Page 27 of Your Pace Or Mine

ASHLEY

Has Sebastian been replaced by an alien? Is he having a psychotic break? Inviting me over for movie night and then to sleep over but only for the sleeping part was a first. Now he wants to run with my Saturday morning group. I know he’s fit, but working out and running in the cold are two different things. I hope I don’t end up killing him.

As we leave my apartment, he pulls out his phone to call a car. “Bash, it’s four blocks away. We’re going to do a light jog to the square.”

He looks at me. “You run to go meet people and go running?”

“Think of it as a warm-up.”

He seems dubious about it but joins me in a light jog. He’s ridiculous in lime green earmuffs, but the only other option was my knitted ear band, and I prefer that to keep my long hair out of my face.

When we get to the square, half of the gang is there. Laurel’s eyebrows raise so high they practically go into space when she spots us. Before she can get a word in, I mouth, “I swear, we didn’t.”

She looks unconvinced, but Cal and Mark have approached us, so at least that conversation is postponed for a while.

Mark goes through the whole spiel about the group, and we do introductions. Tess watches us curiously and Stevie does a double take when she arrives, so I’ll have a lot to explain later. Mark explains how Laurel usually hangs back at the end of the group to make sure we don’t lose anyone, but I jump in to insist I’ll stick back with Sebastian so she can run ahead. I don’t put it past her to interrogate him in my absence.

Sebastian looks like a fish out of water beside all of us with our fancy running gear and casual group banter. As we start out, he shoots forward. I grab his arm. “Don’t go out too fast.”

“Why? We’re going pretty slowly,” he insists.

“It’s about endurance, not speed. The worst thing you can do is start too quickly.” Privately, I doubt he can run for an hour. I consider the best place to turn around early as he reluctantly joins me at a slower pace in the back.

After a few blocks, Cal drops back and starts an easy conversation with both of us. I marvel at how comfortable and friendly he is now. When he first joined us, he was shy and barely spoke. I’m not sure whether Laurel filled him in on the history between me and Sebastian, but if so, he doesn’t let on. He chats about work, and I take the opportunity to pop up to Laurel.

She looks around for moment, then whispers, “Oh my God, Ash. Did you guys hook up again?”

“No! We just watched some movies last night, and I fell asleep at his place. It’s no big deal.”

“Uh-huh,” she says dryly. “No big deal. So it’s totally normal that he voluntarily came up here on a Saturday morning wearing your clothes?”

I snort. “We were limited in headgear options. The earmuffs were all I had.”

“I’m going to need a full explanation of everything that happened at this so-called movie night,” Stevie breaks in. “I may be almost forty, but I know what Netflix and chill means.”

I groan, even though I know my friends are doing this because they care. I’d do the same if one of them made a dubious romantic decision, but that doesn’t mean I want to explain myself right now.

“Do we have to do this?”

“We absolutely do,” Stevie replies.

“Later,” I say, taking this as my cue to drop back and catch Sebastian again. I don’t need any further discussions on whether I did or did not “chill” with Bash last night, not in earshot of all our friends.

I find Cal and Sebastian talking about turntables. This is something Sebastian would normally love to go on and on about, but Cal is chatting easily while my friend huffs and puffs, his responses brief. I try not to laugh after his earlier boasting about his fitness.

“How’s it going, Cal?” I ask, trying to give my friend a break from making conversation while he’s clearly short of breath. I slow my pace a little, just enough that hopefully Sebastian will catch his breath but not notice I’m slowing down for him. I see Cal note this and catch my eye.

“Oh, good. Can’t complain,” Cal says. “We’re going up to North Bay to see my family next Friday. I’m not looking forward to the long drive, but at least we took the day off so we can leave early.”

“Oh, that’s a long way,” I reply absent-mindedly, imagining four or more hours of driving in the unpredictable March weather. Then my brain kicks in. Friday is Laurel’s birthday, which we’ve always celebrated together. Sometimes she has a big party, and other years we do a girls’ night and eat cookie dough while drinking wine, but we’ve always done something. This will be the first time in our friendship that I might not even see her on her birthday.

“So you’ll head off early on Friday then …” I trail off. Sebastian glances at me, maybe detecting something in my tone. Cal seems to catch my meaning.

“Yeah, it’s too bad we’ll be gone for Laurel’s birthday. It was the only time we could get up there to pick up some of my stuff, but maybe you two could get together on Thursday. Or we could all go out next week,” he adds, looking at Sebastian.

“Yeah, maybe.” I force a smile, even though part of me wonders why he couldn’t go see his parents by himself. I know Laurel is trying to get to know her potential in-laws better, and maybe she’d rather spend her birthday with Cal than me, but it stings.

I pull myself together and act normal. “Isn’t yours coming up too? We could go out and celebrate both.”