Running

First timer

Connor fell asleep at the table as we were talking. Issac lugged him onto the couch as I jumped into the bed in the other room. Issac came in five minutes later without a shirt on.

He got in beside me and I didn't actually expect anything to happen, but we just lay talking in the darkness for a while, talking, and our lips found each other.

It was only when he started tugging at my top did I start asking questions.

"You haven't got a girlfriend have you? Or a wife?" I said into our kiss.

"No," he answered quickly.

"Good, and I don't wanna get pregnant, so you got a condom?"

"Always," he breathed. We were like one, our tongues colliding like choreographed. He took my top off and I took his jeans off, everything else covering us seemed to find its own way off us.

I tilted my head back as he kissed my neck, he pushed me down and left trails of kisses as he made his way down my body.

The next morning was spent giving each other secret looks and smiles, knowing that Connor had no clue what we had done.

"We're gonna go out today, you can come with us if you want, but I'd rather you didn't," Connor said to me at breakfast.

"Woah, you're actually gonna let me have a bit of privacy? You feeling okay?"

"Shut up, get off your high horse. Are you coming?"

"No, just leave me here with something to do and a take out menu and I'll be fine for the day."

"You can watch tv," Issac suggested.

"No, that's excruciatingly boring. I need something that'll actually entertain me."

"I'll send up a stripper then," joked Connor. I made a face at him.

"When are you going?" I asked.

"Couple of hours, why?"

"I want you to bring me to the store."

"Why?"

"So I can buy stuff."

"Like what?"

"A dildo. And maybe some food."

"You're disgusting." He put his plate in the sink.

"You raised me that way. Hey," I turned to Issac, he had been staring at me, smirking, "has that tv got a DVD player?"

"I don't know," he replied, using the same low voice he used last night. Connor glanced between us like he knew something.

"I'll go check then if you ladies can't move your asses to do it." I walked into the sitting room and Issac followed me.

"You're a virgin aren't you?" he asked.

"Not anymore," I replied, bending down to look at the box under the tv.

"You were good for a first timer."

"Thanks? If I was good then how did you know I was a virgin?"

"I know the only guy you've ever been around is Connor, I guessed you never slept with him."

"You guessed right." I stood up, he grabbed my waist and kissed me. "What was that for?" I breathed.

"Something to remember me by." He smirked.

"But I'm not going anywhere yet," I whispered.

"Hmm, I guess not, maybe you'll get another one later."

Connor drove me to a small supermarket and I picked up a few things to keep me busy, a pack of cards, markers and plain paper. Then I bought some junk food and we went back to the hotel.

They were gone for hours and I was so bored. I had never been alone this long before. There were a few times when I started talking to someone that wasn't even there.

I came to the conclusion that the only logical thing to do would be to think about a life without running, and how to reach it.

I imagined a house in the suburbs of a big city, three kids and a husband. I'd be a college lecturer. He'd be a caterer. We'd be happy. Our kids all a year apart, two boys and a girl.

I have often dreamed of this before but had always been interrupted by Connor.

The only way I couldn't be interrupted was in my dreams, but as I've said before, they always turn into nightmares.

Nightmares where the Ilrai reform, they come after me and my family. My husband and daughter are dead, and I'm left on the run again but with two children this time.

But I didn't know how to stop that. And I wished on every constellation I saw that I figured out how to stop it.