Fools Rush in(33)

“Why, kiddo? I’ll run with you. It’ll be fun.”

I glared at him evilly, sweat running into my eyes. “Sam, if I could catch you…I’d strangle you. I hate you.”

“Really, Mil, you’re doing great. Don’t worry about how fast you’re going. Just relax and loosen up.”

I willed him away, as I was incapable of speech. Loosen up. Right. As soon as my muscles unseized, I would definitely loosen up.

“Here,” he said, still running backward. “Do what I do.” He shook out his arms and rolled his head around, somehow not looking like an ass as he did so. I reluctantly copied him, if only to distract myself briefly from the sharp pain in my calves.

“You have to make sure you drink enough beforehand,” he advised, coach-like. “Otherwise, your muscles will ache.”

“Okay, Notre Dame,” I puffed.

“Do you stretch out after?” he asked, finally, mercifully turning to run frontward. This made me look less pathetic, I hoped. We started down the hill, and my breathing became less labored.

“No,” I confessed. “I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just put on my sneakers and go.”

“I’ll run you home,” Sam volunteered. “I can show you some stuff. It makes a big difference.”

“How far do you…usually run?” I asked between gasps.

“Oh, I don’t know. Six or seven miles. Ten sometimes. Depends on my schedule.”

“Wow! Ten miles! I’ll never…get that far.” Today, in fact, was the farthest I’d ever run, it being past three miles now. I usually walked the last mile of my outing, but with Sam at my side, I didn’t want to stop. Ten miles. Damn him. I sneaked a glance at him. He looked calm and unsweaty…effortless. He was even smiling. How irritating! We rounded the turn onto my road. Only half a mile to go! My legs seemed to have sandbags tied to them, but I didn’t want Sam thinking I was a whiner.

“Sam, you should…ask Katie out,” I said, unable to let nature take its course on this one. Sometimes nature needed a shove.

“Katie?” He looked at me sharply, obviously surprised.

“Yes, Katie,” I answered, trying to control my breathing so I wouldn’t hyperventilate in front of FloJo here. He didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you think it’s time?” I panted. “Katie’s nice. You know that. She’d be a good way to, you know, break the Trish curse.”

Sam laughed. “Trish curse? What exactly is that?”

I smiled at him…and at my neighbor’s mailbox, the sign that the torture was about to end. “You know…making you feel that you’re…that you’re…”

“A loser?”

“Jeez, Sam! I was trying to be diplomatic!” I darted a quick look at his face, and he seemed okay. “I too suffer from…the Trish curse, after all…We’re home! Thank you, dear, dear Jesus.”

I stumbled to an abrupt halt in my rutted driveway, bracing myself against a sticky pitch pine and gasping. My dog whined to be let off the leash, and I obliged, amazed as always that he could circle madly around the yard or chase chipmunks in the woods after our ordeal.

“No, no, you don’t,” Sam the know-it-all instructed, grabbing my arm and towing me toward the house. “You walk until you’re cooled off. Then you stretch. Come on.”

“I really do hate you, Sam,” I said. He smiled but otherwise ignored me, leading me up the driveway, which was a good fifty feet long. Then he proceeded to force me into myriad stretches designed to relieve the strain my poor body had been under. But it was good, because where was I going to learn this stuff otherwise? Even though I felt kind of like a jerk, I paid attention as he showed me what to do. And by the time we were done, a mere ten minutes after arriving home, I wasn’t sweating anymore and my legs weren’t trembling; I didn’t feel like throwing up, and I could breathe normally again. So it worked, I guess.

“Thanks, Sam,” I said, letting Digger inside. “Come on in, I’ll give you a drink of water for all your hard work.”

As we leaned against my counter, I brought Katie up again.

“So, Sam…what about Katie?” I asked. “What do you think?”

Sam petted Digger’s silky head. “Uh, I don’t know, Mil,” he said awkwardly, avoiding my eyes and concentrating on the dog.

“I think she’d say yes, you know,” I encouraged.

“Have you guys talked about this?” he asked suspiciously.

“No! Come on, Sam. This is not eighth grade, though it probably would have been easier back then.”

“I don’t think I want to date anybody just yet,” he said, scratching Digger’s ears vigorously, not looking at me. Digger began to moan with joy, a sign that he was becoming aroused. Soon he would be humping Sam’s leg, but Sam didn’t need to know that.

“Sam, it’s been, what, six, seven months since Trish left you? Don’t you want some female companionship? It’s only Katie! She’s not going to expect a ring and a marriage proposal, for God’s sake.”

Sam slid onto the floor to better scratch my dog’s proffered tummy.

“I’ve got you and your mom for female companionship. And Ethel.” Ethel was Sam’s partner on the Eastham P.D. She was about sixty years old, with a leathery face, nicotine-stained teeth and the ability to curse so obscenely that she could put a Portuguese sailor to shame.