting tough with him. “Well, who am I to argue with the doctor.”

  They got some help carrying him to a car. One of his friends, who Sharise recognized from the day at the emergency room, got into the driver's seat. It took a bit of work to get Ben into the car without jarring his leg, but Sharise instructed the men with the same experience she had directing nurses in the emergency room. While they were loading Ben into the back seat, taking care not to jostle his leg too much, he looked up at Sharise and asked, “Are you going to be my doctor today?”

  She met his eyes. He looked eager, and Sharise got the feeling there was more to it than his trust in her medical expertise. She blushed, then nodded. “I'll follow in my car.”

  “I'll see you there.” He winked at her, then settled in for the ride.

  They drove down to the hospital. Sharise wasn't on duty, so she didn't get directly involved in Ben's treatment, but she did spend some time consulting with the physician on duty. They went over Ben's pr
evious history with his broken leg, and Sharise explained what she'd seen when the accident first happened. Ben was taken in for an x-ray. Sharise joined Ben in his room while the on duty doctor went over the results with him, and she was relieved when she saw that it was good news.

  “You're very lucky,” the doctor said. “The bone didn't break again, though you definitely put your leg through some unneeded stress. You really should still have your leg in a boot, and you definitely shouldn't have been running.”

  “But, Doc,” Ben said, grinning and leaning back with his hands cradled behind his head. “I almost took first place!”

  Sharise crossed her arms and glared at him. “Ben, this is serious. If you keep taking such risks with your health, you could wind up with an injury that will be a lot harder to recover from.”

  Ben laughed and shook his head. He nodded to the doctor and asked, “Do I have to stay here? Or am I free to go?”

  The doctor sighed and made a note on Ben's chart. “There's no reason to keep you here, but I recommend saying off that leg for at least a few more days. And I can prescribe you something for the pain.”

  “No thanks, Doc.” Ben climbed out of the bed, gently setting his leg down and putting weight on it. He winced in pain, but he powered through it. Sharise and the doctor shared a look. Both of them had seen patients like this plenty of times. Sometimes, there was nothing you could do when it came to dealing with a stubborn patient who didn't want to take advice, even when it was for their own good.

  Sharise discussed the situation with the doctor out in the hall for a few minutes while Ben got dressed and ready to go. When Ben emerged from the room, Sharise fell into step by his side. “At least let me get you a pair of crutches,” she said. “I don't want to see you back in the emergency room in a few days because you didn't take this situation seriously enough.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder, leaning slightly against her as they headed for the door. “You doctors worry too much. I've been running for years. I know how to work through the pain.”

  “You know how to get yourself hurt even worse, you mean,” Sharise said. “God, I just don't understand men sometimes.”

  “Men?” Ben paused in the hallway, arching an eyebrow at her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Isn't that a little bit sexist, Doc?”

  She crossed her arms, staring him down. “I've never seen a woman decide to act all macho and push herself like this because she was trying to prove something.”

  Ben laughed, shaking his head. He stepped back to let another patient walk past them, then stepped closer, looking down into her eyes. “Is that what you think? You think I'm being macho?”

  “How else do you explain why you'd try to run that obstacle course? Especially on a wounded leg. There's no reason to do something like that unless you're trying to prove something.”

  Ben laughed again. “Maybe. Maybe you're right. But I don't think I have anything to prove.”

  “Then why do it?”

  He pursed his lips, thinking it over. “Maybe because I like the challenge. It doesn't matter whether I win or lose, so I'm not trying to prove anything. But I have to at least try.”

  “Why?”

  He looked her right in the eye, a sly grin spreading across his face. “Because if I never tried, I wouldn't know what my limits are.”

  Sharise frowned, studying the look on his face. He certainly seemed serious. She sighed. “Well, I guess some of us don't feel the need to push ourselves quite that hard. You'd better be careful, or one day, you'll end up going over your limits, and then you'll be in a lot of trouble.”

  He leaned forward, bracing his hands against the wall on either side of her head. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. She swallowed a lump in her throat, trembling. “Maybe you should start learning to take some risks, Sharise.”

  She licked her lips. “I think I'm fine the way I am, thanks.”

  He chuckled and reached out to caress her cheek. “So, you never take chances?”

  “Not with my health, no.”

  “What about with your heart?”

  She blinked, taken off-guard by the unexpected question. The truth was, she hadn't taken any risks with her heart in years. She hadn't dated for most of the time she was in medical school, and she had been too busy since she started working in the emergency room to really think about romance.

  Ben stared into her eyes, waiting for an answer. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I guess there's some risks that are worth taking.”

