Page 28 of Keeping the Single Dad
Alexander
Painblazedrightbetweenmy shoulder blades. I rolled my shoulders but it did little to soothe the ache. The match yesterday had taken it out of me. I strode through the labyrinth of corridors on the ground floor of the training suite, heading toward the physio. As I rounded the corner, a solid body bashed straight into me. Lana. Her workout clothes hugged her temping athletic physique. Her auburn hair tumbled carelessly down her back – a flowing cascade of autumn leaves.
Beautiful.
Swelling and a fresh purple bruise marred her right eye.
“What happened to your eye?”
She met my look of concern with a brutal and unfriendly stare.
“Fuck you.” She dodged past me.
Baffled, I watched her storm down the corridor. “Excuse me?”
She paused, swiveled around and stomped back to me, wagging her finger in the air. “Actually. No. You shouldn’t get away with this so easily.” She ripped out the words impatiently. “You need to know what a prick you are.”??
My confusion deepened. “I’m sorry?”
Hands on her hips, she planted herself in front of me. Her glare burned through me. “I’m onto you. You should be ashamed of yourself. I sat next to your girlfriend in the stadium, yesterday. You have a kid, for God’s sake. I asked you if you were single. You’re a liar.”
The stadium? She must have meant Rachel. I held up my hands in surrender. “No. You’ve got it wrong. My sister took Brodie to watch me yesterday. That’s why I moved down here to England. I wanted Brodie to be with his cousins. I told you the truth about being single. My wife…passed away…five years ago.”
?My throat burned to talk about it so casually. Sometimes, five years felt like an eternity, sometimes, it felt like five minutes. That was the thing with grief. Time moved on but the pain didn’t lessen. More and more shit just piled up in your life, so you had less time to think about how much your heart ached.
She regarded me with a speculative gaze, searching for the truth in my words. “So, when you said you hadn’t…for five years...” Lana’s face clouded with uneasiness. “Look, I’m sorry. When I saw your son, I assumed…I got it wrong…I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”
She smiled tentatively. Her pretty eyes glimmered with the light spilling in from the tall windows that lined the corridor. Her vitality and confidence was so captivating. She stood tall and proud, as though she had an absolute certainty of who she was and her rightful place in the universe. I hadn’t been so self-possessed at that age.
“I can see why you would have thought that about Rachel.” My gaze drifted back to her bruised eye. “You didn’t tell me what happened to your face.”
“It was nothing.” Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “I should go. I have to run laps.” She lifted her chin and boldly met my eyes. “You can keep me company. I always run better with a buddy.”
No. Bad idea. Terrible idea.
My heartbeat throbbed in my ears. There were so many reasons not to spend time with Lana. People would talk about us. But sometimes I caught her looking so sad. Did she have anyone else to talk to?
The silence thickened, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to…”
“It depends. Are you going to be Lana or Mel?”
Her lip twitched. “Lana. Although, you’d have more fun watching Mel run. The vibe is three-legged gazelle on a tightrope.”
Amusement rose in my chest. “That’s quite an image.”
She stepped closer. An unwelcome surge of excitement coursed through me. “It’s a fact. They should put her in a nature documentary.” There was a trace of laughter in her voice. “She’s high maintenance and impossible to please. Just wanted to give you a heads-up in case you were thinking of asking her out. I wouldn’t waste your time.”
“Jealous?”
Her pretty eyes widened with faux-innocence. “Me? Never.”
She leaned lightly into me and her sweet lemony scent filled my nose. Her smile was so seductive and becoming. Was she flirting with me on purpose or was she like this with everyone? Did she even know the effect she had on people?
“I’m not thinking of asking your sister out.”
She pulled her long hair into a ponytail. A faint light twinkled in the depths of her eyes. “Good. Now, let’s see if you can keep up with me…again.”?
The wind whipped my face as we ran laps around the pitch. Lana ran next to me, red ponytail bobbing up and down. We ran lap after lap on wet grass, until an ache took root in my side, and I had to slow my pace.
