“Yep!” I replied cheerfully. “I’m excited. There’s this cool restaurant across town I want to take her to, and then after that…”
I trailed off as I heard someone coming down the stairs. It was Clara, with Baby Anthony in her arms.
“Morning, beautiful!” I pinched the baby’s cheek and then glanced up. “Good morning to you too, Clara.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. “Very funny. You going for a jog?” She looked me up and down.
“Yep, a quick three miles. There’s a trail at the end of this street that looks promising.”
“Mind if I come with you?” she asked. “I brought my running clothes just in case…”
“Yeah! Totally! You don’t mind watching the baby, do you, Derek?”
He put down the paper and accepted the infant. “I’m the one whose idea this whole thing was. We’ll have some guy time, won’t we?”
Anthony wiggled happily in his arms.
Clara ran upstairs, changed, and then joined me. She was wearing tight yoga pants, and had pulled her hair up into a ponytail. We stretched a little bit in the living room, then walked outside and headed up the street to the trail.
“What’s your typical pace?” I asked.
She grimaced. “I’m not fast at all. I usually average eleven-minute miles.Maybeten forty-five if I’m feeling good.”
My typical pace was under eight minutes, but I didn’t want to make her feel bad. Plus, I wanted to runwithher. So I said, “Today’s just an easy jog for me. Eleven minutes a mile is perfect.”
We reached the trail and began jogging. It was unpaved, and just wide enough that both of us could run side-by-side. Clara’s ponytail swished back and forth, just barely brushing against my shoulder as we went.
“How’d the baby sleep?” I asked after a few minutes. “I didn’t hear him cry at all last night.”
“He slept pretty well!” she replied, smiling over at me. “I’ve gotten used to the signs that he’s stirring. I can get to himbeforehe starts crying now.”
“So the snoring didn’t bother you?” I asked.
“Snoring? No, I didn’t hear you at all.”
“Not me: Jordan,” I clarified. “His snoring sounds like someone firing a machine gun. You’re lucky you’re in the room across the hall!”
Clara chuckled. “My brother, Jason, snored when we were kids. We shared a room until I was eight. I must have built up a tolerance.”
“Lucky you!”
The trail wound its way through some trees, crossed a few fields, and then descended into more woods. At some points, it narrowed and we had to run single-file. Clara sped up and took the lead, and I followed close behind.
And my eyes started to drift.
I couldn’t help it. This girl wasfine,and she was wearing tight spandex. Her ass flexed hypnotically as we jogged along. I felt like I was in a trance, matching her strides while my eyes were locked onto her booty.
Then I started to get a hard-on.
Shit, I thought. My running shorts were thin, and an erection would be embarrassingly obvious in them. I focused on the swaying of her ponytail and tried to think of non-sexy things.
Baseball. The Oakland Athletics. Routine ground ball double-plays. That wrinkly old man we pulled out of the bathtub last week.
I managed to keep the hard-on at bay by the time we got back to Derek’s place. “Nice run!” Clara said, high-fiving me.
“You too.” I smiled. She was sweating more than me, but somehow it looked good on her. And it made me imagine other ways she might get sweaty, her body moving hypnotically in a totally different manner, without the yoga pants covering her luscious thighs and juicy ass…
“I’m going to shower,” I said, hurriedly running upstairs before the tent in my shorts could become obvious.