Page 47 of The Parent Trap

Counting scoops of coffee beans is hard. Filling the reservoir is hard.

God, I amnota morning person.

I nearly fall asleep standing up waiting for the machine to brew enough in the pot that I can pour myself a cup, and when I have a mug curling steam up into my face, I take it and collapse onto the couch.

Now, I can drink coffee and try to wake up and figure out why the blistering dawn hell I’m awake at five thirty in the fucking morning.

It comes to me, halfway through the mug.

Delia.

She runs at six.

If she’s running, chances are she’ll be wearing something I’ll enjoy seeing her in.

Which means…

My idiot caveman hinter brain woke me up at five thirty in the thrice-damned morning just so I can go run with Delia…for the sole and express purpose of seeing her in booty shorts and a sports bra.

I must be cracked.

It’s been nearly a month since I last got laid which is…three weeks longer than I’ve ever gone since freaking eleventh grade. So yeah, I’m wicked horny.

But getting laid isn’t even in the offing, here. She won’t even be topless or anything. I could see more skin if I went to the beach.

Shit, if I’d stuck around at the bar last night, I’d have enjoyed a couple rounds of little miss Violet and her various sexy bits, naked and all to myself.

But I didn’t.

Delia walked in, and I promptly forgot all about Violet.

Why?

Because my dick and my brain are in disagreement. My dick wants a piece of Delia McKenna, and my brain knows I have a better chance of winning the lottery…twice in a row.

Apparently, the compromise I’m coming up with is waking up at the perforated colon of dawn to go running—which I loathe, by the way, even after I’ve been for the run—with Delia, just because at least that way I get to pretend I’m not spending the whole run ogling the jiggly-sway of her fine-ass…ass.

I am pathetic.

I finish my mug of coffee, change into running shorts, a T-shirt, and a ball cap, dig my running shoes out of my closet. Pour a to-go coffee and ignore the little voice in the back of my head which says I’m in no shape to be running five miles.

The macho man part of myself is all likeof COURSE I can keep up with Delia, how fast can she run, anyway?

Which I immediately tag as horseshit, because I’m a slow runner at best and if she runs five miles every day, she’s clearly going to be way faster than me. Or if not faster, I’m going to sweating like a pig and huffing and puffing, whereas when she woke me up in my truck last week, she’d been breathing hard and shiny with sweat, but clearly was not actually winded.

This is a bad idea.

Yet, within a couple minutes, I’m stopped outside her driveway—meaning, at the entrance where the main driveway splits off and leads to her house.

I’m idling, trying to decide if I have the guts to get out and knock on her door and ask if I can go running with her.

I’m a coward, clearly.

Afraid of Delia McKenna shooting me down.

Cursing myself in a dozen different ways, I pull into the entrance of her driveway but don’t pull all the way to her house. Instead, I shut off my engine and stand leaning against the hood, listening to the engine tick and pop, waiting.

I hear her footsteps in the gravel before I see her. She doesn’t see me—she’s scrolling on her phone, looking for music to listen to most likely. I wait, but she doesn’t look up. Even when she’s going directly past me, she doesn’t see me. Not me, not my giant truck. Lost in zombie land, I guess.