See You at the Finish Line (Run, Love, Repeat #1)

35. Paige

Of course. The one bed is a single. This is the tiniest hotel room I’ve ever seen in my life. No wonder it was so cheap. Who is booking this room? There isn’t even a couch.

“I’ll take the floor,” I say, dropping my bag in the small closet next to the door. It’s the least I can do since Adam has done all the driving.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m letting you sleep on the floor,” Adam responds immediately.

“I’ll call down to ask for more bedding and make myself a little nest.”

Adam runs a hand down his tired face. “Please do not sleep on the floor. If you’re sleeping on the floor, I will not sleep.”

“Well if you’re sleeping on the floor, I’m not going to sleep,” I retort.

I stare at the bed and then back at the wall of muscle at my side. How the hell are we going to fit on that small bed together? He’ll barely fit by himself. When he looks at me, I swear his eyes darken. The tension in the room is so palpable I have to clear my throat.

“I’m going to go brush my teeth,” I say to break the silence. He nods, and when I bend down to grab my bag and stand back up, he’s staring at the ceiling with his eyes closed.

“You okay?”

His attention snaps back to me.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

I’m going through the motions of getting dressed when my stomach drops. I didn’t pack any pajamas. The clothes I brought are not comfortable for sleeping in—all I have are sweatpants that are way too thick, tight tank tops that are too constricting, and underwear. Apparently, I was not thinking very clearly when I packed.

I peek my head out the bathroom door. “Hey, do you have a shirt or something I can wear? I forgot pajamas.”

He mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Of course,” under his breath and tosses me a soft grey T-shirt.

“Thank you!”

His shirt is perfect. It hits the middle of my thighs—damn this man is large. It’s soft and smells like him, like soap and fresh air. I take a big inhale to calm my nervous system. I’m not sure what it means that the scent of Adam is all it takes to calm me down. For once, I’m grateful for my ability to not overthink things.

Looking in the mirror, it’s clear the crappy hotel lighting is not doing my skin any favours. At least that’s what I tell myself. I’m pale, looking like I’ve just consumed a mountain of candy and then gone on a twirling rollercoaster ride. That’s about as accurate as I can get.

I take a big breath in and hold it before exhaling. The motion eases some of the tension in my shoulders. Would it be too much to ask Adam for a massage? I shake my head at that thought and try not to underthink things. If that’s not a real word, it should be.

Leah is going to be okay. The doctors are hopeful. That’s a good thing.

I’m exhausted, though I’ve been sleeping on and off for the last ten hours. I’m going to try to take some of the driving off of Adam’s hands tomorrow, but something tells me I won’t be successful. Sighing, I flick off the lights and peek out the door. The last thing I want is to walk in on him changing.

Adam is in bed already, and the soft glow of the bedside lamp on my side—I guess I have a side of the bed—casts a shadow over his tired face. His very handsome, tired face. There’s scruff on his jaw and I realize I haven’t seen him anything but completely clean-shaven since I moved to Vancouver.

I try to summon my memories from the ultra but the more I attempt to drag his face from two years ago to the forefront of my mind, the less I can remember it. All I see is how he’s looking at me right now as he rakes his eyes over my body. When I took my ponytail out in the bathroom, there was a giant kink in my hair, so I ran some water through it to calm it down. It hangs loosely against my shoulders, dishevelled and a little damp.

His eyes catch on his shirt hitting my thighs and I see his chest go still, like his breathing stopped. If nothing else, that reaction really boosts a girl’s ego when she probably looks like she just stepped out of a horror movie. His gaze continues to drag down my legs and then back up to my face. Electric blue eyes lock onto mine. I have to break this tension somehow .

“How quickly does muscle mass disappear? If you weren’t so jacked, we would fit just fine.” My pitiful attempt at humour does nothing to lessen the heat I feel crawling up my legs.

“Oh, we’ll make it fit.”

Fuck me, his voice is low and husky. I stand on my side of the bed, trying to figure out the best way to do this. He takes up the whole damned thing.

“Move over,” I tell him.

He raises his eyebrows. “I thought you said you didn’t want me sleeping on the floor?”

