Running Hot

by Rachel Hanna

  "Rory – " she started.

  "Wait," I said. Because I'd heard something. And the cabins were far enough off the road from Auburn that to hear something, it had to be coming this way.

  "What?"

  I felt a smile starting up on my face. "I may not have lost the prize just yet," I said, wondering even as I did so what I meant. It wasn't like he was mine to keep. Or like I even wanted to keep him.

  Of course.

  I was just fine the way I was. Hadn't I said that all along?

  "Mel? Gotta go. I'll call you back."

  "You're safe, right?" she said, fast so I wouldn't hang up on her.

  "He's a fireman," I said, and hung up.

  * * *

  He climbed out of the truck looking like a god. He'd showered before leaving, apparently, because he was free of charcoal smudges and now wearing a very tight dark blue t-shirt with cargo shorts, which showed off the very end of very, very built quads and bunchy, vein-covered calves.

  He was carrying two bags, and he stopped when he saw me sitting in the doorway. "How tired are your legs? Help me carry?"

  I slid back up the doorframe, pocketed my phone, and went out to meet him. Before I got close he put the bags on the gravel and held his arms out. I walked directly into them.

  He was sun warm and smelled of the cheap soap in the cabin and of clean t-shirt. He leaned down and kissed me and I felt a flutter of want mixed with a flutter of doubt. This kind of greeting happened some distance into a relationship. Not first day.

  And then I stopped caring.

  "You brought food." My mouth watered, even more than it had when I looked at him.

  He winked. "Better. I brought carbohydrates."

  * * *

  He'd gone to Olive Garden. Cheap, plentiful, carb-laden. Spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccine, bread sticks, salad which I had no interest in, chicken which I thought I might want later, soda and beer.

  "Beer?"

  "Some runners swear by it." He toasted my soda with his beer.

  We ate at the tiny old kitchen table, and we talked about the race, the fires, the day, the cabin, my legs, the drive, our earlier encounters with each other, who I'd called, his drive to get food, and the cabin itself.

  Everything from the day itself. The only shared story we had.

  Nothing of our pasts.

  The sun would be up for hours. Midsummer, glorious and warm in the woods. Cody talked me into something I'd never have expected anyone to accomplish: after dinner, he convinced me to go for a walk.

  "It'll loosen your legs up," he said, that prize-winning smile on the only slightly smirky mouth. "They'll feel better." He held a hand out, very gentlemanly unless one took into account what he was suggesting would likely kill me.

  "It'll cause my feet to detonate and fall off," I said, my own smile in place as I shook my head nonstop. "They'll feel much better once they're removed, but walking afterwards will be tricky."

  But I put my hand in his and he used it to pull me to my feet and over to the door. "Look, you can't let all that go to waste."

  There were butterflies in the clearing, flying about chest height. They looked sun drunk, just gliding on a breeze so light I couldn't feel it. Pollen or dust or something sparkled in the air like fairy dust, and the green of the woods was lit by the western-slanting sun. Everything looked magical and I let him lead me out of the cabin, hand in hand, up a trail in the woods that was mercifully flat, wandering for maybe twenty minutes before we found a tiny lake, surrounded by stones, maybe manmade but no less lovely for that. I took off my shoes promptly and sat in some of the now deeply slanting rays of sun, dangling my feet in the water.

  "Now don't you feel better?" he asked.

  We talked, not staying there long, but long enough to exchange some very surface information. About my training, not my decision to train or why I'd chosen the race, not about what it represented or how not finishing left me feeling ill at ease and a little at risk. No, we talked about food and training runs and weights training and shoes, about qualifying races and distances and possible insanity that made me splash him with water that was growing more chilled as the day eased away.

  And he in turn told me about how they fought fires like the one I'd barely skirted, and how he'd trained and I already knew about his decision to become a firefighter but it didn't go any deeper, there was no emotion there, just facts. The grandmother, the grandfather, the decision, the reality.

  For two people who had slept together, we were farther apart than we'd been when he was telling me I didn't have a right to gallivant all over the mountain and put forest and people at risk.

