Blade Saw? Bam. My heart crashes into my stomach. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Not a date. I scramble for a way to hide my misunderstanding.

    “I’ll ask Cora to come, too. She loves to run.”

    Jack smiles. “Maybe we can get the whole team out and then head over to the Protein Palace for a shake when we’re done.” He holds up his fist, and we bump. Just like old times. Just like we were before the night he chained me to his ceiling.

    “Great,” I say with feigned enthusiasm. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Group run. Looking forward to it.”

    Not.

12

    You’re a funny girl

    PENNY

    “I hate running.”

    Cora wheezes out her words as we jog along the pavement, the rhythmic thud of our feet matching the frantic pounding of my surprisingly still-beating heart. Ahead of us, Blade Saw and Jack haven’t even broken a sweat, although we’ve been running for at least thirty minutes in the evening heat. We are running the Bay Trail, which is one of the most beautiful places to be during any dry day. Not that I’m paying much attention to the scenery as I struggle for breath while trying to navigate around the other runners, dogs, bikers, and kids.

    “You wanted a double date,” I huff. “I got one for you.” I gesture vaguely around. “Baby blue skies, water, boats, amazing views of the coast…what more could you want? I think it goes for five hundred miles, so you’ll have lots of time to spend with him.”

    Cora glares. At least I think she glares, but her face is covered in sweat, and I’m not sure if she’s angry or crying. “I was thinking of having a few drinks, listening to a band, going to a club, maybe going for a walk along Pier 39, holding hands in the dark…”

    “This is what you get when you’re with an MMA fighter.” I stumble and just catch myself from falling. “They work. They train. They hang out at the Protein Palace and down a couple of shakes. Occasionally they’ll socialize at a bar.”

    “Doctor Death goes out a lot.” Her cheeks flush, and she looks away. “He was at Comic-Con, WonderCon, the Anime Expo, and the Star Trek Convention.”

    “I thought you wanted a fighter, not a geek.”

    Cora shrugs. “He’s both, and he’s kinda cute. We were having a good time trading Star Trek quotes at the gym. Blade Saw barely looked at me when I met him and Jack outside.”

    “Doctor Death will sleep with anything that moves,” I warn her. “And he won’t be back for more. He’s a noncommittal kind of guy.”

    “You okay back there?” Jack does a little spin, sprints past us, and then doubles back to catch up.

    “Yeah,” I pant. “Blooming marvelous. And you?”

    His eyes glisten, amused. “We can stop if you want.”

    I wipe the sweat off my face with the back of my hand, no longer concerned about appearances since there is no part of me that is now not totally soaked. “I don’t need to stop, but Cora might need to stop. She tires easily. Do you need to stop, Cora? You don’t have to feel bad if you do.”

    Of course, Cora’s still annoyed that I dragged her into running, so she’s not on board the “save Penny from making a fool of herself” train. She shakes her head. “I could do the entire five hundred miles, I feel so good.”

    “You both look tired.” Jack jogs backward beside me, as confident in his stride as I am when I can see. “Maybe we should have turned back with the others and gone for a beer.”

    We definitely should have gone back with the other fighters who started the run with us but sensibly turned around after twenty minutes, but how could I when he asked me if I wanted to continue on? Of course, my plan to impress him with my fitness quickly gave way to a plan not to fall flat on my face when I realized he’d considered the group part of the run a warm-up.

    “Are you trying to make me feel bad?”

    Jack frowns. “Of course not.”

    “Then stop dancing around and stop asking me if I want to quit. Just go run with Blade Saw. Silently. Maybe a bit slower. You could also try to sweat a bit and pant so I feel like you’re exerting yourself in some way and not out for a casual stroll.”

    Jack chuckles and falls into step beside me. “It isn’t a competition.”

    “Then you shouldn’t have asked me to come,” I snap. “I have a competitiveness problem. I’ll keep running until I fall or you stop or I win.”

    “She’s not lying,” Cora says. “Sometimes she’s a danger to herself.”

    “What?” My head snaps to the side, and I stumble, try to catch myself, and land on one knee, hands scraping across the pavement. Before I have even a moment to wallow in my misery, Jack wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me off the ground.

    Bleeding, exhausted, drenched in sweat, and humiliated yet again, I don’t even put up a fight.

    After making sure I’m okay, Cora races ahead to catch up to Blade Saw. Jack carries me to a secluded bench under the trees and kneels in front of me to inspect my injuries. “You scraped your knee pretty bad.”

    “I like the skinned look,” I say. “It’s different. It screams ‘total lack of coordination’ with a dash of ‘lack of class.’”

    “Let me see your hands.” He grabs my hands and turns them palm up, frowning at the scrapes. “I’ll take you back to Redemption. Doctor Death is working tonight. He can fix you up.”

    “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to fix me up,” I mutter.

    Jack pulls out his phone and bashes his finger on the screen. “Not anymore.”

    “What do you mean ‘not anymore’?”