I laugh nervously and pull the covers back, taking in the small sliver of space. I’m not a big girl—I’m taller than average at 5’10”, but it’s not the height I’m worried about. I may be a lean runner, but I’ve got some junk in the trunk, and there is no room for my butt in this bed. I think Adam sees my dilemma as I stare at the tiny strip of mattress.

“Do you want me to face you or away from you?”

“You’re asking if I want to be the big spoon or little spoon?”

He doesn’t say anything, waiting for my answer. I sigh. There’s no way my being the big spoon will be comfortable for either of us, but the other way around feels too similar to the very dirty dreams I’ve had. Too intimate.

“I’ll be the big spoon,” I say, resigned to my fate.

He rolls over without a word, facing away from me. I breathe out and get into the already warm bed. Damn, he’s like a furnace. I position myself as far away as possible, not wanting to crowd him more than I have to. With my back halfway off the bed, I definitely won’t be getting any sleep but hopefully he will.

“Get closer, Paige, there’s no way you’re fully on.”

How the hell does he know that?

When I don’t move, he sighs. “Paige, if I know you’re uncomfortable, I’m not going to sleep.”

And if he’s not sleeping, I’m not sleeping, so I shimmy forward. There’s no helping it, I’m pulled in by the dip of the bed under his weight, flattening against his broad back.

I am so uncomfortable—I feel like I’m being suffocated by muscles. My body does not fit against him this way and I can tell he’s not comfortable either. After a few minutes of both of us lying there like stone, I sigh.

“This isn’t going to work,” I mumble into his back.

“Turn over,” he whispers, and a shiver runs down my spine at the order in that low voice. Women everywhere would be eating popcorn while watching this play out.

Resigned, I flip over onto my other side and feel him lift his body off the mattress. When he settles, I fall back into the weight of him as his body curls around me. Every dip and bend of my back is flush against his body, my ass seated in his lap, his knees coming up behind mine.

He’s everywhere.

I silently thank the universe for the tiny bed because damn. Damn. I instinctively sink back, fitting myself against him. His breath hitches as my heart rate skyrockets. Who needs running for cardio when there are panic attacks and irresistible men to get your heart racing?

My body has a mind of its own as it melts, unbidden, into him. He coughs a little before I feel his hips move back. Coming to my senses, I squirm, trying to shift away when a solid hand lands on my hips. The heat of it burns through the thin shirt.

“Stop moving,” he says, his voice strained.

I can’t help it. I giggle.

“You are evil.” His breath tickles my neck and I suck in a breath.

“Having a little difficulty over there?”

“Not little,” he whispers.

This man. Even with his hips no longer against mine, I start to feel a presence on my backside, and it takes a lot of strength not to press my ass into him. Behave, Paige.

“Can you talk about something, anything?” he asks, his voice full of desperation.

I laugh again, earning me a tiny pinch on my side. It’s the wrong thing to do because I jerk back in surprise and the fullness of his erection connects with my ass. Goddamn it. His fingers dig into my hip, and I no longer have anything to laugh about. His breaths are deep and with each exhale, the air flutters down my neck. I involuntarily shiver, even though there’s nothing cold about me right now. I’m hot everywhere.

“Paige,” he groans.

“Yeah?”

“Please start rambling.” He squeezes my hip and then pushes me away again, removing his hand with reluctance. At least, I imagine he’s reluctant. I feel the tension in him and decide he’s a very good man. I should help him out.

“I was on a run when my mom died.” And just like that, a cold blanket douses the heat in my body. I don’t know why that’s what I chose to say, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since Shay told me there’d been an accident.

“What?” Adam says, surprise colouring his voice.

“That’s why I stopped running. After the ultra, it was hard to get back into it but then my mom got sick. Leah and I had moved to Salt Lake by that point and shared the load to drive her to and from her doctor’s appointments since she refused to move in with us. All of our spare time was dedicated to finding out what was wrong.

“Then when Leah found out she was pregnant and Ian had left her, my mom refused her help. But Leah is so stubborn, it became a big point of contention. They argued a lot. After a scan, they found Mom’s brain tumour. The biopsy confirmed it was malignant. There wasn’t anything we could do, but we convinced her to get chemo. We wanted more time with her.

