After All

“It’s still ten K! I don’t know what kind of girls you’re used to dating but I do not go on jogging dates and I certainly don’t spend hours walking. In a circle, mind you.”

“And yet here you are, dressed like you do it all the time.” While we pause at a light, I lean in closer to inspect her clothing. They do look brand new. “In fact, I have a feeling you just bought all this just to impress me.”

“Phhfff,” she says, waving me away. “You think everything revolves around you. I’m trying to impress the damn paparazzi.”

“By wearing the most-mismatched outfit in the city?”

She shrugs. “Why not? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Might as well go all out.” Her eyes trail over my arms and chest. “Besides, you’re doing the same. Yeah right you would normally go running in that.”

“This old thing?” I ask, pulling at the wife-beater.

“Yeah. Also brand new. You’re just trying to show off your muscles.”

She’s got me on that one. “Hey, I have a lady here I’m trying hard to impress. Problem is, even if she was impressed, she’d never tell me.”

“She sounds prickly. You better tread carefully with her.”

“The only time I can get any sort of reaction out of her is when I’m kissing her. Then it’s like she forgets how to breathe, she can only moan my name in response.”

That gets her attention. Even though I can’t see her eyes beneath her glasses, I can feel them burn. “Maybe she’s as good of an actor as you are.”

In this instance, I hope that’s not true.

Still, I flash her a smile. “Maybe.”

It takes a long time to find a free parking spot in downtown’s West End, closest to the park, and by the time we get out and are ready to go, Alyssa is already complaining about shin splints.

“But we’ve been jogging for one minute,” I tell her as we negotiate the crowded path along the seawall.

“For the last time,” she says with a scowl, her blonde ponytail swinging in her face in time with her steps, “I don’t run. I don’t jog. And if this keeps up, I’m going to have a coronary.” She puts her hand at her heart for added effect.

I bite back a laugh. “Fine. Let’s just go around Lost Lagoon then and come back.”

Lost Lagoon is a small lake situated just outside of downtown and one of the more popular places to take a stroll. With a fountain in the middle, weeping willows that hang over the water with swans that glide to and fro and the glass high-rises of the city rising into the sky behind it all, it’s an urban oasis.

It’s also the perfect place to be seen if that’s what you’re looking for, the path filled with tourists and locals alike. Every now and then as we jog past, Alyssa huffing and puffing beside me, someone takes our picture or records us.

When we complete the loop around the lake, we decide to explore some of the trails leading off of it until Alyssa insists on having a break.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, hand on her back as she’s leaning over and breathing hard. Luckily we’re in a forested nook by the lagoon with plenty of privacy, if you don’t count the rustling in the bushes. I’m assuming it’s from raccoons and not the paps.

She looks up at me, sweaty and red-faced and nods. “Yes. Just. Trying. To. Survive.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t bring any water, I don’t know what I was thinking,” I tell her. I’m fit as fuck thanks to my role, which has me working out harder than anyone should, but even so I rarely go trail-running without at least a Camel-Pak. “We’ll just walk from now on.”

“How about you just drag me along, that’s much better,” she says, taking in a deep breath and straightening up. “Jeez. I have extra admiration for those muscles of yours now.” She gestures to them half-heartedly. “How many times did you almost die in order to get them?”

“Enough,” I tell her. “But I was on the swim team in high school, so it’s kind of ingrained in me.”

A lazy smile teases her lips. “A swimmer. I can tell. No one can naturally have that chest and those shoulders.”

I can’t help but grin at the compliments. “How rare it is for you to say something nice. I must take you jogging more often, you’re totally delirious.”

She laughs. “Yeah, well, I call it as I see it. Your face and body are as gorgeous as they get. Too bad your personality doesn’t match.”

“Ha, ha,” I say dryly. “Are you feeling better? On second thought, I’m not sure I should be in the woods with you at all, you might just off me when you catch your breath.”

She shakes her head, smiling, and looks away. Then her face freezes in shock.

I turn to see what she’s looking at.

It’s a raccoon.

A three-legged raccoon to be more specific, looking up at us from the edge of the bush with big eyes.

“Oh my god,” she says in a panicked whisper. “We should go. Now.”

“Why? It’s just Cyril Sneer.”

She looks at me in confusion, her face scrunched comically. “Who?”

I gesture to the raccoon. “Cyril Sneer. You’re not a real Canadian unless you’ve seen the cartoon The Raccoons. Actually, you’re probably too young.”

She takes a step closer to me, her eyes fixed on the raccoon again. “I’ve seen the show. But Cyril Sneer isn’t a raccoon.”

“Sure he is,” I tell her. “And this is Cyril. He’s the three-legged raccoon of Lost Lagoon. Hey. That rhymes.”

“Uh huh. So you personally know this raccoon?”

I crouch down so that I’m at eye-level with him. Cyril takes a few awkward steps closer and tilts his head, eying me. “Sure do. He’s friendly. I always feed him.”

I stick my hand into shorts and bring out a small piece of beef jerky I was eating in the car earlier. I’m about to give it to him, knowing he’ll come over and take it from me with his little human-like paws when I stick my hand up and give it to Alyssa.

“What is this?” she asks, peering at it.

“Beef jerky. He’ll love it. Give it to him.”

She raises her arm, about to throw it.

“No, feed him by hand.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve had bad experiences with raccoons.”

“But you’ve never met Cyril Sneer before.”

“Emmett, for the last time, Cyril Sneer isn’t a raccoon,” she says, not breaking focus with the animal. “He was a pink aardvark on the show, and the raccoons’ enemy. If you’re going to name a three-legged raccoon after an iconic cartoon character, at least get the character right.”

I’m trying to think if she’s right or not. I remember the show’s villain being a pink animal…

But as I’m pondering the names of the raccoons on the cartoon, Cyril is coming towards Alyssa.

“Give him the food,” I tell her.

But Alyssa just grasps the jerky to her chest, totally frozen on the spot.

And Cyril is picking up speed, wobbling on three legs toward her, a crazy bloodlust in his eyes.

“Alyssa, throw it!”

“Ahhhhh,” she yells as Cyril somehow leaps up into the air and starts clawing up Alyssa’s body.

“Holy shit!” I jump up to my feet as Cyril claws at her bare arms and chest, trying to get to the jerky. What the fuck do I do?