  I told myself I didn't mind. I was going home tomorrow, back to my real life, to my job in the running store where I had time to train and no responsibility past my shift. I'd see Melody, we'd have chicken wings at Scruples, and I'd decide whether to keep training, scale back and just run until another race caught my eye, or try to stay at this insane level.

  By the time I got through with my pep talk, we were back at the cabin, the light gone from the sky but the time only nine o'clock and the sleep I'd already had left me not sleepy enough yet. We found books on the artfully decrepit bookshelves and read, watched the original Taken with Liam Neeson, one of the movies trustingly left in the cabin. We tried playing Scrabble and discovered we both sucked.

  At midnight we went to bed.

  "When's your bus tomorrow?" he asked.

  "Eleven a.m. I can – "

  "Walk, yes, I know." He smirked at me, climbing into the bed beside me, running one finger down my nose, which stung. "You got sunburned."

  "And burned. And I met a very hot – "

  "Do shut up."

  "Very smolderingly – "

  "I said – "

  "Make me."

  "Oh, I can shut you up," he said. His eyes were dark, deeply blue in the light from the bedside table.

  "All talk," I accused, and his mouth came down over mine, very hot, his tongue very insistent, and his hands followed, roaming my body, pulling the t-shirt over my head with no hesitation. His mouth roamed down my shoulders and chest, then, finding my breasts, licking and biting and sucking until I arched against him, wanting him everywhere, wanting his hands and mouth to never stop and wanting him to stop and get down to the rest of the business now, please, right now.

  His mouth on mine again, my hands fumbling with the t-shirt and boxers he wore, forcing them down and off, rubbing and pressing him against me and pulling back so I could feel him in my hands again, silken and smooth and so hard.

  It was faster this time, the way we came together, the way he pulled me to him and slid inside, and slower too, the way he held me and we surged together, taking it slow, sure this was the last time and wanting to make it last.

  Chills went through me, pleasure so deep it ached in my throat, and when I came, it was like ripples spreading out over and over from my core, filling me up with the light from the lake and the sun from the race and the last 48 hours and all the future opening to me.

  I felt Cody arch against me at the same time, and the pleasure just intensified, a heavy buzz in my limbs, a sparkling effervescence of feeling that I came down from slowly, weak in his arms, happy to nestle warm against him. He reached one long, tan arm around me to turn off the light and then there was nothing in the cabin but moonlight and the feel of a stranger's arms keeping me warm, content and safe.

  Chapter 7

  So it was over. It was Monday morning. The sky was blue, my legs were unbelievably stiff, the burns were trying to get hard and therefore cracking open if I did anything insane, like breathing. But I showered, and gingerly used a burn cream this time, and they felt better. There was leftover pasta for breakfast, which I heated while Cody showered, and when he came out, we mumbled good morning and danced around each other in the tiny kitchen end of the living room, serving up pasta, me making coffee, the two of us eating hastily as if speed eating could drive out the need to talk.
<
br />   It had been lovely.

  I texted Melody who said she'd expect another text from me when the bus pulled into Squaw where my car was. For some reason that was going to be long after I could have gotten there driving. Apparently bus services run outside normal accepted time.

  "I can walk to the bus stop," I said, as we locked the cabin, leaving the key in the doorknob as instructed. I had my backpack, my running shoes, my common sense, my phone, and directions I would instantly screw up, but Cody didn't know that.

  "No, you can't," he said, relieving me of the backpack and putting it in the truck. "Your legs are so sore I've seen them tighten up and rock you off balance. Twice. And you'll get lost."

  I started to protest.

  "You'll get lost. In the woods."

  "There are no woods between here and – "

  "You'll get lost, in the woods, and you'll find a fire." He was grinning.

  I scowled. "I will not get lost. It's a straight shot down the highway, not through – "

  "And having found the fire you'll think you know what to do – "

  "Call for help," I said, holding up my phone. He ignored that.

  "And you'll try to put the fire out – "

  "I'm not insane – "

  "And you'll have to wait for the, what did you call me?" His eyes were dancing.

