Page 44 of Your Pace or Mine (Running for the Romance #1)

Jamie

I t wasn’t enough.

Jamie wanted to forgive Darius. He did.

He wanted to go back to before any of this had happened and just lie cocooned in his ridiculous thread-count sheets. Jamie was crying openly now, even worse than he had been when he’d first sat down, giving up on the marathon just over halfway through.

He’d made a mistake taking off so quickly.

Hardly shocking, really. But attempting to run a marathon at nearly twice his planned pace just to escape an ex was probably one for the books as far as idiotic moves went.

Every injury he’d had in his life had come back to bite him.

He could feel pain radiating through every pore, and all he could think of was how he’d failed, again.

And it was his fault.

Now Darius was here, as if summoned by Jamie’s darkest thoughts. And he was… lovely.

He was lovely, apologetic, and beautiful, and it wasn’t enough.

Jamie knew he was right. Darius wouldn’t have said what he had to Jamie if he hadn’t meant it. He didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

“I know. And I, I did mean it, Jamie,” he replied slowly, as if he was trying to weigh each word. Another pathetic sob broke free of Jamie’s throat.

“Great,” he choked out.

“I was upset, and it does bother me thinking of those people who took advantage of you. It makes me so fucking angry, Jamie.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Not at you, though. Fuck. I, Jamie. I don’t know what I can do or say to make this better, but will you at least let me help you finish this race?” he asked. “You deserve it, you’ve worked so hard for this.”

The thing about Darius being right was that it mostly just pissed Jamie off. He might’ve shattered his heart into tiny pieces, but he also knew Jamie. He knew how hard he’d worked and that it would kill him to give up now.

“Or not, you don’t have to finish, Jamie. There’s no shame in a DNF.”

Hearing that lit a fire in Jamie. There may be no shame in it, but he wasn’t going to stop now. With as much nonchalance as he could manage, he wiped his tears and picked his trainers up off the ground, re-lacing them and allowing Darius to pull him up off the kerb.

“You’re right about one thing, Hewitt. I do deserve to finish this,” he said. “You’ve got eight miles to work out a better apology than that, maybe one that doesn’t involve throwing money at your problems.”

Darius winced. He’d clearly known the donation was a bit much.

Jamie turned and started a slow jog forward, Darius matching his pace in silence at first.

“Do you remember the first time we ran together?” Darius asked eventually.

Jamie snorted. “Yeah, you were a fucking prick, should’ve figured it out then.”

“Ok, I probably deserved that.”

Jamie arched a brow. “Probably?”

“Definitely,” Darius replied, ducking his head. “You annoyed the shit out of me, though.”

“This is a great apology, Darius. Really selling it,” Jamie snarked. They passed the 18-mile marker, though, and Darius was still with him.

Everything still hurt, and the voices in his head were relentless, but these streets were familiar.

Running with Darius was familiar, even the arguing was familiar.

They passed under a massive arch of red balloons as strangers cheered from the sidelines, and Jamie realised that wherever things landed with Darius today, he was going to achieve one thing.

Jamie had signed up for this race, and Jamie was going to bloody well finish it.

Darius’s voice broke through his inner hype monologue. “You were so unapologetically yourself. Like you didn’t give a fuck what I or anyone else thought. And I was jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“I’ve spent my whole life bending myself into different shapes to meet everyone’s expectations, and it’s like somewhere along the way I forgot how to be anything other than what they wanted, or what I thought they wanted.”

That was, surprisingly, relatable, actually.

“It took me until recently to realise you probably understand that feeling pretty well.”

Jamie nodded. “Yeah.”

“I wasn’t fair to you, Jamie. None of it was fake to me, not even at the start, but I was so scared of losing what I had of you that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

I blamed you for not telling me everything, but I was hardly an open book myself.

You told me right at the start that you were good at knowing what people wanted from you.

I just... all of that, everything the press is saying. ..”

“God, I’ve stopped reading it. Please don’t tell me.”

Darius laughed softly. “Same, it got a bit, well, I couldn’t handle it. But what I’m trying to say is this reflects poorly on them, not you, you know that, right?”

Jamie high-fived some kids watching the race and was handed some sweets in return as he sorted through his thoughts. “It was my choice, Darius. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

Darius furrowed his perfectly groomed brows. “Oh, so you were the one in a position of power demanding sexual favours from a young performer?”

