Page 20 of Of Pucking Course

“This episode always cracks me up.” He chuckles.

I look at the TV and see genius Sheldon and his neighbor Penny stretching before going on a run together.

“Yeah, I love this one,” I say, refocusing on the moment. I instantly feel guilty for quietly objectifying Sam as he sits next to me, watching my favorite show with me to get my mind off my ex.

He’d probably be horrified if he knew the thoughts I’m having about his body.

I think about earlier when I ran to the kitchen to check on him when I was wearing nothing but a towel. I wouldn’t normally do that, but I was scared that he was hurt and wanted to make sure he was okay.

I think about how eager he was to get away from me, how quickly he darted across the kitchen just to put space between us. And the abrupt way he said, “You should get dressed.”

He wasn’t a fan of seeing me half-naked. Not that I thought he’d be drooling over me…but in the back of my mind, I was hoping that Sam liked what he saw.

You’re his best friend’s little sister. He sees you as a friend, not some sex goddess.

A small flash of embarrassment washes over me. I don’t know why I even thought that in the first place.

Clearly, my head is all over the place after breaking up with Jake.

I focus back on the show. Penny makes a joke about how she jogs until she gets hungry, then stops for a doughnut. Sam and I laugh.

“I should try that at our next practice,” Sam says. “I’ll ask Coach Porter to let me leave early so I can get a bear claw. I bet that’ll go over well.”

“I can’t imagine eating something so heavy like a doughnut after running. I always feel terrible when I run.”

“I didn’t know you ran.”

“I don’t really.” A familiar wave of embarrassment hitsme as I pick at a piece of broccoli on my plate with my fork. “I mean, I used to be kind of into it, but I quit.”

“Why?”

I sigh. “I wasn’t very good at it.” And people made fun of me, and it made me never want to jog again.

“There’s no such thing as being bad at running,” Sam says with a bright smile on his face. “That’s the beauty of running. You go at your own pace, for as long as you want, whenever you want.”

I smile at the simple way he describes it. “Yeah, I guess.” I pop the broccoli in my mouth. “Would you believe I signed up to run a half-marathon in college?”

I brace myself for him to laugh out of sheer disbelief, but he doesn’t.

He just smiles. Because that’s Sam. A total sweetheart.

“That’s cool. How did it go?”

I let out an embarrassed laugh. “I didn’t end up doing it.”

“Why not?”

“Um, well, the guy I was dating at the time was a pretty serious runner, and he said I wasn’t progressing well in my training. We would jog together sometimes, and he said that I was taking too many walking breaks during my long runs. He said it would be a waste of time to do a half-marathon if I was just going to walk for half of it.”

Sam’s happy expression fades. He frowns like he’s pissed. “He said that to you?”

I nod. He rolls his eyes. “What a dick.”

I smile at how annoyed Sam sounds.

“I’m serious. He shouldn’t have said that to you, Dakota. There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks when you run. Or taking walking breaks during a half-marathon. Lots of people to do that.”

“You’re right. Looking back, I should have ignored him and just kept at it. But I was really self-conscious about my athletic ability.”

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