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It was another sunny day, the kind of day that made Oregonians hope that summer was finally here, even though it would likely rain incessantly for another two months.
It was his day off and John was coming back to his house after a nice hard run. He had run three miles down the beach, and three miles back for a tidy six miles, maintaining a steady pace the entire way. The temperature was mild, but it was humid, so he’d removed his shirt partway through the run and tucked it into his shorts. The sun beating down on his shoulders and chest felt wonderful after a cold and rainy winter.
John slowed to a cool down pace as his house came into view. As he passed Rain’s house his mind went to the stubborn but beautiful healer, as it had more often over the past two weeks than he’d like to admit. It wasn’t like him to obsess about things but somehow he kept replaying their interactions in his head, over and over, analyzing every detail like a lovesick schoolboy. It was inconvenient.
Looking up, he noticed someone running towards him from the opposite direction. A curvy woman and a big dog. Rain. It was if his thoughts had manifested her. He wouldn’t have guessed that she was a runner, it seemed a little type A for someone who ran an herb shop, but she had the easy form of someone who’d been running for years.
Rain hadn’t noticed him yet. She appeared to be focused on teaching the dog to run on leash, but the dog seemed to be struggling with the concept. As they neared each other, Luna suddenly veered off to the left chasing after something, pulling her leash tight across Rain’s shins.
John watched as Rain tried to correct the dog’s path. Unfortunately, the combination of the strong pulling of the large dog and her own forward momentum from running worked against her. She ran into the taught leash, tried to jump over it and, as if in slow motion, flew forward through the air. She landed face down in the sand with a loud exhale and a solid thud. By some miracle she was still holding onto the leash. Luna skidded to a halt near her, eying her curiously.
John picked up his pace and headed towards them. “Rain? Are you OK? Did you injure anything?” he called as he approached.
She lifted her face from the sand and looked up at him with an annoyed grimace. “Of course, you saw that,” she muttered, setting her head back down in the sand with a sigh. “Why am I always falling when you’re around?”
John ignored her grumbling and kneeled down next to her. “Rain?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”
She rolled over and pushed herself to a sitting position, brushing sand off her shirt with a wry smile. “That’s not the first time you’ve asked me that,” she reminded him.
He nodded, eyes scanning her body. “You’re bleeding,” he said, pointing at her knee where red was seeping through her shredded tights.
She sighed deeply and bent her head for a closer look. Lifting the ripped fabric away from her knee with one finger, she winced and made a hissing noise. “Damn it Luna, I liked these tights.”
Hearing her name, the dog plopped back down at Luna’s side and leaned heavily into her, nearly pushing her over. The dog nudged Luna’s shoulder with her snout.
“May I?” John asked. Without waiting for an answer, he gently pulled the fabric of Rain’s tights away from her knee and examined the bleeding wound. “Looks like you hit a rock or something, it’s all torn up,” he said in his doctor vote. “Let’s go up to my place and I’ll fix you up.”
“Oh. No thanks, I’m fine,” she said. She gingerly moved to standing, then balanced on one leg, gently bending and unbending her injured knee as if to test it out. She shot Luna an exasperated look. “Luna, you hurt mommy.”
Luna looked up at her with a doggy smile, tongue hanging out as she panted. Her tail thumped wildly against the sand.
Rain took a step, winced, and then stopped again. John rushed to her side and grabbed her arm, throwing it over his bare shoulder to support her. He wrapped his other arm firmly around her waist, tucking her into his side. He tried not to think about how good it felt to have her pressed up against him like this.
“What happened to your shirt? It’s not summer yet you know,” Rain said grumpily. She cocked her head and very obviously checked out his muscled chest.
He sucked in his stomach a bit for good measure but ignored her question. “Come on, my place is just up the stairs.”
“Honestly, I’m fine John,” she protested. “I can take care of it.”
He ignored her and started leading her towards the staircase leading to his house. “Let me check your knee out and get all the debris out. You don’t want to get an infection. I insist.”
