The Run In

Chapter 2

Holy wow. My goodness you have a perfect face.

"Are you-are you alright?" He said. I felt his arm by my right ear and the other sunk into the wet dirt of the trail by my shoulder.

Sure. Besides the fact that your ribs are pressing into my lungs, your right thigh is in the worst of places and if you move the slightest bit I swear to god and all gummy bears and sour pa- no, I'm fine. You're hotness makes up for all this and you should really just please keep talking.

"Um, yeah I'm- I mean I'm so sorry I didn't- my dog doesn't normally do this." I say as steadily and with as much air as I could manage to get out of my lungs.

"I wasn't looking where I was going-"

"Same." I agreed, opening my eyes slightly wider for emphasis. My body was still buzzing from the adrenaline of falling. My heart was fluttering too fast and my lungs couldn't keep up with it. I felt insanely dizzy. Did I drink water this morning?

"And she has just been so jumpy- my dog, Kasey, she's just been really excited lately." He said in a matter-of-fact kind of way. His cool breath hit my face and I strangely felt more nervous.

Great. He's trying to make small talk. When I can barely breathe. Great.

Cody and Kasey prance around us, smelling each other, the ground and anything they could reach with the amount of leash they were given, totally oblivious to the fact that their owners toppled onto each other in a big sweaty mess.

I can feel the wet earth seeping into the backside of my body.

"I really wasn't looking where I was going." I managed to speak into the stranger's electric blue eyes. "My mind is always somewhere else when it's this nice o-"

I was then giggling and darting my neck around because Kasey was then over me, licking the sweat off my chin and temple. She began to sniff and nibble at my earlobe where my earring was probably hanging on by a millimeter.

"Kasey! No!" He said to his dog. "Kasey please stop. Kasey."

He started to get up and his knee went right into my shin.

"Ow owww." I groaned under my breath. Kasey jumped away and went to sniff a moss covered rock.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry." He fell back into the place he was in before he moved, just centimeters away from brushing my nose.

I looked down at our feet. The dog leashes were woven through and around our legs and ankles.

Cody began licking the stranger's shoes.

"Hold on, I got an idea." The boy said.

If your idea is to hold me, then by all means do so.

"Kasey, come." His dog came back over to us.

"Kasey, sit." His dog sat and stared into the owner's face.

I watched the dog's eyes go from me to her owner.

"Kasey. Kasey, stay." As he said this to the dog, he slipped the clip of the leash out from the collar and dropped it to the dirt. "Stay girl... staaay."

The guy got up slowly. The cords slipped down to our calves. He first unloosened himself from the leashes and then pulled them out from under my legs. He sat down on the rock near Kasey and twisted and pulled knots with careful fingers.

I got up and brushed the sand and twigs off my body. My heart was still beating fast.

Calm down, girl.

I looked over at the guy for a moment.

It's not like he's perfect in every possible way or anything.

The guy looked up from the ropes and smiled sheepishly at me for a second. His teeth were in a straight white row and I instantly felt my heart race.

Gawwwd that smile.

"Here's your dog's leash." He set it in my hand.

"Thank you." Cody came right over to me and sniffed my knee caps, polishing off a dark wood chip.

He clipped Kasey's leash back into it's place. "You know, you were running pretty fast."

I smiled. "Well so were you. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have some nasty bruises where your legs clashed with mine." I instantly regretted saying that because it suggested we were doing something else with our legs.

"I'm still really sorry for that." He looked down at the two dogs. They were inspecting a bottle cap stuck in the dirt. "Hey, what was your name again?"

I laughed nervously and looked up. His hair was still messy from the collision. "I didn't give it to you...?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"I know I just- Nevermind, I'm Aiden. Aiden Brooks. I just moved here from Wisconsin."

"When did you move?" I asked.

"On Sunday. Come to think of it, that's probably why Kasey has been so jumpy." He laughed.

His laugh was incredibly adorable and sounded like a genuine laugh.

Haven't heard something like that in a while.

"So," he started and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his sweats, "you never gave me your name."

"Madison." I smirked and held out my hand, proudly. "Madison Moore. But you can call me Maddie."

"Nice to meet you Miss Moore." He smiled and shook my hand. "Where are you headed?"

"Well, me and Cody here were going on an eight mile run to Island Pond and back. Have you been there yet?"

"No, I didn't even know there was a pond here." He answered, wiping the sweat off his brow.

"I have an idea." His smirk was back on his face and there was a playful crinkle in the tip of his nose. "I have never run here before today. I haven't seen this place and it sounds incredibly interesting. Do you think you could show it to me? We could run there together if you want."

He wants to run. With me? Honestly my heart rate has been on a roller coaster these past fifteen minutes. Wait I don't even know the guy. I don't know what he's capable of doing to me. For all I know he could've been waiting for a girl to come through and then just stumble into her.

But those eyes.

"I don't know." I said and looked at Cody. "Can you and your pup keep the pace?"

He checked me over.

I instantly felt like my nervousness was too noticeable and my legs were getting anxious and I just wanted to run.

My self-consciousness levels were too high. I need to just stop with it.

His blue eyes met mine and that smirk played on his lips again.

"You're on."

~~~

I hope that was long enough. I'm so excited to get back to writing this. Once again, still need help finding characters.

By the way, what kind of dog should Aiden have? I was thinking a Shiba Inu but I wanna hear what you guys think it should be.

The picture on the side is what I think the trail would look like.

Thanks for reading!