  I sighed. "Smug? Insufferable?"

  "Smoldering, I believe it was?"

  "Heat of the moment," I said.

  "Mm." He pulled me to him one armed, tucking me against his body, and kissed me. "Come on, I'm driving you."

  * * *

  He turned left instead of right at the end of the road that led through the trees to the cabin.

  I would have gotten lost.

  * * *

  The bus station was farther than I thought from the cabin. My feet would have exploded after all.

  * * *

  The radio played classic rock. David Bowie, being awesome. The Eagles being The Eagles. Elton John, which made me turn it off.

  The directions had said three miles. I'd mapped it, and gotten the name of a cab service just in case.

  …we should be there by now, shouldn't we?

  "Aren't we … isn't it … I thought it was closer?" I hazarded.

  Cody smiled. "Told you you'd get lost."

  That was enough to shut me up for another couple miles. By which time we'd run out of Auburn and were taking the freeway entrance, I-80 winding up the mountain and through trees and beside the great rock walls that delineated Auburn from other parts of California, the you-are-here I always looked for.

  "Wait!" I said. "You've missed – "

  "The point?"

  I stared at him. "What?"

  He shook his head. "Relax. Ninety minutes tops. Your car. Buses suck."

  I just kept staring.

  "Unless I've scared you." He didn't sound like he was kidding.

  I had never been less scared of anyone, and I knew scared.

  We drove into the woods. Via freeway.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes into the drive, Cody turned the music down. I had no idea what we'd been listening to. Something with a lot of base. My mind had been elsewhere, my attention turned, unseeing, out the window.

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  He didn't at first. He thought about whatever he was going to ask, looking out at the road ahead. Sunlight through the trees lit and shadowed him. I loved the shadows on his face, the square jaw, the chiseled cheekbones.

  I'd almost gone back to my thoughts – I don't want to lose him, don't be needy, you just met him, are you crazy? Repeat – when he spoke again.

  "That race?"

  I nodded.

  "Yesterday?"

  I nodded again. Only race he knew of with me in it. And yes, yesterday, even though it all seemed to have taken on more time.

  "It was more than just a race. Wasn't it?"

  There was something hesitant in his voice. This wasn't the Cody who smirked. This wasn't the Cody trying to tell me what to do or that he already knew what I'd do, how lost I'd get, how incapable I was, how stupid and nonsensical, none of which he'd said, he'd only teased.

  The rest I'd gotten to on my own.

  I hadn't told anyone I was training until right before the race. I didn't have anyone to celebrate with because I hadn't asked anyone to go with me, to crew or to meet after, not even Melody, who knew enough of the story to figure out the race.

  Cody was a mix of intimate and stranger. He'd asked, and he cared enough to ask carefully.

  I took a breath. "Stop me when you don't want to hear anymore, OK?"

  He shrugged, eyes on the road, giving me the freedom to talk.

  * * *

  I met Jason when I was twenty two, just about to graduate with my undergrad degree in advertising. He worked at the agency I interned with my last semester. He was intimidating, the kind of guy my college crushes were built around. I'd dated frat boys and fellow students, had one serious boyfriend for about a year before he transferred from UNR to UNLV and discovered there were other girls in the world and even in the state of Nevada. Jason was my first adult relationship, because he was out of college, five years older, having been in the advertising community for four years. Black hair, nearly black eyes, very in shape but not really muscled up, just pretty, just tall and slim and athletic and older and sophisticated. I'd been able to buy wine for a year; he knew labels and what a good year meant. I'd been voting for four years; he had research and opinions and was part of an organized voters group. I drove a third or fourth hand Honda that smoked; he leased a Prius. I had no credit; he had too much. And so on, and so forth, it was like graduating early, being accepted into a club I hadn't known I wanted into. When we went out together, I didn't feel the same as heading to pizza with a senior undergrad, it was Lake Tahoe and bistros and wine and he ordered for me.

