Running Secrets by Arleen Williams

Author:Arleen Williams [Williams, Arleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Booktrope Editions
Published: 2013-12-29T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-FIVE

CHRIS STOOD IN THE DOORWAY of the beachfront chowder house, her short curls still damp from the shower. The place was buzzing with activity, every table full. Music blared, but through the noise, she couldn’t identify who it was.

She saw him, sitting alone at a window seat, relaxed in a black T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. She wondered how he could be so calm. Butterflies had invaded her stomach. In contrast, he seemed to be idly watching the teens across the street piling wood for a summer beach fire. Not a care in the world. She brushed past the young woman who approached to seat her and walked towards him.

Jake looked up and caught her eye as she neared him. “Hey, I didn’t see you come in,” he said. Standing abruptly to greet her, he knocked the table so hard the water glasses rattled, sloshing water on the table. “Damn. What a mess!”

“Here, let me help. It’s no big deal.” She grabbed the white cloth napkin from the place setting opposite his and wiped the table.

“No, no. I’ll get it,” he said, using the napkin he still held in his hand. “Sorry for the mess.”

“No problem,” she said. As she wadded the wet napkins into a pile at the table’s edge for a passing waitress and settled into the chair opposite his, she realized that he wasn’t quite as relaxed as she’d thought when she saw him sitting there gazing out the window. Somehow that comforted her.

“So, what do you like here?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never eaten here.”

“But, you said …”

She laughed at the confusion in his eyes. “We were standing just across the street, remember? You asked me where we could we meet, so I saw this place and pointed.”

He laughed. “Well, I know they’ve got great beer and chowder. Do you like beer?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never tried much more than what comes in those awful kegs they used to have at parties, you know. That doesn’t really count, does it?”

“Not at all. Let’s have a beer sampler to start, okay?” he said, just as the waitress approached their table.

She took their drink order and walked away, leaving them to try to find common ground. That’s what first dates are all about, Chris thought, as she struggled to calm her own nerves. Just getting to know each other. But she knew this was different. They had a history together, and yet they didn’t even know each other. An odd place to start. Thoughts raced through her head. As she struggled to think of something to say, he drew her back to the present.

“So how’s the running? Back to normal now?”

“Almost. I mean, I run daily now, but only about a mile or so. The PT told me to build slowly, so I’m trying not to overdo it.”

“That sounds like a lot to me. What was normal? Before?”

“I’ve run daily since the summer before high school. I used to be a flight attendant, you know, so I was in cities all over the country.

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