“I’d hardly say demanding.” Jamie scoffed. “I’m not a victim of anything, Darius. I know that’s a more palatable narrative, but…”

“It’s not just a more palatable narrative,” Darius replied. “Look, I’m not saying you’re a victim if you don’t see it that way. Just maybe you’re also not the villain you seem to think you are?”

“Tell that to Stephen Murphy’s fiancée,” Jamie muttered under his breath. “Or literally anyone that reads the Daily Mail.”

Darius was watching him. Jamie’s heart rate went wild, from the run, maybe, or from what he knew he needed to say. His legs kept moving forward on their own accord, like he was floating above his body as it pushed through the course.

“Are you okay?” Darius asked as a sharp pain shot up Jamie’s knee again, and he slowed his pace. “You can still stop if you need to. You still need to be able to dance after this, Jamie.”

Jamie huffed out a sardonic laugh. “Why? My career’s dead. I can injure myself as much as I please.”

Darius looked like he didn’t quite know how to respond, so Jamie took in a laboured breath and started to talk.

He told Darius how it had all started for him.

He needed him to understand Jamie was the bad guy, that this whole mess really was his fault.

He explained how he’d landed his first job after sleeping with a prominent producer after his drama school showcase.

It hadn’t been deliberate then, but when he’d been called in for a major production none of his friends could even get a look-in for, he had started to understand how things really worked.

Then he told Darius about his last audition.

The end of his career— the moment he knew he was done with the whole industry.

He ran as he spoke, words falling out of him like some sort of bizarre therapy session, allowing the expulsion of all his emotional pain to take over from the pain in his body, until he felt completely wrung out.

“Can I ask why that last audition was different?”

Jamie shifted. “It was.” He paused to find the words.

“The other day, I was telling Cress that I’d do anything for a job.

But then he was in front of me, making it really clear what was expected, and I thought of you…

I don’t mean just in the sense that like, you’re the only man I want to be with. .. which, annoyingly, you still are.”

Darius smiled.

Jamie gathered himself. “Don’t get too cocky, haven’t decided if I’ve forgiven you yet.

It’s that, everything you’re going through with the Olympics and Anders, you have so much integrity about it.

I just thought, god, Darius would never sink this low, and it felt so vile.

Like I couldn’t stand to be connected to an industry that treats people like that, that lets people like him get away with being so… ”

“So you decided to quit?” Darius asked. “Just like that?”

There was no judgment in his voice, no indication of what he thought Jamie should or shouldn’t do.

Jamie drew a sharp breath. “Well, Jonathan dropped me for not bending over on request, so the quitting wasn’t entirely my choice. My career is dead. The arsehole suggested I try cruise ships.”

Darius wrinkled his nose. Nice to see the upper-class judgment wasn’t completely gone. It almost made it mean more that Darius still had that streak, but didn’t seem to be judging Jamie in that moment.

“I’ve got a reputation now,” Jamie said. “A very public one, and in Jonathan’s view, if I won’t act on it, then I’m worthless.”

“Jonathan is a terrible agent. And honestly, I’m glad you’re quitting. You deserve better.”

Jamie stumbled at Darius’s proclamation.

“Anywhere that lets people like that prick Stephen succeed is a bad place to be. I heard him at the bar, talking about what he had planned for his next tour with you, how he’d give it a test run at your audition.

It was awful, he was moaning to his mate about how he’d timed it wrong the first time and how he’d been assured you would be more discreet now that you had a lucrative relationship on the line. ”

“Darius.” Jamie stopped dead. “Is that why you left?”

“Not right away,” he replied. “I was coming back to the table, to talk to you, tell you he was spreading rumours.”

“But I was speaking to his fiancée,” Jamie replied with a sigh. As much as he hated that Darius had left him there, he knew how that had sounded.

“Yes, but...” Darius started to reply.

Jamie let out a sigh, starting to jog again. “I should have been honest with you from the start about why I needed a date so badly that night. It was never a publicity thing.”

An intake of breath came from beside him, but Jamie pressed on. “You know I said I stopped sleeping around and all that, well before I met you.”

Darius nodded.

“It wasn’t like a moral thing. I still don’t really believe there was anything wrong with what I did, and I know you’ll judge me for that, but—“

“I won’t,” Darius interrupted. “I told you, it reflects poorly on them, not you.”