  “Good,” Ben said. “That means you'll have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

  Her jaw dropped open. “What? But I hardly know you.”

  “That's what dinner is for.” He took both of her hands in his, giving them a light squeeze. “A chance to talk. To get to know each other better. To find out if there's any risks we might want to take together.”

  Sharise's breath felt tight in her throat. She didn't know what to say. She felt like he'd cornered her, and there was no way she could say no. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to say no. He was certainly an attractive man. Though she normally didn't go for the athletic type. She preferred an intellectual man. A man who liked to read.

  But then, she realized she wasn't being fair to him. Just because he was into sports, that didn't mean he wasn't also intelligent. There was something to be said about his idea of taking risks with her feelings. Maybe she owed it to herself to give him a chance.

  “All right,” she said, a shy smile on her lips. “You've got yourself a deal.”

  “Good.” He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Give me your number. I'll come by tomorrow night to pick you up.”

  She gave him her phone number, part of her wondering if this was a good idea. But she realized that she had to take the chance. She would never find romance or happiness if she always played it safe. Just because she wasn't into extreme sports didn't mean she couldn't handle a little excitement and uncertainty in her life.

  Ben showed up at Sharise's house the next day in an expensive sports car. A very expensive one. She couldn't be sure of the price tag without looking it up on her phone, but she was sure that the car must have cost him at least six figures. It made her wonder what he did for a living and how well-off he was. So far, all she knew about him was that he like to run in the mud. But surely there must have been more to him than that.

  She met him at the door, wearing a midnight blue dress that accentuated her ample curves and complemented her dark skin tone. He was dressed in pressed black pants and a silk shirt with a few buttons undone at the top. He was handsome in a casual, uncaring way. Though she suspected that he had put a lot of time into making it look like he hadn't put any time into his appearance.

  He took her hand and kissed it. “You look lovely,” he said. “I hope you like Italian. I know a wonderful little place.”

  “I could go for some Italian,” she said, heading out the door with him. She had the feeling he wasn't going to be taking her someplace as quaint as Olive Garden.

  They drove over the bridge into Philadelphia, then navigated through the city streets until they reached a restaurant that was built into the ground floor of an elegant hotel. Ben pulled his car right up to the front door, where a man in a valet's uniform waited to open the door for Sharise. He helped her out of the car, then circled around to the driver's side. Ben shook the man's hand and whispered to him before he got in, and Sharise caught a glimpse of him pressing something into the valet's palm. A sizable tip, she was certain.

  “You really go all out,” she said as Ben took her arm and led her inside. She immediately felt under-dressed. The waiters were dressed in tuxedos, and even the hostess was wearing a more expensive dress than Sharise's.

  “I believe in living a life of extremes,” Ben said. “I don't like doing anything if it's only going to be an average experience.”

  As the hostess sat them at their table, Sharise asked, “Does that include me?” She had never thought
of herself as anything more than average. The only thing she felt like she excelled at was her job, and that was what she devoted the majority of her attention to.

  “If I didn't know you were a woman who is above and beyond, I never would have asked you out.”

  Sharise hid her blush behind her menu. She noticed the menu didn't even have any prices on it. Apparently, this was the sort of place that only catered to people who didn't care about how expensive things were.

  “So, tell me about yourself,” she said as she looked over the menu. “What do you do when you're not breaking your leg in the mud?”

  He laughed. “Well, the old man owns the hotel chain,” he said. “I'm on the board, though I only show up for the big meetings.”

  “Owns the hotel?” Sharise asked. She looked around the restaurant and out the door into the hotel lobby beyond. “You mean this hotel?”

  Ben smirked as he unfolded his napkin and set it into his lap. “Among others, yes. Though I don't get involved much in the day-to-day affairs. Sitting around the board room talking about stock and investors and market trends bores the hell out of me.”

  “Not 'extreme' enough?”

  “Not by a long shot.” He winked at her, and she felt her face heating up.

  They chatted while they ate a meal that probably cost enough to pay Sharise's mortgage for a month. For awhile, Ben kept talking about sports. In addition to his obstacle course racing, she learned that he enjoyed mountain climbing, white water rafting, and snowboarding. He was a real sports nut. And it didn't end with the sports he took part in himself.

  “So, who do you like for the Superbowl?” he asked, after a long tirade about his opinions on the recent NFL draft picks.

  “I don't pay much attention to it,” Sharise said. “I'd rather sit at home with a good book.”

  “Ahh, excellent,” Ben said. “What was the last thing you read?”