Page 56 of For the Record

“I’m glad. Maybe he just needed something to hold on to.”

My lips curved. If he was going to grab on to something, me being married to Adam wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Without asking me, because he was a torturous man who enjoyed seeing me breathless, Adam picked up speed as his house began to lift on the horizon. My legs burned with fire, but I kept what he told me before in the forefront of my mind. I wasn’t doing this for health benefits. Though if I suddenly got legs like Simone Biles, I wouldn’t be complaining. I was doing this because Dad couldn’t. It was for him, whether he knew about it or not.

I steadied my pace with his, ignoring the throbbing in the balls of my feet and the sharp ache in my chest as my lungs begged for more air. My body screamed at me to stop, requesting an extra-large beanbag chair and a can of Diet Coke.

“What song are you thinking of?” Adam asked beside me, his eyes focused on me with this tinge of concern.

“What?” I huffed.

“The song you’re thinking of. What is it?”

I considered for a moment as his house looked less and less like a blurry dot. A smile began at my lips, pulling from my chest.

“‘Holding Out For A Hero’ by Bonnie Tyler. But I’m the hero. Just in my training stage. I’m wearing my fighting leathers, and the whole squad is underestimating me. The part of the movie where they have the montage of them working out and drinking egg smoothies, and then in the next scene, they’re jacked and ready to take on the dragon. Or an evil curse or whatever dark thing I have to face at the end of this.”

“I like that.”

My lips curled. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “’S cute.”

My cheeks warmed at that. But it was also the precise moment we were coming around the curve of his driveway, and my whole body was lit in a flame. Adam lifted his wrist, pushing a few buttons on his watch and calculating our mile average.

I grabbed the water bottle I’d left resting by the tire of his covered motorcycle, which he had named Toothless after resisting the nickname for years.

“So how far was today?” I exhaled against the lip of the bottle.

Adam twisted his head back and forth with a squint. “About a third of what you need to do.”

A third? If that was only a third, then just the biking and swimming to work on. That meant I could wrap this up fairly quickly and have time to—

“Of the running portion.” He winced at what must have been some form of relief on my face. “A third of the running. So more like one-ninth of what you need to do.”

I tossed my head back with a groan. “No wonder Dad never did this. This sucks.”

We walked through his front door, taking our shoes off and making sure they were straight before settling on his couch. I could see it bothered him that neither of us showered first, but he had no complaints.

“At least I’m doing it with you.” Adam shrugged.

My eyes scaled his body, from the shorts clinging to his big thighs, up to his chest and shoulders. His height was a natural advantage. His physique was one you could see he worked on, though.

“You could run a marathon tomorrow without even thinking.” I bent over and pressed my thumbs firmly into my calf, raking through the shooting pains. “So does it really count?”

My amusement turned to a wince as my thumb dug into a particularly sore spot on the higher area of my calf. Adam set down his water and reached for my leg. “Let me see.”

I happily propped it up on his thigh, and his hands got to work. His long fingers pulling and pushing my muscles in all the right places, lighting me up with this sting that somehow felt like the perfect concoction of pleasure and pain. My eyes crossed at some point, my head dipping back to the throw pillow behind me, and a soft groan left my lips. His fingers dug harder.

“How’s the store?” he mumbled, but my mind had a smoke machine inside of it like the beginning of a Fleetwood Mac concert.

“Hmm?”

His legs shifted as he puffed an amused sound. “The record store? How’s it been?”

I smiled with my eyes shut. That was one area of my life that was going swimmingly. It wasn’t how it used to be, of course. That was to be expected when it was anyone other than Arthur owning it. It needed updates. The manager who’d started a couple of weeks ago swore he would get right to it as soon as he could get the funds approved by the new owner. But it was still my place.

“Good.” I scrunched my nose. “Really good. Art came by the other day.”