“Fine,” she said, her voice still grumpy. He stifled a smile.
“I’ll hold the leash for you,” he offered. She handed it over without a word. Together they limped up the stairs to his yard, the dog trailing behind them obediently.
John sat her down on the bench by the picnic table on the large deck that ringed his house on three sides. “I’ll be right back.”
He tied the dog’s leash around the table leg and went in search of his first aid kit.
When he returned Rain had stretched her leg out long on the bench, her face turned up towards the sun. “Is it OK if I cut the fabric around the wound?” he asked, holding up a pair of scissors. “Looks like they’re ruined anyway.”
She nodded and he got to work cutting a large hole around the wound so he could see her whole knee. It looked a bit swollen and most of the skin had been ripped up, but it didn’t look too bad. He gently cleaned the wound with antiseptic, rinsing the blood and sand out. He hid a smile as she hissed in pain. “Don’t be a baby,” he chided.
“Fuck off,” she rejoined, without any heat. “It burns.”
After he cleaned and bandaged the wound, he looked up from his spot kneeling at her side. He studied her face, admiring her smooth skin and her pert little nose. She looked down at him questioningly.
“All done,” he said. “Just keep it clean and dry for a few days.”
She nodded and he noticed that she still had sand stuck to her cheek from her fall. Without thinking, he reached up and rubbed his fingers down her face to dislodge it. Her eyes widened, obviously feeling the same jolt of electricity that he felt touching her.
“You, um, had some sand there,” he said. Their eyes met and held and the air around them became charged. He felt himself move closer, as if he was steel drawn by a magnet. She licked her lip nervously and he slid his hand from her cheek around to the back of her head. Slowly, his eyes still on hers, he moved forward.
She leaned forward to meet him, and their lips touched for the first time. It was only the third time he’d seen her, yet it seemed like he had been waiting his whole life to kiss her. John was filled with a sense that he was coming home. Everything within him relaxed.
He explored her lips, licking the seam, and when she opened for him, he thrust his tongue in aggressively, deepening the kiss and exploring the recesses of her mouth.
He lifted his other arm to her waist and pulled her closer, shifting her to face him more fully. Her arms slid around his shoulders, and one hand lifted to thread through his hair. Rain tipped her head, allowing him to deepen the kiss even more, and she moaned into his mouth. His cock hardened painfully against compression fabric of his running shorts.
They finally moved apart, both of them gasping for breath. Rain looked shocked and confused. “What was that?” she whispered, her voice unsteady.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I’ve wanted to do it since the moment I first saw you.”
She nodded, then shook her head. Her brow crinkled in confusion. She seemed conflicted. It was adorable. “I should probably go,” she said softly, scooting her legs around.
John stood up and offered her a hand, pulling up her to stand in front of him. He was struck again by how small her hand seemed in his. Keeping hold of it, he looked at her until she met his gaze. “Will you go out with me some time?” he asked quietly. He hadn’t felt this nervous about asking someone out since he was a kid.
She sucked her lips in and looked up at him through her lashes. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” she finally replied a bit mournfully. “We don’t like each other very much. We have nothing in common.”
He smiled. “But apparently we’re compatible in other ways,” he replied. He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. She shuddered against his lips.
“Think about it,” he instructed. “Clearly there’s something between us. I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t happen a lot for me. I think we should explore it at least.”
She nodded but didn’t respond. He could see the conflict in her eyes.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Give me your number and I’ll check in with you in a couple of days to set something up.”
She entered her number without argument and handed the phone back. She looked as shell-shocked as he felt. At his age he’d had many first kisses but this one? It was one for the record books. He’d never felt so immediately connected to someone before. He wondered what she was thinking.
“Thanks for fixing my knee John,” she finally said with a small smile. “Come on Luna.” She grabbed her dog’s leash and disappeared without another word as he stood staring at the space where she’d been.