“I hadn’t slept in days, so Leah offered to trade with me since it was my turn to pick up Mom, and all but kicked me out of the house, saying I was stressing them both out. Mom told me it would make her happy if I went on a run—she missed seeing the happiness it brought me.

“So I went, not planning on going very far. I considered leaving the house and sitting on the front step until an acceptable amount of time had passed, but Leah would’ve known to check my GPS app. She knew me too well to let me get away with it. When I got going, my ten-minute run turned into twenty, then forty, and before I knew it, I was ten miles from home. I was so distracted by my music that I hadn’t felt my phone buzzing in my pocket.

“When I finally answered it, Leah was at the hospital telling me that Mom had decided to get surgery without telling us. She’d had it planned for weeks, and got her own ride. Leah had arrived at her house only to find her gone. I couldn’t reach anyone to come and get me, so I had to turn around and run the ten miles home. When I was three miles away, Leah called again. My mom hadn’t made it. She was gone.

“I don’t remember running home. My brain completely shut down, refusing to believe any of it was real, it didn’t feel real. But when I got home, I collapsed. Now any time I run my body thinks the worst thing is happening and I have panic attacks. I’ve been in therapy for PTSD and it’s helping the triggers, but it’s still hard to run. Running means something terrible is happening and I can’t do anything about it. It means that I can’t get back in time.”

My words hang in the air around me, lingering like a dark cloud I can’t escape. My pillow is wet from tears I hadn’t noticed.

“Can I hold you?” he whispers. His voice is so soft and kind, I can't help but feel a different wave of emotion.

I nod but realize he probably can’t tell. “Yes,” I whisper, my voice cracking.

The word is barely out when his heavy arm snakes around my waist. I thought we were pressed together before but then he wraps himself around me, his arm holding my middle and dragging me completely against him. His other arm threads under my head and he’s holding me so tightly. I’ve never been comfortable sleeping wrapped up like this, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so safe and secure in my entire life. I entwine my legs with his.

“I’m so sorry, Paige,” he whispers once we’ve settled.

“Thank you.”

He hesitates. “I’m sorry for more than your mom’s passing. I’m sorry for not being there to hold you through it. I’m sorry you and Leah had to go through it alone.”

“We had each other,” I try to say, but I know what he means. It’s hard to lean on people who are also grieving and need holding.

“From what you told me of your mom, she sounds like an incredible woman.” His voice is so soft.

“She always thought you would come back into my life.” I smile at the memory of my mom’s lecture about keeping the race a secret from her. And then when she found out about Adam, her lecture turned into something else entirely. The knowing look she gave me lingers at the forefront of my mind.

“Really?”

“Yeah, she was a big believer in fate.” She’d said, I wouldn’t write him off just yet, honey.

“Are you?”

“A believer in fate? I don’t know. This past year has been a disaster. I lost my job because I couldn’t function after my mom’s death, so believing in fate seems just as cruel as believing in an almighty god.”

“I believe in God.”

I don’t know why, but this surprises me. “You do? ”

“Yeah, I think it’s comforting to believe there’s someone up there looking out for us and god is an easy term for whoever the higher being is.”

“If there is a god looking out for us, why would they let bad things happen?”

He pauses, as if mulling over his answer. His thumb moves in smooth, soothing strokes. I don’t know if he’s aware that he’s doing it but I don’t want it to stop.

“For myself, I’ve found peace in the idea that whoever it is doesn’t actually have that much control. We’re in control of our choices and science is in control of life. God can’t do anything about someone getting surgery that ends up killing them because that’s the way biology works. But God or fate can put people in our lives to help us through it.”

I can’t say anything about that. A month ago, he alluded that getting disqualified was life’s way—fate’s way—of telling him I was the wrong choice.

“You weren’t there.” My voice is so small.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wish I would have been there. I’m here now,” he whispers, holding me tighter.

That’s the second time he’s called me sweetheart. I don’t feel the need to say anything, so I don’t. The silence is comfortable as we drift off to sleep.