  Which was the start of everything, really. He ordered for me. Sometimes he ordered me things like snails, and when I stopped the waiter and asked what Jason had just said, Jason became cold and – still, like he was holding his breath and I should be holding mine, too. He held my hand on the booth seat, very hard, under the tablecloth where the waiter couldn't see, and I didn't understand what was happening. I wriggled my hand in his, distracted, listened to the waiter tell me Jason had ordered snails, and I said no, I'd rather have something else, maybe roast beef, or lemon chicken, and Jason? Are you OK?

  He smiled at the waiter through gritted teeth and I saw the man hesitate, but in the end, he went away, and brought us both snails and me a separate plate with lemon chicken, and the bill only read one plate of snails. He was trying, you see; he'd seen something was wrong and he was doing the only thing I guess he could have thought of.

  Maybe it was. Because if he'd pressed it, I wouldn't have understood. I was new to the relationship with Jason. I had no idea why he was squeezing my hand like that.

  It was a one-off. After dinner we walked around down by the lake and everything was fine. I thought. We drove home and I spent the night, I hadn't moved in with him yet, he hadn't proposed, I could have never –

  Sorry. Do you want me to stop? …OK.

  That night I stayed over. I had an apartment with Melody and her sister, Kaya. We all three had jobs, we could afford a nice place, three bedroom, two and a half bath, spacious kitchen with stainless steel appliances.

  I'm stalling. Jason asked me to stay. I stayed. And that night he hurt me. Not that I really understood that, either. It was all so slow. The way it built. Dinner was hours in the past, I wasn't thinking about snails when I got into bed with him, I was thinking about us, about being there with him and he – he hurt me. He was rough. He didn't stop. He had a lot of endurance.

  Do you want me to stop?

  No, I'm OK. It's not like I've forgotten any of it.

  There isn't much else, really. It was a pattern. It was mostly control. Keeping me from my friends, keeping me from
my family. He supported me so much in not reaching out to family, my mother isn't easy to get along with, she's brusque and mad a lot and I avoid her and he facilitated that, right up until I wasn't seeing her. At all. Ever. Or my father, who's under her thumb. Jason supported my independence. No more family. No more making nice.

  No more support.

  He didn't count on Melody. She never backed down. She never pulled her verbal punches by the time Jason stopped pulling his physical punches. Eventually I lost my job, and after that when my car stopped running he kept saying with me not working we couldn't afford to get it fixed. We lived twenty miles outside Reno in the North Valleys, so there was no bus, no cabs. Just me, home, every day. Waiting.

  "What changed?" Cody asked when I'd fallen silent, my throat aching and my eyes dry.

  "What?" It felt like I was coming back from a long distance away.

  "Something changed. Something made you do something. What was it?"

  I blinked, catching up. Licked my dry lips. Then I laughed. "I started running. You have to understand, by then I had no self-esteem. I didn't bother with makeup or my hair, I didn't care if I went anywhere. I dressed up when he told me and I tried to stay under his radar. I kept the house and I weathered his storms and I tried not to set him off, until trying not to set him off set him off."

  A quick glance from Cody. I thought he got it.

  I explained anyway.

  "He didn't like me fightless. He didn't like me just giving in. I wasn't a challenge. He'd beaten me. Now he was stuck with – nothing."

  "No," Cody said, low and fierce. He reached over to take my hand in his, squeezed it, seemed to realize what he'd done, remembering the start of the story, and pulled back. I didn't let go, but held on to his hand on the seat.

  "I started running when he was at work. We were so separate from the neighbors, they had no idea what was going on, so if anyone had thought to report his runaway wife, so to speak, well, they wouldn't. It really was that simple. I started running, the first few times I could get about a block. Then farther, and then farther, and then I was going up the foothills, hiking, then running the motorcycle trails, and it wasn't just that I was losing weight and feeling better, that I showered after running and so was presenting a more together Rory. It was that I could do this on my own two feet, I could go up a foothill on foot, no matter how steep, and then I could run up it, and where we lived, we were at five thousand feet. It felt good to get back in shape. I started getting confidence."